Star Trek: Voyager actors used a trick to remember their lines, according to Ensign Harry Kim actor Garrett Wang. Being on a Star Trek show poses a unique challenge to even the most seasoned of actors, thanks to the convoluted technical jargon often used to describe the sci-fi problems beleaguering the crews of starships and space stations alike. Casually known within Star Trek as “technobabble,” these complicated pieces of dialogue must be delivered exactly as written in order to make sense to sharp-eared viewers, who will definitely be able to distinguish between chronitons and tetryons, on top of knowing which one of these particles is associated with time travel in Star Trek. (It’s chronitons.)
Star Trek: Voyager was perhaps the most technobabble-heavy of the 90s cadre of Star Trek shows, and least likely to offer analogies explaining exactly what the arcane phrases actually meant. To that end, the cast of Star Trek: Voyager had a tougher time than most when it came to remembering the exact wording of Star Trek jargon, so it’s not surprising that at least one Voyager cast member would come up with a trick to help them get it right. Even less surprising is the fact that some of the rest of the Voyager cast employed the same trick to deliver their technobabble with letter-perfect line readings.
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Star Trek: Voyager Actors Used A Trick To Remember Their Lines
It’s not a cheat if it works, right?
On The Delta Flyers podcast, which Garrett Wang co-hosts with fellow Star Trek: Voyager actor Robert Duncan McNeill and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Armin Shimerman, Wang confesses to using a particular trick to remember some of the more unwieldy phrases uttered by Operations officer Ensign Harry Kim. Read the actors’ quotes below, and listen to The Delta Flyers, starting at the 31:58 timestamp.
Garrett Wang: “I got criticism from Tim Russ when he saw what I did, and then two weeks later, he did the exact same thing I did. I took black electrician’s tape, pasted it on my console, and silver Sharpied my lines on the black tape. When I came in two weeks later, Tim Russ had typed [his lines] up at home, and brought the little cut-up papers to put on different spots on his console, because he stole it from me.”
Robert Duncan McNeill: “And then Robert Beltran stole it from all of you, because he would take his [script], and rip just his lines, and tape them onto the center console. We were such cheats.”
Armin Shimerman: “You guys are smarter than I was. I just rehearsed everybody each week.”
Quark Actor Armin Shimerman Held Rehearsals For Star Trek: DS9’s Cast
Both rehearsals and hidden scripts were effective ways for Star Trek actors to remember their lines.
In contrast to Star Trek: Voyager‘s actors strategically hiding their lines on the USS Voyager set, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Armin Shimerman employed a more traditional method to help himself and his co-stars remember their lines. With a background in Shakespeare and theatre, Shimerman was used to regular, live rehearsals of theatrical plays, so the Quark actor frequently opened his home to members of the Deep Space Nine cast for rehearsals to get the material down before filming scenes for television. Shimerman’s private rehearsals also provided opportunities for the cast to collectively decide how to pronounce unfamiliar alien proper names, to ensure consistency within DS9 episodes.
Both the DS9 and Voyager cast members used techniques that helped them remember their lines for their respective Star Trek shows. Armin Shimerman’s method of rehearsing off-set helped DS9 actors dig deeper into their characters in addition to memorizing potentially difficult scripts, but that doesn’t mean that Garrett Wang’s innovative idea is inferior, either. Wang’s trick to inscribe his lines onto Ensign Kim’s USS Voyager bridge console with silver Sharpie over black tape was clearly effective, since Lt. Commander Tuvok actor Tim Russ and Commander Chakotay actor Robert Beltran also employed similar methods, albeit with their own twists. The Star Trek: Voyager cast can hardly be faulted for needing to “cheat” to deliver their lines effectively.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are streaming on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Voyager
- Cast
-
Kate Mulgrew
, Robert Beltran
, Roxann Dawson
, Jennifer Lien
, Robert Duncan McNeill
, Ethan Phillips
, Robert Picardo
, Tim Russ
, Garrett Wang
, Jeri Ryan - Writers
-
Michael Piller
, Jeri Taylor
, Brannon Braga
, Kenneth Biller - Showrunner
-
Michael Piller
, Jeri Taylor
, Brannon Braga
, Kenneth Biller
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Cast
-
Avery Brooks
, Rene Auberjonois
, Cirroc Lofton
, Colm Meaney
, Armin Shimerman
, Alexander Siddig
, Nana Visitor
, Michael Dorn
, Nicole de Boer
, Terry Farrell
, Andrew Robinson - Writers
-
Michael Piller
, Ira Steven Behr
, Ronald D. Moore - Showrunner
-
Michael Piller
, Ira Steven Behr
