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<v Speaker 1>This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>More what you Hear weekday Afternoons on the Drive.

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<v Speaker 2>Robert Riccardo has known for so many wonderful roles on

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<v Speaker 2>television and in the movies. You may remember him as

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<v Speaker 2>mister cult Cutlip on The Wonder Years, also Doctor Richard

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<v Speaker 2>in China Beach, the com remungently hologrific doctor of Star

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<v Speaker 2>Trek Voyager. But I will always remember you, Robert, as

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<v Speaker 2>the cowboy on Innerspace.

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<v Speaker 3>Thank you my strangest role much Well.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, I remember seeing you in that role and

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<v Speaker 2>how facial you had to be in the close up scenes.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, I was convinced when you pulled at your

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<v Speaker 2>cheek that that was a plastic cheek you were pulling at.

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<v Speaker 2>They didn't just didn't look for everyone.

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<v Speaker 3>Was yeah, the makeup the makeup artist. They asked him,

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<v Speaker 3>how did you do that with you know.

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<v Speaker 4>Pacardo's face, which of course was just me tugging on

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<v Speaker 4>my own cheeks, and he, like any good artists, said

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<v Speaker 4>trade secret.

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<v Speaker 2>Your new project is called Space Command Redemption, available now

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<v Speaker 2>on Amazon Prime and Google Play. Tell us about this

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<v Speaker 2>new project.

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<v Speaker 4>Well, Space Command Redemption is very much old school optimistic

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<v Speaker 4>science fiction. Like Original Trek, there's a galactic battle between

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<v Speaker 4>good and evil. And what made it really fun for

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<v Speaker 4>me is I got to work with another of my

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<v Speaker 4>Star Trek colleagues who I've always loved and admired, and

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<v Speaker 4>that's Doug Jones. And also what made it interesting is

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<v Speaker 4>it's very much like the issues that were dealt with

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<v Speaker 4>on Voyager between me and artificial intelligence character trying to

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<v Speaker 4>get the organic characters human or alien that worked on

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<v Speaker 4>our ship to accept me is a full fledged member

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<v Speaker 4>even though I was an artificial intelligence. It's kind of

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<v Speaker 4>the same argument from the other side. This time I

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<v Speaker 4>play the organic character who cannot accept the artificial intelligence played.

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<v Speaker 3>By Doug Jones as an individual. To me, he's just

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<v Speaker 3>a renegade machine.

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<v Speaker 4>Designed to work in my mining colony who has somehow

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<v Speaker 4>become sentient, and he you won't cooperate and do what

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<v Speaker 4>he was supposed to do, and I have to befriend him,

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<v Speaker 4>learn to understand him, and ultimately support his fight for

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<v Speaker 4>personal freedom. So, as I said, it's some of the

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<v Speaker 4>same themes from Voyager, but I got to visit them

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<v Speaker 4>again working with a new actor that I love and

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<v Speaker 4>really dealing with all the issues from the other end

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<v Speaker 4>of the table, from the side of the person who

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<v Speaker 4>didn't understand, and that is I think the theme of

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<v Speaker 4>redem why it's called Space Command Redemption, is that all

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<v Speaker 4>of the characters are struggling to redeem themselves in a

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<v Speaker 4>different way. In my character's case, he has lost his

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<v Speaker 4>wife in a tragic accident. It's very hard for him

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<v Speaker 4>to open up and feel anything. And in this struggle

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<v Speaker 4>in the movie and getting to understand Doug Jones' character

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<v Speaker 4>really makes him alive again.

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<v Speaker 3>So it's an exciting film.

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<v Speaker 4>The visual effects are great and as if you're a

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<v Speaker 4>fan of Doug Jones or me, or hopefully both of us,

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<v Speaker 4>you'll really enjoy seeing us in these new roles.

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<v Speaker 2>Doug Jones plays along with Robert Piccardo, along with Ruth

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<v Speaker 2>Box Light or two and the new Redemption I'm Sorry.

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<v Speaker 2>Space Command Redemption available now on Amazon Prime Video and

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<v Speaker 2>Google Play as well. One of the things that has

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<v Speaker 2>always impressed me going all the way back to the

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<v Speaker 2>original Star Trek and then they seem to keep that

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<v Speaker 2>writing style all the way up through Voyager, is that

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<v Speaker 2>you didn't rely. I mean, even though there are more

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<v Speaker 2>special effects available now to visualize what the crew is

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<v Speaker 2>dealing with. The crew's dialogue is much like the dialogue

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<v Speaker 2>of old radio drama, where you have to be very descriptive.

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<v Speaker 2>Am I right in looking at it that way?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Well, obviously, Star Trek.

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<v Speaker 4>When the original Star Trek came along in the late sixties,

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<v Speaker 4>we were.

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<v Speaker 3>Not that far.

