Many thanks to the transcriber!

Announcer:  And now, the captain of Voyager, Miss Kate Mulgrew....

KM:  Danke, danke, danke. Sit down.

I am having the most wonderful time, in your country. It's an extraordinary country... please sit down everybody. You've probably been standing for days.

The first order of business is to thank you all for coming.  Some of you have traveled quite extensively to be here, I'm sure, and I know at no small cost or effort, and I'm very very grateful to you for coming. You can't imagine how gratifying it is to see you. It's the only job in the world where I can walk onto a stage and be met by 3000 people with unconditional support. It's a pretty splendid feeling.

But your reputation precedes you because my dear friends Roxann Dawson and Robert Picardo warned me that the German fan base was unsurpassed in intelligence, warmth, dignity and courage.
But, to tell you the truth, I expected nothing less because  “Ich bin verliebt in einen deutschen Mann" (spoke in German but the translation is basically- I'm in love with a German man, yes!")

I am so impressed by certain things that I see here. Germany is very clean, isn't it?  It's much cleaner than America. As we were landing in the plane, all the little houses were clean in their wonderful little rows in all the little villages.  Even the piles of dirt are clean! It's remarkably clean.  But the people are the big surprise. They're so cordial.  They're so gracious.  They're so generous, and they're very very naughty!  Aren't they?  Very mischievous, the  Germans.  I've had a marvelous time.  Later on today I'm going to go into Bonn. I'm going to see Beethoven's house.  I understand Robert Beltran saw it in 30 seconds! I'll spend a little more time, and go down the Rhine tomorrow, and then I'm off on my holiday with my mother.

But I'm delighted to begin my holiday here. And to see all of you.  And I'm going to open up the floor to questions in just a minute, but first I want to tell you that this has been the most extraordinary four years of my life. Captain Janeway was a role that came to me late in my life as an actress. I have been a professional actress for 25 years. I started in New York City at the age of 18. And I was 39 years old when I got this part, and I think that most of you know it didn't go to me originally. Did you know this? It was a French Canadian actress.  Shall I name her?  God bless her! She knew enough after a day and a half to say sayonara, didn't she?  And it was mine.  And it opened up a new world to me and for me.  Because Janeway is not just a job.  This is a way of life.

Star Trek is a phenomenon for very good reasons.  It embraces the possibility of the future.  It is filled with intellectual curiosity and promise.  And every day of my life I feel the privilege and responsibility of this role and I'm uplifted by that.  And I want very much to leave behind a Janeway that certainly the ladies can be proud of but who the men revere as well, especially the young men.  So I'm going to try hard, to give her to you, as I've done for the last four years and I hope I have three more seasons to go.

But you are a splendid audience.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.

Now I can go on and on and on about Star Trek.  I can tell you how much I love everyone. You just saw my 'most beloved'. Is he handsome, or what?  I think they should do an episode between the two of us called 'The Gaze' and all I'm going to do is gaze at him - for 60 minutes.  And at the very end I'll turn to the camera and say " It's the only way to fly".  Shall we do that?

You know everybody wants to know about Chakotay and Janeway having a romance.  Why?  Why is it always about sex?  Why not, right?  I think this season something interesting will happen between Janeway and Chakotay. Because enough is enough.  Right?  I think Janeway's been just a little bit too businesslike in the old ready room.  It's time to have those late night dinners, don't you think?  Champagne in the holodeck with her first officer.  Why not?  She's  not dead yet.

Last season was very very interesting.  Is your season... are you seeing season four?
Have you seen season four?  Are you on season three?

Aud :  Starts next week....

KM: Hi!

Questioner:  Hi.  Could you please tell us more about a typical day at the set?  We know you are working for more than 12 or 14 hours, but how are working... what are you doing all this time...

KM:  This is driving me mad.  This is like hell.  I  can hear him but I can't see him.

Q:  Here.  Here.  Down. Down on your right side!

KM:   Ahhh.... There you are.

Q:  Here.

KM:  I see you!  You.

Q:  Yes... that's me.

KM:  Thank god... that was exhausting, wasn't it!

All right. You've heard about our 12 and 14 hour days...

Q:  Yes.

KM:  And you want to know what...?

Q:  What are you doing all day, when you ...  on the set... preparing for a scene.  What's going on on the whole set...

KM:  I work very hard.  It's a very hard day. I won't kid you about that. Everybody has their own experience. Mine is that I have to be very well prepared and on my toes from the moment I walk in to the moment that I leave.  Generally speaking.... I can give you a little bit of my process... shall I?

Q:  Yes, please.

