Date of publishing: 8th
December 2006
Connor Trinneer is an American television actor. He
is best known for playing the role of Charles "Trip"
Tucker III on Star Trek: Enterprise. Trinneer went
to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.
While there, he played college football until he left
the sport and found acting. He graduated with his
BFA in Acting, then went on to obtain his MFA from
University of Missouri Kansas City. He first came
to attention with a strong performance in Arcadia
at the Huntington Theater Company in Boston. He went
on to do several guest-starring roles on television,
including One Life to Live, Sliders, Touched By An
Angel, and Stargate Atlantis.
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Linda Craddock: What
type of preparations do you make to stay in character
going from Michael the wraith to human and back again.
They both seem to share similar compassion which,
I am sure results in transformation due to the retro
virus.
Connor Trinneer: It’s not difficult,
if you were to put on the make up, it's pretty easy
to fall into playing that side of him and then when
he’s well, since the first episode I haven’t
been human, that’s not true no I was again but
I’ve done three where I haven’t gone back
to human and he doesn’t want to. He feels that
have been manipulative to him and that they haven’t
been straight shooters on his situation and they kind
of gave up on him.
Linda Craddock: In
Stargate Atlantis, the episode “Michael”,
the human, appeared to be sensitive, humble and genuinely
trying to fit it. In the episode “Misbegotten”,
the second transition, you were a lot more calculating,
and devious. How do you feel about the character change?
Connor Trinneer: Well, I mean he’s
being devious because he’s being acted upon
and he has to react to all these things so he knows
what’s going on, a lot more than he did before,
and again Michael’s MO is about survival and
he has found himself in a very, very hostile environment.
It seems any environment he’s in it's hostile
toward him, and again I go back to the humans have
kind of dropped him and the wraith don’t really
want him back and he’s really just trying to
build a place for himself where there isn’t
one.
Linda Craddock: Tell
us about a day on the set of Atlantis, your interaction
and chemistry with cast and crew.
Connor Trinneer: Well, the cast is
great and the crew is great, I mean they’ve
got a really good show going and it’s a lot
of fun to be a part of. You know a day in the life
of playing Michael is while I’ve got all the
makeup on and that big giant costume on, most of which
I can’t take off so you know you try to keep
yourself as comfortable as possible (laughter) and
you know you got the contact lenses and everything
and you know you’ve got all the stuff in your
hair and the makeup you can’t rub off so you
kind of got to be a little delicate with the way you
move around.
 Linda
Craddock: So now
the Atlantians have turned Michael into a human once
again, but a rebellion against taking the retro virus
occurs and now Michael has a band of wraith brothers
who want revenge against the humans while waiting
for the arrival of their fellow wraith to rescuer
them. Where would you like to see the writers go with
the fate of the collective wraith.
Connor Trinneer: You get to see a
little more of what happens in coming episodes that
haven’t aired yet? And I think that you know
ultimately Michael would like to a situation of his
own where he has a certain amount of power so that
he can deal with both say the wraith and the humans
so I think that ideally he would try to band together.
Linda Craddock: With
this group.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah if he can,
but ultimately he’s sort of a lone wolf not
by his choice of course.
Linda Craddock: Of
course, no place to call home so to speak.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah, well put.
Linda Craddock: In
each episode of Stargate Atlantis where you have appeared
as Michael, your character has a particularly unusual
connection with Teyla. Do you and Rachel Luttrell
talk about the interaction between characters up and
coming scenes between Teyla and Michael as the story
evolves?
Connor Trinneer: Well, they’ve
sort of written in that they, of any of them, she
has a sympathetic ear to him and they’ve sort
of set it up that way but you know, at this point
in time, he’s hearing much sympathy. (laughter)
 Linda
Craddock: No, not
after the second go round.
Connor Trinneer: No, I don’t
think he has a lot of trust in anybody. So yeah there
is a connection with Teyla but I think it is a very,
very delicate relationship but again I’ll go
back to saying that Michael’s all about trying
to survive in anyway he can do that, and I think he’ll
use anything that’s in front of him, including
anybody.
Linda Craddock: Yes,
at this stage of his role, yes.
Connor Trinneer: I would be curious
to see what they do.
Linda Craddock: I
would be too actually, that’s why I mentioned
that particular connection because it is interesting,
the sympathetic ear and the second time around I still
believe he would trust her over anyone else.
Connor Trinneer: Well, if he trusts
anybody, which there’s not a lot of trust floating
around in the air.
Linda Craddock: Right,
that’s true, that’s a given.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah.
Linda Craddock: In
the episode “Misbegotten” Michael as a
wraith, probed Dr. Beckett’s mind to discover
the bomb planted by Sheppard’s team. From an
actors’ point of view, what other information
could Michael have extracted which could lead to even
more appearances by Michael in the coming season?
Connor Trinneer: I think that the
appearances by Michael in the up coming seasons are
going to be dictated by how he’s able to escape
and again develop a scenario where he has some safety
and listen he’s pissed at them, you know, I
think he’d like to have a bit of vengeance.
 Linda
Craddock: At this
stage, it seems that way. It does.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah and you know,
like I said, you’ll see some stuff in regards
to what we’re talking about occurring near the
end of this present shooting, this present season.
Linda Craddock: Ok,
well I look forward to that. Were you a Star Trek
fan prior to landing the part of Tucker? What were
your expectations regarding the show, set, your character,
etc? Were you concerned about the survival of the
show based upon the success of its predecessors?
Connor Trinneer: Well, I was, I think
like everybody else I grew up on the re-runs of Star
Trek, I was not particularly a fan, I wouldn’t
say that, but, like I didn’t watch every episode
of the various shows but I liked it and when I got
the job I was looking forward to the idea of spending
a lot of time figuring out this one guy “Trip
Tucker” and I enjoyed the heck out of it. My
expectations, you know, you never really know with
regards to sci-fi what they’re going to bring
to the table so that’s always kind of a surprise,
even what they’re going to do with your character
is always a surprise because they have so many options,
that’s one of the things is interesting about
science fiction is that they have such a wealth of
choice that they can make because there’s no
real rule about space and what you’re going
to discover or who you’re going to encounter,
so I didn’t really know what to expect but I
was really pleasantly surprised with how much they
used my character and we were all hoping it would
go 7 years like the rest of them did but hey that’s
the way the business rolls.
Linda Craddock: It
was personally one of my favorites, Enterprise.
Connor Trinneer: Well thank you.
Linda Craddock: You
appeared in 83 episodes with Star Trek Enterprise.
What motivated you to audition for the part of Cmdr.
Charles “Trip’ Tucker?
Connor Trinneer: Well, it was one
of the auditions I had during the pilot season and
it happened to be the job that I got.
Linda Craddock: You’ve
mixed it up quite a bit between sci-fi and dramatic
TV series? What is your preference besides just plain
getting work?
Connor Trinneer: Well, that’s
the word right there, you just want to keep working.
You know I think that there’s inherently a lot
of drama in science fiction sort of partial with the
whole thing you know I have a great deal of affection
for having played Trip and gotten to know him as well
as I did and it was just a remarkable experience.
 Linda
Craddock: Well,
like I said it was one of my personal favorites. I’ve
taken the opportunity to review them, obviously for
this interview, revisit them and it's still a pleasure
and it's not just in token of this interview but it
was one of my favorites.
Connor Trinneer: Well thank you.
Linda Craddock: Do
you have any plans for writing/directing/producing
television or movies?
Connor Trinneer: Well I had hoped
to have an opportunity to direct some of the Enterprise
episodes but the climate in which we were under the
studio, they didn’t want to have any first time
directors so yeah it’s still in the back of
my mind that I’d like to do some directing.
Writing is always a possibility but you know I’ve
got a one year old, so you got to pick what your projects
are going to be. You know at this point in time I’m
sticking with acting and focusing in on that.
Linda Craddock: Well
allow me to offer my congratulations.
Connor Trinneer: Thank you.
Linda Craddock: What
was the most intriguing aspect of the diverse line
up of alien characters on Star Trek Enterprise to
you?
