Alexander Siddig as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dr. Julian Bashir. Photo copyright of Paramount Pictures.
In today's Sci-fi Blast From The Past, actor Alexander Siddig talks about his first few seasons playing Dr. Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
His name is Bashir, Julian Bashir. As a doctor of medicine Bashir's first responsibility is to administer aid to the sick and infirm, but, as an officer serving with the United Federation of Planets, he also has taken an oath to uphold all Starfleet regulations, very often risking life and limb in both causes. Occasionally, his medical and Starfleet loyalties collide, forcing Bashir to chose between the two. This is all in a day's work for the young doctor, played with a mixture of integrity, strength and a tempered dash of innocence by actor Alexander Siddig on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
"It's a terrifying thing because the show is relatively new in England," says Siddig. "The character started off as being kind of a genuine pain in the ass, which was really an intentional sort of experiment on behalf of the producers and myself. In doing this he was able to be this young, bumbling, quite brilliant physician who had somewhere to go and develop. He was just all heart, very impulsive, a little arrogant and easily hurt by the likes of Dax [Terry Farrell] and any other woman, really, who rejected him, which happened quite regularly because he's so bumbling," he laughs.
"Julian really flourished over the course of the first and second seasons," the actor explains. "He developed this type of worldly armour to protect himself and he became a little bit more staid and relaxed in more difficult situations, especially through interaction with the characters of Garak, played by Andrew Robinson and Chief O'Brien, played by Colm Meaney, who have added what they can of themselves to Bashir. In a sense he's really just a sponge. He's learning every day and developing all the time. I love that."
Born in Khartoum, Sudan in northeast Africa, Siddigadmits that he had no ambitions to be an actor while growing up. "I kind of just fell into it," he says. "I had an English teacher at school who was inspiring insofar as acting was concerned, but I found university so incredibly boring that I had to go somewhere else as soon as possible. So, I enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
"My family was very comfortable with my decision," says Siddig. "They're all from that business in one way or another, so, they were happy and weren't worried about it at all. They were, however, terrified that I'd pretty much sentenced myself to a life of extraordinary poverty but that was OK by the end of the day."
Siddig's first professional appearance at the Manchester Library Theatre was a baptism of fire for the young actor, who remembers the experience with great clarity. "I had one very long speech in this extraordinarily long play, which also happened to be very anti-Semitic. It was very odd because it all looked so incredibly positive until it went on. We opened, said the words and realized, 'God, this is so appalling!'
"It was especially bad coming from an Arab. The play was not very welcome, particularly since Manchester has the biggest Jewish community in England. We had people coming just to leave. They would arrive and then get up and walk out to demonstrate about the whole thing."
Luckily for the actor his work in front of the camera proved to be much more advantageous for his career. His performance as Jordanian King Faisal in the film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence after Arabia,which was broadcast in 1991 on America's Public Broadcasting System (PBS), caught the attention of Rick Berman, the then executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He immediately contacted Siddig and offered him the role of Doctor Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
"Most of the characters on Deep Space Nine already had something down on paper about them," explains Siddig. "In some ways they were already standard television characters. Of course, all the actors arrived and turned them completely on their heads, but mine didn't have much to it. Julian Bashir was just an open character or blank page with nothing preconceived about him and I kind of loved that."
The actor found himself in a temporary state of nirvana when he flew to Los Angeles and reported to Paramount Studios to begin work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's two-hour pilot episode Emissary. The character of Dax still had not been cast, and because his one and only scene in the episode involved her, Siddig had to wait patiently on the sidelines.
"That was one of the weirdest things about the pilot. Another odd thing was that I only have two lines in the whole thing. I didn't really need to be in the episode but appeared in kind of a token way. It was all very exciting and I was anxious to see what was going to happen.
"The series has definitely changed over the past four years," continues the actor. "It found its identity, really, last season and then this [fourth] season. I think the introduction of Ira Steven Behr, who came on as the new executive producer a year-and-a-half or so ago, is one of the most influential reasons for that.
"Most television shows are built upon a huge star, someone who's already been there and thoroughly expects to get a next job. Our show has never been built on a star. We're all just people who are extremely grateful that anybody noticed that we were around, which is always a big thing where acting is concerned. So, that's a great thing and it's created a really nice atmosphere on the set.
"I'm getting so many letters now that say, 'I wasn't really sure about DS9 in the beginning but, suddenly, it's taken off for me and I see what's so wonderful about the show.' When we started we really were flying around trying to find our own place. It was a fine show those first two years but it's just recently found its footing and that's great. I love the serendipity of the show. Not being on a spaceship, something which was always difficult at the start, has now turned into an advantage, I think, in that we have drastically different stories each week."
The same growth and development the actor has witnessed for the past four seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are also present in his character of Bashir and his increased involvement in the series. Several episodes have dropped him into a variety of difficult and dangerous dilemmas with only his wits and medical knowledge for survival tools.
"I'd only been on the set a couple of weeks before we started filming The Passenger. That episode was my nemesis and a total nightmare that I had to pull out of a hat. I literally got the script twenty-four hours before we started and then received a phone call from the producers twelve hours later saying, 'Sid, we'd like you to portray a different character for this possessed guy you're going to play. We think the best way to portray a different character is to drop your voice an octave. Can you do that?'
"I don't think they understood how incredibly difficult that would be. They must have read somewhere that Laurence Olivier had dropped his voice an octave for Macbeth," he laughs, "and thought all actors can do that. I couldn't, of course, and by the time we actually started shooting I ended up growling like some sort of desperate tramp. We ended up having to reloop [dub] the whole thing in postproduction.
