INTERVIEW: Scott Bakula

 An abridged version of this interview, as well as an exclusive behind the scenes clip from the making of Enterprise appeared on The Huffington Post. 

Scott Bakula is one of the few actors who has been a part of my geek fandoms for as long as I can remember. As a kid, Quantum Leap was one of my first science fiction obsessions outside of Star Wars. As a life-long Star Trek fan, his casting as Captain Jonathan Archer on Enterprise made me extremely happy. For the first two seasons of the show (when I was able to find it on television) I watched religiously, then it vanished mysteriously from  my area. With the release of the Blu-ray this week, I’ve been able to revisit the show and it’s actually better than I remember it, and I remembered loving it.

For the occasion of the Blu-ray release, I was able to speak to Scott Bakula about his time as Captain in what has been one of the most enjoyable and pleasant conversations in my time as an interviewer.

Bryan Young: With the re-release of Enterprise, it’s been over 10 years since it started and almost 10 since it ended and I’m wondering how differently you look at it now than when you started?

Scott Bakula: It was a good experience for me when we shot it. We were all disappointed that we were off the air after four years, but at the same time, given all the political machinations that went on during our four years, we were lucky to get the four years we did on network television, which was a first. Here we are, we went off the air, here we are 8 years later and I just keep bumping into more and more people at the few conventions that I go to and so many people have discovered the show in the last several years since we were off the air. They’re so excited to see me because there’s not a lot of press going on about Enterprise, so they have lots of questions. We were kind of out of it, so this re-issue is gonna be fantastic. It’ll bring us back into the limelight and give more people a chance to discover us. With the Blu-ray, you’ll really see the great creative work that was done on the show.

Bryan: As a fan watching at the time, it was very frustrating because the show was changing stations and networks in the middle of the run and it was hard to find to find in some areas even.

Scott: It was muddy waters for a lot of it. It was the best laid plans in the beginning and then so many things happened beyond any of our control. Often times, you just had to put your head down and do your work and then you let the business stuff take care of itself.

Bryan: How does the experience of stepping into Star Trek differ for you than stuff like say, I can’t imagine you doing a lot of convention appearances for Men of a Certain Age.

Scott: <laughs> No. The good news is that I had a lot of experience with this with Quantum Leap before Star Trek. Although the convention thing wasn’t as insanely prevalent as it is since I got involved with Star Trek. But I knew the fan, I understood the the sci-fi fan. I had a pretty healthy understanding of that before Star Trek, so, it’s been a great relationship. I appreciate the fans, I appreciate the support, I appreciate the longevity of the support, and the intelligence of the support is something I’ve enjoyed. Stepping into it was daunting but it’s a unique environment to step into. Men of a Certain Age had its own uniqueness, certainly, but everybody gets that when the TV shuts off that that show is over for the week. With any kind of sci-fi, the imagination continues and the world exists and you create that in your own mind and it lives in you. The first time I saw 2001 on this huge screen in the 60s, I’ll just never forget and that’s a big difference, I think.

Bryan: Were you a fan of the Star Trek franchise before you stepped in?

Scott: I was. The original show, with my age and the timing of things, I fell in love with the original show with Kirk and Spock and Bones and those folks when I was in college and it was in reruns. It was every night at 11 o’clock. Everyone would pile into one room and watch that show and I completely was sucked into it.

Bryan: I imagine you were pleased then by the nod to Archer in the new Abrams Star Trek?

Scott: That was a huge surprise. I had no idea it was coming. So much so that I had to turn to my kids and say, “Did I just hear… what? They were talking about what? My dog? Did I hear that?” And they shushed me. They said, “Shut up, Dad, the movie’s on.”

I had to come out of the movie and make a few phone calls and ask other people and they said, “Oh, yeah, you made it. You made it in the movie, the dog and you.” So, I thought Abrams did a beautiful job of that and it was fantastic. Those actors are great.

Bryan: With Enterprise, with your experience being the Captain, did you go through and compare your experience to, say Kirk, or did you try to stay away from all that stuff? It sounds like you were already aware of it and sucked into it, but did you try to stay out of it since you were the “first” captain?

Scott: Because we were 100 years before, I tried to stay as little involved with that as possible. It was so I could create my own, good or bad. I felt that there was a certain freedom that was given us and given me, by being 100 years earlier, and so I chose to just wall off all that other stuff. I’d certainly seen them, but I didn’t dive into every episode and watch again. I thought, let’s not do that, let’s just treat this as fresh and brand new as we possibly can.

Bryan: As you left Enterprise, and I think long before it’s time, what was the experience of that show teach as you move on to new projects?

Scott: Unfortunately, it’s me being the older guy on the show and working with all the younger actors, it reaffirmed the notion of how you can never count on anything in our business. We started that show and everyone was like, “Oh, man, you guys are gonna go 7 years, that’s how it goes, that’s the way it’s gonna be.” And I just remember thinking to myself and telling some people, “Don’t count on it. It’s a different world.” We were on network television, which no franchise had been on, it had all been syndicated which is a completely different animal. And we were on a new network that was just discovering itself and it doesn’t even exist anymore. There were so many variables and it reaffirmed to me that in our business you have to enjoy the work when you’re getting the work, which isn’t a given, and be smart about what your expectations are, and to stay in the moment. Do as good as work as you possibly can every day, and the other stuff takes care of itself.

Bryan: If Enterprise had continued or if it had gotten a movie, where would you have liked to see Archer go?

Scott: Well, the plan had always been, before we had to slap in this truncated ending of my exploits and the ship’s exploits, would finally lead us to the creation of the Federation. From day one, that was Archer’s path. He didn’t know that’s where he was going to end up, but I knew that because we talked about it. That was going to be Archer’s mission in life, to be instrumental in putting the Federation together. And that would have been with the folks we gathered over the years, they would have also been instrumental, but they never got there. And so here we are.

Bryan: As you look back to Enterprise, is there a particular story or moment or something that you did with Captain Archer that you did that sticks with you today as something you’re particularly proud of?

Scott: Oh, boy. Um… There’s one epsiode where I, where we got into the whole Xindi arc, and it was in the third or fourth year, and I basically took one of our prisoners and almost killed him to get information from him. It was a cruel crossing of the line of what’s techincal and what’s correct and who we expect Archer to be and what we expect with certain behaviour to be from a Captain and it went way past that. I know the fans were very worried about that, but also very excited about that, because it just showed the seriousness of where we were and what we were trying to achieve and also the stress and pressure of it. I remember that as being a moment that shocked a lot of people.

 Scott Bakula can next be seen in Stephen Soderbergh’s Liberace film “Behind the Candelabra” on HBO. Enterprise hits Blu-ray this week.