Connor Trinneer: Well, discovering
what they were about. You know I didn’t have
a great deal of knowledge about whom and what the
aliens were. That’s one of the cool things about
it because you’re not just dealing with one
particular type of individual you’ve got all
sorts of different species going around and I think
part of the theme of Star Trek in general was to go
forth and discover
Linda Craddock: Explore,
yes.
Connor Trinneer: And I think that
they kept that as their mantra. You know you kind
of just had to roll with how it was delivered to you.
Ah, we did have a fair amount of input, they were
very receptive to ideas that we had and you felt like
you were a part of the process as opposed to being
an actor being handed lines.
Linda Craddock: I
see. Here’s an interesting thing for me - In
the Star Trek Enterprise episode ”Similitude”,
your character “Trip” was cloned to harvest
neural tissue to save the original Trip’s life.
Did the dual role require any special preparation?
Connor Trinneer: No, I don’t
really think so. They had set it up so well in the
writing of it that they really sort of laid it out
for me and you know one of the great tools an actor
has is imagination and you just sort of let that go
and you go with your instincts and hopefully you have
somebody who guides you with those and fortunately
on a lot of the episodes that I thought were my favorites
and Levar Burton was my director and I was in very
good hands with him.
Linda Craddock: That
brings me to the next question! You have worked under
the direction of Levar Burton and Robert Duncan McNeill,
two veterans with the Star Trek franchise. What was
it like working for the two directors?
Connor Trinneer: It’s good,
I mean their both very good directors and Roxanne
Dawson also directed a number of our episodes and
she was great as well. I think that having an understanding
of how the show works and having an understanding
of what they’re looking for is helpful in directing
a show and they spent so much time in it that they
had a really good feel for it. And I think that added
to that they are also very skilled directors.
 Linda
Craddock: Your character
“Trip” had a very special relationship
on screen with Jolene Blalock’s character T’pol
which seems to have started in the episode “The
Xindi” T’pol’s effort to help “Trip”
sleep better by using the Vulcan neuro pressure technique.
What do you attribute to the bonding?
Connor Trinneer: I think that they
wanted to show a relationship developing between a
Vulcan and a human. I don’t think they’d
done that before to that extent and you know it was
part of the role, part of the show, it became part
of the show and I think it's an interesting setup
with humans who are emotive and Vulcan’s who
are not and how you navigate a relationship in that
regard.
Linda Craddock: I’m
sure you are familiar with the history of Vulcan’s
and their pragmatic approach to life, why do you think
the writers in the Star Trek Enterprise with the episode
“Damage” when it was discovered T’Pol
had an addiction to trellium which accesses certain
emotions. Why do you think the writers went in that
direction?
Connor Trinneer: Well, I think that
one of the things about science fiction is that you
can investigate things that are going on in our own
world and substituting them for what happening out
in the universe. You could have somebody with an addiction
to something, you could be dealing with race relations,
you could be dealing with things of that nature and
I think that you know, that’s what they were
exploring and they continue to and that is one of
the good things about Star Trek is that they explored
topics that were relevant to what we all go through.
Linda Craddock: Especially
from the beginning, the original.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah, I think that
is one of the things that draw people to it.
Linda Craddock: That’s
what makes it unique to me.
Connor Trinneer: Yeah.
Linda Craddock: Do
you follow any fan based reviews/comments on what
you are working on?
Connor Trinneer: You know I get told
enough, I don’t really need to follow it on
line. You know I get enough information otherwise.
I have looked on line, you know I’ve got a website
of my own and I looked at it when I first started
the show, but less now, I mean, you know, its got
little to do with me as a person and more to do with
me as an actor, in a character, and you know every
now and then I’ll touch in and see what they’ve
had to say no know, especially with the “Michael”
thing, I never really knew how much they were going
to use me and how is was sort of coming across out
there with the fans. So I did check in on that a little
bit.
Linda Craddock: Well
I see a lot more opportunity for “Michael”
as a viewer.
Connor Trinneer: I think it’s
an open book
Linda Craddock:
it is indeed.
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