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<v Speaker 4>We were a mere you know, television was only in

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<v Speaker 4>everyone's house for about fifteen or at most about fifteen years,

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<v Speaker 4>right or at most twenty if you were an early

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<v Speaker 4>adopter technolology, So we were much closer to the radio

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<v Speaker 4>drama generation, and a lot of your audience had grown

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<v Speaker 4>up with radio drama from the twenties, thirties, forties, whatever.

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<v Speaker 4>Because here you are with television show in the sixties. Remember,

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<v Speaker 4>the original Star Trek is one of the first shows

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<v Speaker 4>shot entirely in color in ero when a lot of

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<v Speaker 4>shows were still in black and white. So I understand

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<v Speaker 4>what you're saying, and but it's also kind of a

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<v Speaker 4>it's a style.

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<v Speaker 3>Of writing that that.

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<v Speaker 4>Where I mean, you know, you might say, well, it's

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<v Speaker 4>it's very expositional, but.

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<v Speaker 3>There's a lot of story. There's a lot of.

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<v Speaker 4>Story packed in a very short amount of time. So yes,

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<v Speaker 4>you do have to have exposition. And one of the

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<v Speaker 4>keys I think the great science fiction acting and Shatner

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<v Speaker 4>showed us the way is to really enlive that kind

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<v Speaker 4>of dialogue with your performance. You know, Shatner really went

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<v Speaker 4>out on a limb in a way that you know,

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<v Speaker 4>I only now understand and appreciate as an actor, having

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<v Speaker 4>been you know, an actor for nearly five decades. He

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<v Speaker 4>went out on a limb to really bring that to life.

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<v Speaker 4>In my particular case, I speak extremely quickly through the

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<v Speaker 4>expositional material and voyager. I remember when I met the

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<v Speaker 4>Italian actor who dubbed me into Italian. That was his

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<v Speaker 4>job was to look at the screen and then change

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<v Speaker 4>my words into Italian.

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<v Speaker 3>When I met him, he said to please sometimes not

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<v Speaker 3>the talk of.

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<v Speaker 2>Well. One of the things that I think was important

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<v Speaker 2>with Shatner's delivery and has always been very diverse with

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<v Speaker 2>your delivery in all of your roles is voice. How

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<v Speaker 2>much do you rely on voice when you are projecting

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<v Speaker 2>a character?

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<v Speaker 4>Well, you know, I remember I was a theater actor

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<v Speaker 4>who had done Leeds on Broadway, came to California and

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<v Speaker 4>got my first television drama, and I remember the sound

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<v Speaker 4>man coming up to me and saying, you don't have

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<v Speaker 4>to talk that loud because I was still playing. I

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<v Speaker 4>was still playing to the balcony right and the microphone

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<v Speaker 4>was off camera about three feet from me. And you

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<v Speaker 4>can use the dynamic range of your voice. Once you

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<v Speaker 4>understand how you know, the freedom you have so that

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<v Speaker 4>you can go down to a whisper things that you

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<v Speaker 4>can't really do on stage, or you have to. You

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<v Speaker 4>have to use much more voice on stage even to

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<v Speaker 4>create the illusion. That's why they call it a stage

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<v Speaker 4>whisper versus a real whisper. So I think that I

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<v Speaker 4>like to think of myself as an actor who really

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<v Speaker 4>plays a lot of different notes. In I try to avoid,

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<v Speaker 4>you know, any kind of boring vocal quality, and in Voyager,

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<v Speaker 4>because my character was a newly activated technology, I had

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<v Speaker 4>to start out with a very sort of motionless, boring,

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<v Speaker 4>mechanical kind of a cadence, so that it gave me

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<v Speaker 4>a place to grow over the course of seven years

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<v Speaker 4>as the character became more human life. So so there

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<v Speaker 4>was a sort of an artificiality by design in the

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<v Speaker 4>way I spoke early on, very much like Data did

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<v Speaker 4>in a very different way. But Data also had a

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<v Speaker 4>very kind of, you know, childlike, you know, Pinocchio like

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<v Speaker 4>way of speaking in his artificial intelligence character. I was

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<v Speaker 4>simply much crankier than data.

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<v Speaker 2>Gotta wrap.

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<v Speaker 3>So yes, I think voice is really important.

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<v Speaker 4>And as I said, Shatner really blazed the trail because

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<v Speaker 4>he played a lot of notes, a lot of different

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<v Speaker 4>high and low notes as Kirk Robert Piccardo.

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<v Speaker 2>The film is Space Command Redemption, available now on Amazon

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<v Speaker 2>Prime Video and Google Play as well. We thank you

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<v Speaker 2>for joining us and for bringing us to great stories.

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<v Speaker 3>Thank you so much, Lee, It's been a pleasure.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee

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<v Speaker 1>Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live

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<v Speaker 1>weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation