Interviews with Walter Koenig

Star Trek: The Original Series

After the Original Series....

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE

In the end, Paramount decided to green light the first in a series of the big-budget features, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was born. Even then, the process was hardly straightforward. "We kept getting postponed, so I began to defend myself against the excitement I was feeling at the approach of this film by assuming a very jaundiced mantle. We had three or four false starts, which of course made it all the more delicious when we finally started making the film. I actually wrote a book, Chekov's Enterprise about the whole experience. (Navarro, 1997)

STAR TREK II

Like most of the supporting cast of the series, Walter Koenig complains that producers have not given him the oportunity to fully expand his character, Pavel Chekov. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the actor "began to feel more like an actor and less like a hired hand. I got to do things I didn't do in the first filmlike walk and talk." But, at the same time, Koenig felt that the atmosphere of the second film was "more like a job," and the sense of camaraderie was slightly diminished from the first film. "The enthusiasm for the project stemmed more from the fact that we had a viable script property than anything else." Koenig only has one real complaint about the film and that involved the space suit he wears when he first finds Khan. "There was no ventilation in it once I put the helmet on." One scene required Chekov to be hoisted in the air by Khan, an effect achieved by an uncomfortable harness under the suit. The scene called for Chekov to be stoic, but he feels that didn't come cross in the final version. "Unfortunately they couldn't use my best take. In the one shot where I did respond, the rope wasn't being pulled tightly enough and I started swinging back and forth." As for future projects, Koenig is "willing to play Chekov ad infiniturn, provided that other career opportunities would be available" as well. (Swires, 1982)

Although Koenig was willing to bet there wouldn't be a second feature, he admits being pleased to lose that wager, particularly when he saw the script for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. "I was delighted, but I also had something of a perplexing situation to deal with," the actor chuckles, recalling the film's now-famous continuity gaffe. "Producer Harve Bennett asked me to do what he called a 'Trekkie run' on the script. I had made a suggestion based on a first draft, or an outline I had read, in which Spock died in the second act. I told him that it was absolutely inconceivable that a character as important as Spock could expire halfway through the movie, this had to be the climax of the film.

"I was amazed that no one else had mentioned it to Harve, but I think that he was sufficiently impressed that he asked me to do this 'Trekkie run', and when I read the actual script, there was this scene with Khan saying, 'Ah yes, Mr. Chekov, I remember you!', and in fact, I was not in Space Seed! I gave Harve six pages of notes, but omitted that particular note, which was probably the most obvious. I thought if I told him, they wouldn't change the story, but they might decide not to use Chekov, and survival being the better part of integrity, I chose not to mention it." (Navarro, 1997)

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK

Like most of the supporting cast, Walter Koenig was not expecting much of his role in Star Trek III and was pretty resolved to be miserable" during production. But, according to Koenig, director Leonard Nimoy approached him and said, "'Walter, I'm going to give Chekov a line in Russian'- which wasn't in the script. To me, it was a gesture of goodwill that told me he was aware that I wasn't happy. It didn't make any difference in the length of my part, but I was touched by that and all my dissatisfaction melted away and I couldn't maintain my mad." (Bonds, 1985)

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME

People ask: me if anything funny happened on Star Trek IV. It was a very happy set. We had a lovely group of people. Everybody worked well together. Our leader as an actor, of course, is Bill Shatner and he was very outgoing and very warm and that, of course, immediately sets the environment, so to speak, and makes it very pleasant for everybody else.

There was one experience that I didn't do, that I wanted so desperately to do. If I knew that I only had six months to live, I would have done it. We are all on the Bird of prey, just after our slingshot back to the 20th century. As we're about to land, Admiral Kirk stands before the group - we've all swiveled in our chairs to face him and away from the camera and he says , as only Bill can, "We are about to enter an environment and society that we are unfamiliar with. They may consider us hostile. We certainly must be prepared to assume the same response. Chekov, I want you to issue everybody phasers and communicators. Anybody who is wearing rank on their uniforms should remove it. Any questions? OK. Prepare to disembark." What I wanted to do, is when Bill says, "Chekov, issue phasers and communicators. Any questions?" is ask [in Chekov's voice]: "Admiral, will there be enough time to visit Disneyland? " [Audience laughter.] I wonder how he would have responded if I had done that.

I don't care how many people have spoken before me or how many speak after me, the one thing that I have to communicate, something very special, is what I feel in my heart about Star Trek IV. I'm not going to get sloppy about this, but I think we really have a wonderful film. The studio's response was really extraordinary. They believe they have a crossover picture, a film that will go beyond the genre market and embrace the general populace. Now you shouldn't feel threatened by that because you are Star Trek and SF aficionados. This does not mean that in anyway we distort or pervert our story's science fiction, Star Trek thrust. That is there as evidently as it has been in any other Star Trek. But it does mean that the scope has opened so widely that people who have a fascination and an interest in just being entertained and in good storytelling, and even if they have some prejudices about science fiction, will find this movie to be, I think, a wonderful experience.

