Duncan Regehr as Shakaar in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Photo copyright of Paramount Pictures.
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, actor, artist, writer and poet Duncan Regehr talks about his guest-starring role of Ronin on Star Trek: The Next Generation and his recurring role of Shakaar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
While filming in Toronto, Canada during the Chinese New Year celebration in 1988 (Year of the Dragon), Duncan Regehr stopped at an artist’s supply shop in Chinatown and asked the owner where he could have a chop made. A chop is an engraved seal or ink crest used mainly in the Orient by artists, officials and merchants to mark their sketches, documents and wares, indicating their authenticity. Taking Regehr’s initials, the owner paired them with an ancient symbol of a Chinese dragon to produce what he called the “Dragon’s Eye.” Regehr was mystified as to how the owner came up with the name for his chop. Could it have been fate?
A few years later Regehr was able to relate the “Dragon’s Eye” to a story he read about an artist and his painting of a dragon that came to life. As a poet, writer and artist Regehr has the ability to look beyond the surface of his subject and into its very soul. By doing so he also searches for a sense of truth he hopes will help bring his painting or poem to life for his audience. As an actor he has used this same technique to create such colourful characters as the dashing Errol Flynn in My Wicked, Wicked Ways and the ghostly Scotsman Ronin in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Sub Rosa.
“When they approached me about appearing on The Next Generation I wasn’t particularly interested in doing any episodic television,” explains Regehr. “However, when I read the script I immediately realised that Ronin was right up my alley. He’s a larger-than-life character and someone who has mythical overtones to him. So it wasn’t just a job. I really went after the part because I loved the character,” he laughs. “I also wanted to work with both Patrick Stewart [Captain Jean-Luc Picard] and Gates McFadden [Doctor Beverly Crusher] as well as Jonathan Frakes [Commander William T. Riker], who directed the piece. Patrick is a very powerful actor and I so wanted the chance to match thespian skills with him,” jokes Regehr.
In Sub Rosa Doctor Beverly Crusher discovers that her recently deceased grandmother Felisa Howard was having an ongoing affair with a man named Ronin. Unknown to Crusher, the man is actually an anaphasic energy being who lives in the plasma flame of a candle that Felisa and her female ancestors have always kept lit. For centuries Ronin has sustained himself on the life forces of Howard women and, in return, has given them decades of love and companionship. “Before I went in to audition they told me that they wanted Ronin to be a Scottish lord,” recalls the actor. “When I went in to read for the part, however, they said, ‘We don’t want a Scottish accent for this guy.’ I said, ‘Well, fine.’ As it happens most of the upper class and royalty at the time Ronin came into existence were English, not Scottish, so they he wouldn’t have had that accent anyway.”
When Captain Picard discovers who Ronin is he tries with little success to convince Doctor Crusher of the man’s true intentions towards her. Regehr laughs when he recalls meeting his on-screen romantic rival Patrick Stewart for the first time. “Patrick walked onto the set just as I was about to do a scene with Gates. He came up very, very close to me, stood in front of me and stared straight into my eyes. I mean, right into my eyes. I realised right away what he was doing. He wanted to see whether or not I would look away or, perhaps, look down or something, which, of course, I was not about to do,” laughs Regehr. “So it became a silly staring contest. At the end of it he said, ‘Great, you’ll do,’ and walked off. We became good pals after that and he was just wonderful to work with. I suppose there was always a kind of underdeveloped romance between the captain and Doctor Crusher. Patrick probably felt that he wanted any of Picard’s rivals to be worthy in some way. So I hope I measured up to the task.”
The gothic flavour of this particular Next Generation episode gave actress Gates McFadden the chance to put down her medical tricorder and explore the more romantic side of her character. The love scenes between Doctor Crusher and Ronin, while being somewhat unusual, are also some of the more sensual moments ever experienced between two characters in the history of the program. “Gates is such a multilayered actress,” says Regehr. “Most of the time you come to work on a series and what you see is what you get. Because Gates is such a giving actress she offers you so many choices when you’re working with her. She’s so intelligent and well-read and just talking with her on the set in between takes was a pleasure. I believe she talked about her teaching, which she did at one time, and that again is very much a giving process.
“She is such a wonderful actress and it was terrific to work with her as well as the rest of the cast,” he adds. “It was a very appealing project to do. I’m only sorry that Ronin had to be dissipated at the end,” chuckles the actor. “At least he went out in a blaze of glory.”
Regehr’s classic good looks and deep, melodic voice, combined with his performance as this lusty Scottish incubus, helped to win him the part of Major Kira’s (Nana Visitor) Bajoran lover on Deep Space Nine. In the third season episode Shakaar Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher) meets her match in a farmer named Shakaar when she tries to confiscate some much needed soil reclamators from him and his people. Since Kira fought with Shakaar’s resistance cell during the Cardassian occupation, Winn asks the major to intercede on her behalf. What she does not count on, however, is the budding relationship between Kira and Shakaar.
