An Evening With Robert Beltran

An Evening With Robert Beltran

At Page’s Bar, London

26/5/02

An interesting occurrence happened even before we got into Page’s Bar, the London based Star Trek theme pub. Whilst queuing up for the Beltran event, an American woman came out of a Taxi and joined the queue. She asked if this "was the queue to get into the Star Trek pub." To which I replied "Yes." "Do you normally have to queue to get in," she asked. I replied "Only on special event days – like this one." "Oh," came the reply – "what even is that then?" Lets just say when I told her she’d just accidentally stumbled into the queue to meet Robert Beltran – the New Yorker was delighted beyond belief! She had to be the luckiest Star Trek fan ever – to just happen to turn up to a Star Trek pub that had one of the principal actors from Star Trek Voyager!

After the queuing up, we were let in – like a pack of dogs, we scrambled for a strategic seat (160 people in a small pub means some have to stand up for hours – and I sure as hell wasn’t willing to do that!).

We queued (again!), for our photographs to be taken by the professional developer (Beltran would sign them later), and being the only bloke in this photograph queue, felt rather weird – suddenly realising Robert Beltran must be rather crush worthy to have a pub with 95% women. When I went up to him, I promised not to kiss him (for which he said thanks), and shook his hand.

He then disappeared for 1.5 hours, which wasn’t really the best thing he could have done, in order for him to grab a bite to eat. For those of us left behind, we watched some hysterically funny clip shows – for example a clip show, full of Captain Janeway scenes – to the tune of "Wonder Woman", and to the Voyager cast clips to the theme of "The Brady Bunch".

We were thankfully not subjected to the Voyager episode called "The Fight", which is regarded as one of the worst Voyager episodes ever – but were instead subjected to "Nemesis", which was at least tolerable.

Then Beltran finally turned up to a thunderous round of applause. (The event organisers told us before hand that Beltran only wanted flash photos to be taken before hand, and that no smoking was allowed – as Beltran was still a bit sick after the German convention he was at the week before).

He started of by saying "What Voyager means to me……." – "Money……. Cute fluffy dogs called Porthos………Seven of Nine’s tits………?" "But basically the money!" "But with Voyager I expected too much – like a decent script once in a while………"

"You know, I was asked last week, ‘What does being part of the Star Trek family mean to me?. I was taken aback and retorted ‘What – like Kirk’s my Dad, and Janeways’ my mom?"

Q What was snogging Seven of Nine like then?

A (After explaining that the British term ‘snogging’ means ‘to kiss’) Jeri Ryan has some very soft lips. But with loads of lights, and three technicians leering away – it took all the pleasure out of it. Still, Jeri Ryan made it quite tolerable."

Q What did Brannon Bragna have to say about it? (Brannon Bragna is the Executive Producer of Voyager, and Jeri Ryan’s real life boyfriend).

A Who give a hell?

(This was met by thunderous applause).

Q What’s in the future?

A Acting! I hope being in the ‘Star Trek family’ hasn’t ruined it for me. I’ve been in a small movie called ‘Blue Sky’ – playing a Marquis Indian…… But the studio executives (new ones have come in since 7 years ago, when I was last looking for an acting gig) don’t know who I am, and don’t even know what Star Trek Voyager is.

I think the IQ levels have dropped some 20% since 7 years ago – lead by our President of course! Everybody’s stupid over there. It’s like ‘Yeah, we’re cool – we bombed the shit out of Afghanistan". Yes we did that – and even managed to bomb huge mountains and kill a few Canadians along the way! Hell, I could have gone over there and kicked the shit out of Afghanistan.

Q Why don’t you do more conventions with other Voyager stars – like Garret Wang?

A Because Garret Wang is a wanker. I got sick fed up with his, and Tim Russ’s fart jokes on stage every year. They needed to grow up.

Q Are you doing a charity event this year?

A I normally do the "Galaxy Ball." But I’m very pissed off at the event organisers. The guy in charge came up to me last month to ask how much we’d raised – I said about $125,000 – and he was like ‘Cool – that’s loads of money’ – and that idiot was supposed to be in charge? IT was basically me phoning up my friends, asking them to donate and appear. And that guy was just so ungrateful…. He really pissed me off.