QUESTION: What would Chekov's favorite attraction be at Disneyland? Would it be the Golden Horseshoe because of the can-can girls?

KOENIG: I must say I have never been asked that question. Space Mountain? It's a Small World? I like the idea of Small World being Chekov's favorite.

QUESTION: How come Sulu used to outrank you, but now you're both apparently

of equal rank?

KOENIG: He didn't have a bug crawling in his ear -- I did! Don't I deserve something for that? But if you're looking for total logic, and a rational progression of events, from one movie to the other, without any errors or inconsistencies, you're looking at the wrong group of sequels.

The little glitches will be there as I am sure you will see in Star Trek IV. Somebody had asked me before how is it that Chekov has a new uniform and nobody else does? Well, the reason for that is I called up Mr. Bennett and I said, "Harve, do I gotta wear pink again?" And he said, "Well, I have problems with that, too." Then, he called me back an hour later and said, "We changed the outfit. You're going to have a leather jacket and leather pants." And I said, "That sounds neat." It was suggested by somebody else that when I was walking down the street in San Francisco in my leather outfit, there could be another guy standing there wearing leather who goes [kiss sound] and Chekov would reply with a friendly "Hello!" (Starlog, 1986)

The other high point in the Star Trek film series for Koenig was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which gave the supporting characters a long-deserved chance in the spotlight. "I read the script and thought it was a winner. This one had neon signs flashing, and I loved the fact that Chekov had some neat stuff to do. I was a little apprehensive about Leonard Nimoy directing. He was, after all, a peer, one of us, who was suddenly going to be the director, and I think everybody felt a little uncomfortable about that because we didn't know what to expect. As it turned out, it was a fine experience."

Those feelings didn't necessarily extend to the subsequent features, in which the supporting characters were, for the most part, relegated to the background once again. "Ultimately, what I decided is that there is a huge irony about Star Trek. It was always a show about the future, and yet the supporting characters were hopelessly immersed in the past. We never grew - we were the same characters we were on the television series, and we never had a chance to develop, to go into the future with the stories and the U.S.S Enterprise. We were forever stuck back in the Sixties, in terms of the lack of dimension of the characters, and the studio perspective on who we were as actors and characters." (Navarro, 1997)

STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER

Walter Koenig is more excited about his upcoming film, Moontrap, than he is about Star Trek V.- The Final Frontier. He knew, even before seeing a script, that there would be little for his character, Pavel Chekov, to do in the film and that director William Shatner would have a story which would focus on the three main characters. At first, Koenig was "quite apprehensive about which face [Shatner] would bring to this film," but Shatner "was very enthusiastic even about the smallest scenes and it was nice to see that he was supportive." Even though Koenig only had eight days of shooting on the film, he points to the scene of Chekov and Sulu lost in the woods as a chance to see Chekov's comedic side but insists, "there's nothing I did in this film that will add anything new to the character of Chekov." As an actor, Koenig can handle "anything that's written for the character," but feels that Chekov is "most successful when he has been put in comedic situations. . .. Chekov seems to get his best moments in the even-numbered Star Trek movies so maybe they'll come up with something for me to do in Star Trek VI." (Shapiro, 1989)

"I think that the fact that the funniest line in the script, or at least the one that got the strongest audience reaction, was Kirk's line about, 'I have a question: Why does God need a spaceship?' was probably indicative of the story's problems. This was supposed to be the moment of supreme tension, when we're about to resolve this [situation] and human lives are in jeopardy -- at this juncture we suddenly have this big guffaw. Not one that comes out of nervous laughter, just a big belly laugh. That indicated to me that we weren't on the right track. that the story wasn't structured properly." (Stephens, 1991)

STAR TREK VI" THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

There's many a slip 'twixt the script, and the lip, Walter Koenig reports, especially during the shooting of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County,

"We did a dinner scene where six Federation officers and six Klingons sit down for dinner. Because almost everybody had dialogue in the scene, they had to shoot it an inordinate number of times,"' he says. "And, during the course of those 35 or 40 times, everyone got a little punchy.