“I stepped into the Shakaar role without really knowing where the character was going,” explains Regehr. “In this first episode Shakaar ends up immediately becoming first minister. So before we really get a handle on who Shakaar is he is suddenly put into a situation where he is completely unfamiliar with the rules. He was a rebel leader and used to the bush and having a weapon in his hand to fight with. Now he’s in a position where he has to be a diplomat all of the time, which is very much a different sort of negotiator altogether. Unfortunately, this side of him has not been developed. For whatever reason, the writers and producers have not sat down and fleshed out the character and I can’t play something that isn’t there.
“I like the way Shakaar is in the very first episode,” he says. “He is different in many respects from the Ronin character and I could really see where the character could go. He’s a much rougher, less refined sort of individual. One day he finds himself in the role of first minister and all of these edges seem to have literally vanished off the page. So I’m in a bit of a quandary as to know what to do with him.”
In Crossfire, Regehr’s second appearance on the program, Shakaar becomes the target of a Cardassian terrorist group when he visits Kira on Deep Space Nine. Was the actor surprised when he was asked to reprise his role as first minister? “Not really, because the idea behind my character is that he is supposed to appear in more episodes. This is all a new experience for me as I’ve never done recurring roles. I’ve always been a regular or had my own show. I think what happens quite often with these types of roles is that they end up being there to give lip service to the regulars on the show or to act as a foil for one of the other characters. This just doesn’t work with someone like Shakaar. He’s too strong a character to be put in that position. He needs a story of his own. Shakaar’s a hero, a rebel leader, so he’s got some magnetism to him. This is something that can be exploited but up to now it hasn’t been.”
The questions that Regehr has about his character also extend to the relationship that Shakaar has with Major Kira, about which the actor is slightly bemused. “There is this third episode [The Begotten] that I’ve just done, after which I’m even more in the dark about the character and who he really is. While I was working on this episode I kept asking myself, ‘What exactly is their relationship? Are they up to the kissing stage? What do they do? Who are these two people?
“I know they talk about Shakaar when he’s not there, like this entity who never seems to appear,” he explains. “So whenever I am in an episode it’s as if I’ve just walked in out of the blue. The regulars may know what’s going on but half the time it’s a mystery to me. So I’m waiting for a bit more of development to help define the relationship between him and Kira. One thing I can say is that Nana Visitor is a hell of a lot of fun to work with,” he laughs. “She’s really talented and has a quick wit, so we have a good time whenever our characters do get the chance to see each other.”
While the characters and settings on The Next Generation are quite different from those found on Deep Space Nine, Regehr found that there is a particular style both shows have in common. “There’s definitely a stamp on Star Trek, no matter which incarnation of the programme you’re looking at. There’s a way of acting or a certain behaviour of the humans of the future. There’s almost a stiffness to it, actually. You don’t know where to put your hands, for example, because you don’t have pockets,” jokes the actor. “It has its own clear style but one that’s very different, from say, French farce, for example.
“Doing Star Trek is almost like working on stage,” muses Regehr. “I used to feel this way whenever I watched Captain Kirk [William Shatner], Mr. Spock [Leonard Nimoy] and the rest of the gang from the original series. I’d sit there and watch them come onto the bridge, which to me was this place of great oration. It was the centre of command and everyone would sit there and expound on these great things. I always felt as if I were standing in outer space looking in on some great theatrical production.”
Regehr’s visits to the U.S.S. Enterprise and Deep Space Nine were not his first forays into the worlds of tomorrow. Back in the early eighties he played the dastardly Prince Dirk Blackpool on the CBS Television series Wizards and Warriors. Over on NBC his handsome features helped to hide a reptilian invasion of Earth in the science fiction series V.
“I have a great fondness for Wizards and Warriors because it was the first television series I did in the United States and it happened shortly after I arrived here. I really felt that the series, in some respects, was way ahead of its time. It had a very strong core group of viewers who watched it, but the show never gained an audience because CBS didn’t know where to put us. The powers that be didn’t quite understand what the series was about, so they didn’t know where to stick us. It had a different time slot every week, but it was a marvelous show. That combination of the future and the past and all the magic was quite wonderful. I loved the humour of the programand I especially loved working with Clive Revill who played Wizard Vector. The combination of our two characters was wonderful. I remember at one point we had bumper stickers made up that said, ‘Villains have more fun.’ I miss that show. I could have gone on forever working on it.
“The character of Charles which I played on V was sort of like a segue from the Blackpool character. They wanted him to be more camp in a way, which was fine, and to have softer edges to him. I did only four episodes of the series, though, before Charles was killed off, so I really didn’t have much of a chance to develop the character.”