Q From the pilot episode – who’d you rather have worked with – Guinivere Bujold or Kate Mulgrew as Captain?

A Well, apart from Captain Chakotay? 2 years ago, I’d really have jumped at that question – now… I’m so full of love…. I’d say I love Janeway and Seven and the Doctor, and Paris…. I love them all.

Q What about a Voyager movie?

A Scott Bakula was brought in as the Captain so he could do the movie franchise.

Q Are you typecast as an Indian?

A No. You don’t get typecast for ethnic race – but as a role type. That’s what’s meant by typecast.

My Question!:

Q Voyager’s last ever episode – "Endgame" – or "Endshame" as the fans like to call it – biggest pile of crap ever written? And what the heck was Brannon Bragna sniffing when he wrote it?

A You’re my kind of guy. The writing on Voyager was shit. After the likes of the professionals such as Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller and Ken Biller left the show – we got twenty year old writers who’s biggest life experience was having a wet dream. Their meetings were like ‘Hey – wouldn’t it be so kewl if Chakotay and Seven kissed – we don’t need to explain how it happened – just put it in.’

Q How about a guest role on Enterprise?

A Yeah right.

At this point, a woman who was visibly upset about Beltrans' comments, and general tone was singled out by Beltran. Beltran asked her what was wrong, and asked her how much she had paid to be here – and offered her a refund on her admission. "I don’t want to ruin your evening," he said.(He did it, in my opinion in a joking manner).

"I can imagine Star Trek fans in their parents basement yelling "You fucker – how can you say that about Star Trek." – "Well, I can say that about Star Trek because I know far more than they do about how it actually works – and I know what the hell I’m talking about." "They act as if they own the show, and that they have a say in how it should be run. The producers don’t give a fuck." "I’m not scared to tell you these things – the powers that be didn’t ever tell me off – or fire me. I had a problem with the quality of writing on the show."

Q If you hated Voyager so much – why didn’t you leave?

A The contract lasted seven years – I signed it, and I had to live with it.

Q Why didn’t you ask for more money – to get fired?

A I did ask for a lot more money – but I got it!

Q Do you have a tattoo?

A Yes. I get temporary ones all the time. (Only kidding – I don’t have any).

Q Did you like the Chakotay/Seven relationship?

A It was OK. It game me something to do – but there wasn’t any development.

Q Who’d you rather get together with? Janeway or Seven?

A Tome Paris…. His eyes……

Q Who’s your favourite Muppet?

A Neelix.

Q Have you read the fan fiction on the internet about your possible relationships?

A I don’t even want to read proper Voyager scripts let alone fan written stuff.

Q Did you take any souvenirs when you left?

A No. I really wanted the Chakotay Medicine Bag – but I was confronted by questions such as ‘What’s that?’ They didn’t use that prop for years, so they lost it.

Q Of all the places in the world – where’d you like to go?

A Afghanistan. But not to bomb them.

Q Are you writing any scripts right now?

A Two. One is a low budget film which I want to direct... and star in.... and write the music too.... and do it with Seven.

Q What were your experiences with the last season of Voyager?

A Rick Berman loitered around the set telling us how great Enterprise was going to be. Hell, at the time they were pulling down our sets to build the sets for Enterprise. Berman was really up himself building up his fascination with Enterprise - ignoring Voyager completely.

As you can tell from the above Question and Answer session - Robert Beltran was VERY sarcastic. However, his sarcasm was well observed, and genuinely funny. His comments filled the pub with riotous laughter at times.

Next was an auction of an original prop - an NX-01 baseball cap from the pilot episode of "Enterprise", the newest Star Trek series. However, the bidding only reached £75 - but the reserve was £150 - the event organiser simply couldn't sell it. He was met by the cries of "It isn't real Star Trek.", and "The show's shite". There was even more laughter at this!

Next was a huge queue for personal autographs - the drawback being that to get a personal autograph - you had to buy one of 4 photographs that Beltran had brought with him. Sadly, most of the pictures were awful (Beltran in army combat gear from 'Nemesis'), and the only decent one being the one shown below:

And yeah, I totally agree - Brannon Bragna is indeed a 'wanker' (see above autograph) - he's the idiot who killed off Captain Kirk, and ran Voyager into the ground.