"Leonard [Nimoyl, Bill [Shatner] and DeForest [Kelley] had the term 'Starfleet' in their dialogue, and at least once during the 35 takes, they all said 'Star Trek' instead, which of course is absurd. 'Star Trek' never crosses the lips of a crew member, because that's the name of the whole thing!" "It got hysterical," Koenig recalls. "Each of them would laugh at the other when he made a mistake, and they would make a mistake in turn. I was very fortunate -- I didn't have to say the word 'Starfleet.' " (Stephens, 1991)

NICHOLAS MEYERS

Star Trek VI gave Koenig the chance to work once again with director Nicholas Meyer, who also helmed the highly successful Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. "Nick is great," says Koenig. "He's an extraordinarily bright man, very educated, and has an immense amount of knowledge about any number of diverse subjects. He listens, he's sensitive to the actors, and he's in control of the work. As a consequence, Star Trek VI's set was a very pleasant environment. I enjoyed working with him on II, and I also enjoyed working with him on VI."

Discussing the making of Star Trek VI during Trek's 25th anniversary leads Koenig to reflect on how Chekov has changed since the TV series. "He's not quite the innocent - the bravado probably isn't there. Maybe in place of that is this attitude that he's not 'institutionalized' or 'programmed,' and that he's still 'his own man' in that regard." Within each script's parameters, the actor portrays Chekov as not being "too reverential in his approach to anything." (Stephens, 1991)

"There's beginning to be, and has been for the last couple of films, a feeling about us -- certainly in the media -- that we're a joke. Not in terms of performance, but in terms of the way we look: that we're older." says Koenig, "You know: 'We're going to have to ramps on the next show for the wheelchairs.' I'm having a difficult time seeing the humor in that. I think there's certain vicious quality to this [criticism] that I find distressing. I can laugh at myself, but I would rather this be the last film if it means more of the same.

"I've read the reviews for the last picture. and there's a nastiness that's starting to creep into it. Like, enough already. Give us a break! Bring in the strong, young, virile, attractive people and get these prunes out of here."

As for why Paramount chose to produce The Undiscovered Country, Koenig quips, "They didn't feel the old horse really had been flogged to death.

"My feeling after Star Trek I was that there wouldn't be a Star Trek II. My feeling after Star Trek V was that there wouldn't be a Star Trek VI. So, I'm very pleased that the studio had enough faith in the project to do at least one more."

The actor has equally complimentary observations regarding Plummer, well-known to moviegoers for his starring roles in The Sound of Music and Murder by Decree. Plummer, who portrays a Klingon leader, 'is a wonderful actor and a real gentleman," says Koenig. "He's a very kindly individual."

Koenig recalls an incident involving Plummer that took place during one particularly intricate day of shooting. Plummer's character "had to quote Shakespeare. First, he said the words in Klingon, then translated it into English: 'To be or not to be, that is the question." And then he goes on to talk about his particular vexing problem. Somewhere around the 33rd or 34th take, totally inadvertently, totally unconsciously, instead of 'To be or not to be' he said, 'Once more into the breech' and realized he had quoted from the wrong Shakespeare play!" Koenig laughs.

"The other thing that was funny was that we were eating all this exotic food. In reality one of the dishes was squid. It had blue and had been sitting around for two days. Nobody was particularly looking forward to actually taking a bite of it." The director adopted unorthodox economic tactics for cajoling the actors to partake of the delicacy: "Nick said he would pay anybody $20 a bite."

Only the Enterprise's intrepid captain, William Shatner, actually took the bait, swallowing four bites of the less-than-tempting morsels. "Nicky actually gave him $80!" Koenig chuckles.

Koenig takes a less sanguine turn on the topic of Chekov's participation in the upcoming film, due for December release. "I'm going to sound like a malcontent, I know I will, and I don't really feel that way, and I'm pleased to be involved in this film, but it is certainly not the opportunity I would have hoped for, given the circumstances," he says, referring to the possibility that this may be the last classic Trek movie. "The supporting players are once again there essentially to promote the story, as opposed to contributing anything individually."

"You don't know any more about my character or Uhura's [Nichelle Nichols] or Jimmy's [Doohan], and probably not even George's [Takei], although he has a better role than ever before. There's no personal involvement in the things they say. It doesn't have the feeling of Trek IV, where the dialogue was indigenous to character. Certainly, for me, it didn't have the feeling of Trek II, where I had specific functions that were again independent of one's general bridge duties. So," he says, "in that regard, I'm a little disappointed."

Koenig is characteristically prudent in predicting The Undiscovered's critical reception. "In terms of the dailies, everyone seems very enamored of this project. We all know that dailies are 15 seconds at a time. Better to have good dailies than bad, but that doesn't necessarily indicate that the finished product is going to be the sum of its arts," he cautions. (Stephens, 1991)

NEXT GENERATION

SUE & ANNE: Do you miss not being on Star Trek? I read where you want to guest star on Next Generation.

WALTER: I had a tremendous desire to do that until I saw the last twenty minutes of Jimmy Doohon's show. I came up with one Star Trek story where "Chekov" actually gets to do something. In my story I would be really old! But it would be great fun, I would have a great time. (Schnieder and Moore, 1993)

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