"I quite liked The Storyteller. That was great fun. The thing I remember most about that episode is that one of the young actors who was in it was the first American method actor I'd ever met. It was kind of fascinating for me to watch him," explains Siddig, "because he would chant a lot and hit the wall and stuff before we did a scene."
In the second season episode Melora, Bashir becomes involved with a wheelchair-bound researcher visiting the station. Siddig likens the doctor's relationship with Melora to a brief Hollywood engagement. "That was tremendous fun. I think it is probably the first television show in which I actually have a love interest, which made for a kind of nervous time for me. I really enjoyed flying around on those wires with Daphne [Ashbrook, who played Melora]."
One fellow officer who took Bashir time to get to know is the station's Chief of Operations Miles O'Brien. In the beginning O'Brien regarded the doctor as a pesky insect who needed to be brushed away every now and then, while Bashir became frustrated by the chief's sometimes curt treatment of him. The turning point in their relationship comes in the episode Armageddon Game, the first of many Bashir and O'Brien adventures in which both characters must work together for survival.
"I love that story," he enthuses. "Just working with Colm is great fun. We have a wonderful rapport with each other. Whenever we get together on the set we have a laugh and, hopefully, that shows in the episodes we do. We just have a great time."
One of Siddig's most challenging moments on the program comes in the episode Distant Voicesin which Bashir's mind is invaded by an alien and he begins to age rapidly. "It was a total gift to have a go at something like that, especially with all that incredible prosthetic makeup that I could hide behind. It was one of the most exhausting and enjoyable things I've ever done."
First it was Sean Connery, then George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and...Alexander Siddig. The character of James Bond, or at least how Julian Bashir envisions him, is played out by the doctor on the holodeck in Siddig's favourite episode Our Man Bashir.
"I'm basically a kid at heart," he confesses, "and what kid wouldn't want to play Bond? When I used to go to the movies I would sit there and say, 'I wish I could be Bond,' and I guess getting to thirty years old and finally having the chance to do it, if only on film, is unbelievable. Only five other guys so far have had the chance to do that. It was a fantastic experience and I finally understand what fun it is for those actors to do it. I loved playing with all the little gadgets and gizmos and kissing every woman I met."
This episode also features Garak and Dax, two characters who have played an important part in helping to develop a foundation upon which Siddig could build his character. "Bashir's relationship with Garak has been through so many metamorphoses; I mean, people thought that they were gay. They thought Garak was definitely gay and it turned out that he was just a curious lizard or whatever he is," laughs the actor.
"Garak seems to arrive every time I need extraordinary help, either psychologically or philosophically. For me that's the most important thing about his character. He's a mentor and the one who develops Bashir in terms of psychology. Of course, his character is now very important in its own right because of his other affiliations on the station, so, he and Bashir don't need each other in the same way, but we still get together for our regular lunches and chew the fat or whatever they serve us to eat on the station," he chuckles.
"As for Dax, I think she's really a good mirror for Bashir. Everything that he's gone through in his life has had some effect on his relationship with her," muses Siddig. "Although it started out with the possibility of Dax and Bashir having this wild, passionate affair, or at least a wild, passionate chase of an affair, it ended up not working out because of the very nature of my character. Again, this was probably due to the way I played him. I think they thought, 'Wait a minute. We can't make Dax fall in love with him. That will ruin her credibility,' so, in the end, they just backed us off from each other and we became very close friends.
"Since this has happened Bashir has grown immensely as a person and Dax almost shows twinges of jealousy whenever Julian gets involved with other women. I've got a sneaky suspicion that at some point payoffs are going to come and we'll fall unexpectedly into each other's arms. It won't be for a while, though, because I think Bashir still has to go slay his dragon."
Another change for Bashir, a personal one for the actor who plays him, can be seen by in the Deep Space Nine fourth season opening credits where, for stage purposes only, the actor has changed his name from Siddig El Fadil to Alexander Siddig. "Before I was even born my mother had preferred that I have a half-European, half-Arabic name, something which is symbolic of me as a person, so, I was kind of keen on doing that.
"Another reason was that the name Siddig El Fadil is extraordinarily hard for people to remember or get used to saying. Most of the time people introduced me so tentatively that it made my heart break. They would go, 'And this is um,...um, Siddig? Siddig?' That was always a nightmare for me.
"The third reason is for business. Producers and casting directors, especially in England, oddly enough, are very preoccupied with what kind of name you have. If they see Siddig El Fadil they'll give me only Arabic parts. So, that's pretty much the all-around reason. It's not been an incredibly popular move because it's not been very nice to get rid of such a lovely name."
Upon completing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's fourth season filming, the actor is looking forward to returning home to London to spend two months with his family and friends. Beyond that, the affable Siddig is eagerly anticipating returning to work this summer for the show's fifth season as well as to unlocking new doors of opportunity in the years to come. "The great thing about acting is that you can do so many different things. I'd like to do all of them - stage, film, television, directing - and make the most of the job and the freedom of it. I'm sure they'll stop me doing some of it because I'll be just too embarrassing to everybody," he laughs, "but I'd love to have a crack at it all."
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of Paramount Pictures, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
Alexlander Siddig is what I call a science fiction actor. It would be really great to see him in a new sci fi series. He makes the perfect scientist type. Ok, maybe leading man but who cares about them. A scientist on a fusion driven ship into the future. Stoping at differece timezones in our future. Oh well, I am just having fun. But it would be great:)
Posted by: Jack | 03/31/2011 at 02:52 PM