| Alice Krige had been in other SF and Horror related projects before her appearance as the "Borg Queen" in Star Trek: First Contact. She starred in Ghost Story and Sleepwalkers, as well as the non-genre, Chariots Of Fire. Originally from South Africa, she lists being a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of her impressive resume. I was part of a radio roundtable of reporters that covered Star Trek: First Contact back in 1996 and talked to her about this film. To add some background as to how the "Borg Queen" came to be was Star Trek Executive Producer Rick Berman early that same morning during his roundtable session. Tony Tellado: Were the Borg the obvious choice for the second movie? Rick Berman: The question was that the Borg by definition are a collective with collective mind and behavior. There's no individual, no spokesperson or persona to deal with. On the television shows we had corrected that with different systems. We had a character named Hugh who was a Borg who broke away from the hive. We did the "Best of Both Worlds" where Picard got Borgified and had to get pulled away from it in a season ender-cliffhanger. In another episode, Data's alter ego, Lore, became a Borg and was manipulating and running the Borg. When we started writing this we had no individual Borg in it but realized quite quickly that we needed to because of this hive like mentality. So the perfect metaphor is a Queen. It was fun and we started casting. We talked to everybody from Cher to you can't imagine the people we talked to. Then Alice Krige came in and it was boom. She was it. I had remembered her from Chariots Of Fire and had fallen in love with her then. We were looking for a woman who could be both sensual and seductive as well as evil. She has that quality. Alice came in and read the part and that was it. Ms. Krige came afterwards and delighted us with her observations about being part of the Star Trek universe... Tony Tellado: Interesting part. Alice Krige: I had a blast. I had such a good time. Tony Tellado: Did you get any kind of schooling on how to play a Borg? Alice Krige: No. I watched the Borg episodes several times. I watched a lot of Star Trek. No one told me what to do or what to be. They just turned me loose. Tony Tellado: What was it like dealing with the make-up? AK: The make-up was in fact a gift. There's a line in the script that describes her when you first encounter her as being "hauntingly beautiful." I had no idea that I was going to wear prosthetics. The line in the script said, "that the Borg Queen wears no prosthetics, she is however bald." I thought, "Cool. I can be bald!" They called me in after I had done something in Toronto. I got word that I had a live mask done. I thought, "Why?" I went in there and they done the mask. I asked, "What's it for?" They said, "For your prosthetics. There's a sculpture up in the make up department office if you want to see." I was very nervous because I had worn old-age make-up before. I also did in a movie called Sleepwalkers. But it was different. By the time I did, I was already a creature and wasn't supposed to resemble a human being. The old-age make-up was inches of rubber. I felt like a gecko. I didn't feel like a person at all. It's very difficult to work through half an inch of foam rubber. So I was a bit apprehensive. So I went up to see what Scott Wheeler had created. I was fascinated. I hate to see what he dreams of at night to arrive at that! Ultimately it was a tool that I really found very very helpful. I wanted her to be at once attractive, repulsive and disturbing and yet for you not to want to stop looking at her. On the day that we put it all together, I was in a big make-up trailer surrounded by mirrors. We put on the head and the suit. The last things was the contact lenses. We all sat with baited breath because Rick Berman was coming to look at it. I look at it and said, "Wow, it's very frightening." I caught sight of everyone's faces in the mirror and I thought that we had done it. I felt this huge surge of power and an overwhelming gratitude for what I had been given to work with. It was a very grueling process. It took six hours to put on the head, then another hour to get into the suit. I would emerge from a cloud of baby powder. They would powder me from head to foot. Then they would powder the suit. Then I would have two people pulling it on me. I wiggled down into the suit. I was zipped and glued in. The first day it was a problem, because I had been happily drinking juice and water all day. By tea time I had to go to the bathroom. I went to the First Assistant Director and told him. He said, "Ok." It took 45 minutes to get me out and into the suit each time. The whole unit waited while I took a pee (laughter from us reporter types)! So I didn't drink anything from the moment I sat in the makeup chair until they let loose at night. It took two hours to get everything off at night. They had to be very considerate, as it is the most damaging to the skin, removing make-up. They did it painstakingly. We had a couple of days of practice. The first day was excruciating because it was hard rubber. By the end of the first day, my knuckles and the bones of my had disappeared because it had cut off my circulation. My feet swelled so it was hard to get the suit off. So it became apparent to everyone that I would pass out. They made a new suit on that weekend which was soft. They didn't make it soft to begin with because they were afraid that it would tear which it did. I was always surrounded by people with glue in one hand and a brush in the other. They were days that the suit was glued onto me. It was worth it. I am pretty low maintenance on a movie set. Twenty minutes in make-up and hair, put on my own costume and that's it. You don't have to look at me again. Well...it was like having my own little schoal of fish! One person who wrangled the battery packs. I had three battery packs down the back of me. Whenever the cameras weren't rolling someone had their arm down my back, because they were always doing something that they shouldn't be doing. Then there was someone handling the contact lenses. There was always a make-up person, gluing something. There was someone else who looked after my shoes and then someone with a huge tube of KY jelly and a sponge. That was the last thing before the camera rolled... ky jelly, so I would be sort of shiny and then put in the lenses. I was never alone. I was always being touched or glued or felt. That was the most tiring bit of it to be constantly surrounded. It was worth it. Q: Your enterance was something. When you were snaked into that costume there was an immediate sexuality. How comfortable do you feel being that sexual? AK: I kind of came to the conclusion that was she was pure intelligence. What gets her going is pursuit and exercise. Plus the enjoyment of