Along with being a talented and versatile actor Regehr is also an accomplished artist, writer and poet. Born in Alberta, Canada, Regehr’s parents thought their young son would grow up to be a successful figure skater. His father is a talented artist while his mother imparted to him her love of the classics and taught him to read at a very young age. It was their influence together with an inborn passion for the arts that helped to point the young Regehr in a totally different direction. “Being an artist and a painter started almost immediately,” he says. “It just never occurred to me that I was going to grow up to be anything else.
“I started doing my own performing by myself, actually, in the woods,” he laughs. “I had an inkling when I was around eleven that I was going to become an actor. Writing occurred, probably, somewhere around that time, too, because I began to write poetry. All of this started to develop very early, so I knew that these mediums would be my form of expression and it has stayed that way ever since. I wish I could sing but I can’t, though,” jokes Regehr.
The actor’s first professional job was playing young Richard in a stage production of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. Over the years he has gone on to play a variety of distinguished roles on the stage as well as in films and television. “One of my most challenging roles was probably Errol Flynn only because I had so little time to develop the part. Two weeks is not a great deal of time and I had never been a fan of his. I wasn’t very familiar with his movies but I started watching them in order to create the part. So it was pretty challenging just getting it done in that amount of time.
“It’s rather obscure, but another part I found very challenging was Pat Garrett in a TNT production of Gore Vidal’s Billy the Kid. Traditionally, Pat Garrett is played as kind of an American mythic hero as is Billy the Kid. My contention is that if you go back in history and look at the deeds they did you would see that they were probably both a little psychotic. History has gone and glamourised them and today they’re part of our culture. So it was difficult to go into a production that was trying to present these characters in a certain way and trying to put a different spin on it,” he explains. “So this made it rather challenging, but after he saw the film Gore Vidal wrote me a wonderful note saying some very nice things and presented me with a copy of his [then] latest book. So I think I fulfilled what he wanted for the part.”
Whether he is composing a poem, painting a portrait or exercising his prerogatives as a Bajoran first minister, Regehr devotes himself totally to the task at hand. Over the past few years his work as both artist and writer has become an increasing part of his life. Because of this he has had to find a balance between these interests which allows him not only to pursue his wide range of interests but to provide his audience with a finished product of substance.
“It really becomes a time thing,” he explains. “I spend about twelve hours most days working, whether it be acting, writing or painting. I rise at about five o’clock every morning in the winter to work and in the summer I’m up at four. I start with the light and begin painting and usually the afternoons are spent writing, so I work far into the evening, until about eight at night. That’s my day. So I work a lot,” he laughs, “but when I’m filming I can’t do the rest. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
“In terms of the expression of vision, I’m really trying to find some essence of truth and then convey that truth or knowingness through any of the mediums. If we start with painting, in anything I paint there has to be something that will, hopefully, enlighten people in some way. There’s got to be some truth that they can latch onto and very often that’s something that can’t be verbalized. The other place I can express myself is through prose and poetry, using our written language in a way that allows me to pass on more than factual information. It’s much more difficult to do this when I’m acting because there are certain roles that just don’t have such truths built into them. As a result, there’s no way of rising to convey a truth or to touch people but it’s definitely what I aspire to and, in that respect, it’s the most challenging of the mediums just on that one thing alone.”
In 1992 Regehr was approached by Peter Ackroyd, who was then the CEO for Charles Tuttle Publications. Ackroyd had been a fan of Regehr’s work as a poet and painter and had been following his work for some time. He met the actor at a Los Angeles gallery opening and asked him if he would be interested in writing a book. Two years later saw the publication of The Dragon’s Eye, a look at Regehr’s varied accomplishments as an artist and poet and how they relate to his life.
“It was a wonderful project,” he says enthusiastically. “Several of us were chosen to work on books and we were all involved in every step of the process. In other words, we had to write, edit, supply the subject matter, just do the whole thing. I think the only place we really didn’t have any say as artists was in the cover design and that was it. The rest of it all had to be done by the artist and that made it very rewarding. My second book isn’t going to be like that at all,” laughs Regehr. “Somebody else is going to be calling the shots.”
Along with writing his second book Regehr is currently involved in opening exhibitions of his work in Copenhagen, Denmark, Canada and New York City as well as in Palm Desert, California and Atlanta, Georgia. He also hopes to be directing his own films in the near future. Such a rich outpouring of work would seem to be the perfect way of achieving fame and fortune, but for Regehr such trappings are low on his list of priorities.
“It’s never been about money nor fame for me,” he explains. “I realise the powerful strength of fame in that it draws attention but I make a very strong distinction between adoration, let’s say, which is the extreme situation, and being renowned. This means that if people come and see my work they can expect for it to be of a certain quality and that’s terribly important to me. Being adored for the sake of being adored really doesn’t appeal to me. I’m not good at that. There are people who are very good at being celebrities and they’re able to help people on a personal level rather than through a form of expression, which is the way in which I try to open doors for someone. If I can give that gift to someone and they understand what I’m trying to do then that’s a gift that comes back to me.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of Paramount Pictures, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
