Jonathan Frakes' Star Trek Ribbing Actually Comforted Patrick Stewart
Starting a new job and getting to know your co-workers can be truly intimidating, but just imagine the jitters one might feel on the first day of shooting a "Star Trek" series. In his memoir, "Making It So," Patrick Stewart details the feelings he went through while first filming "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and nervousness was definitely among them. Thankfully, he ended up getting a bit of reassurance in a very unusual way — by being teased by co-star Jonathan Frakes. It shouldn't be too surprising to "Next Generation" fans that the man behind the chaotic and charming Will Riker is a bit of a smart-aleck himself, and that was apparently there right from the start.
Frakes was potentially playing with fire, as British theater actors can be a bit intense, and Stewart was playing his superior officer, but everything worked out in the end and the two developed a lifelong friendship. Sometimes a bit of teasing is a love language, and clearly Stewart felt the love.
A little joke at the captain's expense
In the memoir, Stewart reveals that he wasn't supposed to show up for the first day of filming because it was a scene between Frakes and Brent Spiner, who plays Data. Stewart went to set anyway to get a feel for how his new co-stars worked on set without having the pressures of acting his own part. He was impressed by the chemistry between Frakes and Spiner, and thought that if they could "pull off a scene with such ease and comfort" despite having just met that maybe things would work out for him as well. A day later, he got his shot, and it was a scene where he had to be pretty stern, leading to Frakes' comedic relief:
"My first day of work in front of the camera came twenty-four hours later. It was a scene in which I am walking purposefully through a corridor of the Enterprise and I pass a turbolift, whose door opens. Out steps Commander Riker, who speaks to me. I look at him but do not reply, walking on.
When we completed the first take, Jonathan shouted out, 'Wow! So that must be what they call British face-acting!'"
The whole set cracked up laughing, which could have really embarrassed or enraged Stewart, but instead he started laughing right along with them because it felt like he was one of the gang.
Just one of the crew
Frakes' jape probably wouldn't fly with Stewart's fictional counterpart because of decorum, but Stewart took it well because it felt so good to be in on the joke:
"Now, I know of actors who would have been outraged by such insouciance from a lower-ranking officer, or at least an actor playing one. But I joined in the laughter, and it was genuine, because Jonathan's ribbing made me feel included. I was so scared and outside of my comfort zone, and I desperately needed the comic relief."
Comic relief would be a regular thing on the set of "The Next Generation," as the cast became a kind of extended work family that were rambunctious and really put their directors to the test reeling them all in. (I imagine directing an episode of TNG was a lot like herding cats, which can get irritating even if you love cats.) Their chemistry began all the way back in those very first few days, and Jonathan Frakes and his silly sense of humor (what is "British face acting," anyway?) were at the heart of it all.