power. So often power is bond up with sexuality. Look at the politicians. There's often a sexual spin to power. I thought it was interesting and disturbing. The costume was very helpful. In a weird way, I felt completely naked. I was under inches of rubber but felt naked. I felt liberated in a weird kind of way. That was completely unexpected. Usually when I am getting ready to play a part you look for a key. You never know what it is, a pair of shoes, makeup or a line. You never know where you'll find it. The suit and the whole head opened the possibilities. Tony Tellado: What was it like to work with Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart? AK: They were wonderful. Quite different. I was very moved by Brent and his commitment to explore the possibilities in the relationship. I am terrified to take on a role in a series. I think that is the hardest thing. To keep something growing and changing over a seven year period is so hard. To actually meet him and to watch him be part of his process trying to stretch the envelope was just wonderful to be around. Patrick has that quality that wonderful actors that I worked with. The first picture I had done was Chariots Of Fire. I never forget the day that I met Ian Holm (He played the Android "Ash" in the original Alien). We were walking across a playing field. He came out of his changing room and I came out of mine. I was walking next to him and felt being sucked into his concentration. Some actors have the capacity to concentrate that is white hot. You can't do anything but respond to them. Patrick brings that to the set with him. It's very exciting to be around. And Jonathan Frakes is a sweetheart. I have never met anyone who enjoys the process as much as Jonathan does. He lit up the set every day. There wasn't a person that he didn't know or have some kind of connection that he didn't say "hi" to. It was quite wonderful. I am great fan of his. He's very special guy. To give equal time, here are what Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner say about working with Alice Krige... Jonathan Frakes: When we do the movies. It happened with Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell and Alice Krige. We invite them into the family like F. Murray Abraham, Donna Murphy and Anthony Zerbe. Alice Krige was wonderful. I suspect that this film will be big for her. Brent Spiner: I really liked playing the scenes with Alice . She was spectacular. They were also the most challenging on the page. We really didn't know if those scenes would work. Or if we could find someone who was capable of playing the Borg Queen. It was such a difficult role. Alice came in and brought so much to it and had such a grasp of it. We seemed to have the right kind of chemistry to make it work. It became more and more exciting as we were working on them. They were actually the last scenes shot in the movie. It got more nerve-wracking as the movie went on. I kept saying that everything was going so well and we haven't done that yet. I think we warmed up to it. Q: Was Alice a good kisser? Brent: I'm not the type that kisses and tells. Reporter: She told. Brent: Did she? She's giving ratings herself is she? Hey, you know. Alice is gorgeous. It was thrilling. It was my first real on screen kiss. It was rockin'. It was terrific. Alice is so good as an actress. I felt we had a real respect for one another when we were working. It was a wonderful scene to play in every way. What we wanted to happen was actually after the kiss they cut away to another part of the story. We wanted them to come back and the two of us would be laying on that rack smoking a cigarette. Tony Tellado: I remember Ghost Story and why that movie worked for me was the way that you played that character. Alice Krige: Well I am very glad. I was in fact at the Royal Shakespeare Company when that picture came out, and so whether or not it had made any kind of impression, I was oblivious of what happened to it. But oddly enough it's the one role that people recognize me from. I'm walking down a supermarket passageway and someone comes around the corner and says..kind of goes white and says..."You were the ghost?" It's the only role I get recognized from after all these years. It's kind of amazing. Tony Tellado: You, like Patrick Stewart, were part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It seems from the actors who had worked for them that it is an incredible training ground for actors. AK: It is. It is quite wonderful. You get to do...I think I was in five plays by the end of the second year. You start off rehearsing one and that goes into production and then you're performing at night and then rehearsing another play during the day. One that is very kind of energizing. If it is a cohesive company and you haven't done a play in ten days. That's the cut off. If you haven't done it in ten days then you have to read it in the afternoon. You read it out loud together and it's a wonderful feeling. You do the play at night and there's an excitement, because you're not sure what will happen. It's very compelling. The scripts are the best. I worked with so many of England's finest actors. I was in the Tempest with Derek Jacobi. I can remember arriving the first day and Derek knew the entire role. Through the first week of rehearsal, I had just come out of acting school and I had this stupid idea that you shouldn't learn the words until you found the meaning. I came not knowing anything. Derek was like this race horse. He was raring to go. He had it all and was waiting for me to do it. Later we did Cyrano De Bergerac together. I arrived there and knew it all. Well, Derek knew not only the translation that we were doing but all the other translations and the French. Just actors of that kind of stature...you learn so much. Some of the work is not good, but the possibility to explore and fail is not there anymore. The market forces that are closing reporatory theaters in England won't allow that. When I started 16 years ago as a young actor that is what you did. You watched great actors working and that's gone because the money is not there anymore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alice Krige continues to make impressions on us with her roles on stage and screen. Thanks to her plus Carol Jones of Paramount Publicity New York, Paramount Publicity in Los Angeles, plus Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes and Rick Berman at their respective round table sessions. Please Note: This interview as well as the excerpts from the others were done a radio roundtable setting. Visit the SCI-FI TALK Web site Purchase this interview on cd from SCI-FI TALK |
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| Alice in makeup from Sleepwalkers 1991 |
| Alice in old-age makeup from Dream West 1986 |
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