KM:  Good.  You know it's highly technical, don't you ladies and gentlemen.  This is highly technical jargon that I'm dealing with. It's like speaking Greek, or Japanese, all of this science fiction mumbo jumbo.  But it's all rooted in fact... and it's all very important.  And it's crucial to the success of Voyager.  So generally what I do is... I spend the weekend reading the script two or three or four times if it's a really difficult one, and then I'll look at my call sheet, which is what we call the list of scenes we have, for Monday and I'll see what scenes I have and then I will break them down.  What are the scenes about?  What do I need to do, who do I need to do it to, what's my action, what's my obstacle, what's my intention?  Then I will start to memorize it, but from the inside out.  If I know what I am saying, at no time am I at a loss for words.  I'm sure that your gleaning rather quickly that I'm seldom at a loss for words.  Anyway.  But if I understand the text and exactly what is going on within the scene I feel that I have control over it.  So that's what I do, and I will study every night for a minimum of two and a half hours.  Sometimes three.  Sometimes four.  But never less than two and a half.  It's very very very important that I come in prepared.  Particularly for the bridge stuff.  You know when you're watching the series, you see the bridge scenes intermittently scattered throughout the show, but the fact is we shoot them all on Monday.  And we shoot them successively. That is the most rigorous day because the bridge is technobabble. That's all there is to it. I usually come in.  The problem is presented to me by Tuvok, generally speaking, then I have to go down to the helm, I've got to talk to Mr. Paris about our course, and then I have to go back to Mr. Chakotay and then I have to talk to Mr. Kim about what's going on at Ops and it's very very technical, so I think Monday and Tuesday are usually the two hardest days and then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we get into the essence of the story. And usually those scenes are scenes between two characters trying to understand each other and their dilemma, so they're a bit easier.  But regarding the work itself, I don't think I've ever worked this hard in my life.  No.  Without question, absolutely rigorous.

Q:  Thank you.

KM:  Thank you. Let's all take a nap!

I keep getting little presents.  It's so lovely.  Who gave me this one?  Thank you very much, whoever did.  Ah, feels like a jewel.

Next question.  Yes.  Madam. Yes, I'm coming.  She's giving me a birthday present.
Thank you very very much.  Thank you.  Chocolates. For my birthday. Danke.
Oh, lovely. I look 15 in this one.  It is my birthday at the end of the month, sad to say.  Actually I like it, I like it.  I'm going to be 43. Not bad, is it?  I'm having the time of my life.  I've never been so happy in my whole life.  My sons they're going through puberty right now.  Any other mothers have sons going through puberty?  Do you have any drugs on you?  It's a difficult time isn't it?  I adore them through this process. It's nice to watch them.  It's nice to watch them watching themselves in the mirror 24 hours a day!

 May I have another question please?

Q2:  Good morning.  Right side of you.

KM:  Oh here we go again. Yes.

Q2:  First off welcome to Germany, especially to Bonn.  My question is - has the role of Captain Janeway changed your life in a certain way?

KM:  Has it changed it in a certain way?

Q2:  Yes.

KM:  In what specific way?

Q2: For example you attitude towards life or something else?

KM:  Yes. It has.  Now shall we take this seriously or shall I be.... It has changed my life dramatically.  What is your name?

Q2:  My name is  Vasim Alley (!)

KM:  I don't think I'll try that one!  I don't really have a life.  My life, as it was before, no longer exists.  There is very little time now. The constraints and the obligations that Voyager puts on me are considerable. Not to mention the fact, as I just did, I'm raising two sons.  And I have a personal life, and I have some intimate friendships which I value deeply, but I would say that I'm on a clock every day.  And whereas I think that's all right to do for a brief period of time, I'll be happy when it's over.  Because I'm a very ...um... I'm passionate about life and I'm passionate about the world, and I don't think we should live life on a clock.  I think it's too short.  I need to calm down.  I like to step back.  I'm Irish you know.  We're sensitive and sentimental fools and I need that time again.  But for this period, this seven year period, I am more than willing and prepared to work like a banshee so that when it's over I can again recollect my life.  That was a very good question, thank you.

I would like to say something to you regarding my life as an actress which is that I am not a 'star'.  You may consider me a star because you think Captain Janeway is a star and she is, but I am not.  Kate Mulgrew is not a movie star, I never wanted to be one, I wanted to be a very good actress.  And that has been the scope of my whole life.  So that when Voyager is over, I will go back to the theatre in New York, and I will live again the life of a student of the theatre which has been the greatest joy of my life.

Is there another question?
Q3:  Miss Mulgrew.  I've got a question.  First, I'm happy to see you. You're looking gorgeous.

KM:  Thank you.  Where are you?

Q3:  On the balcony.  Straight ahead.

KM:  Straight ahead?

Q3:  In the middle.

KM:  This is hopeless.  Anyway.  Yes?

Q3:   I've got a question.  I read on the Internet there should be a prequel of Voyager.  Is that true?

KM:  Prequel?  Of Voyager?

Q3:  Yes - a show before...

KM: Voyager...

Q3: The first show.  Caretaker.  I read on this German site there should be a prequel before Caretaker.

KM:  Well maybe there should have been, but there wasn't.  Or perhaps I'm not understanding this question.  A prequel is something that comes before.  Nothing came before Caretaker.  Caretaker was the pilot of Voyager but nothing preceded that.

Q3:  So it's a rumor.

KM:  It's a rumor.  A false rumor.  Yes.  Next.

Q4:  Hello.  Here.  On the left side.  So first I wish you a very great morning.

KM:  Thank you.

Q4:  And I like Janeway, from Voyager, but I really like the character, like you.  What I'd like to say is every time that I see Voyager I don't see Janeway, I see the character, I see you.  And I see the person, you know what I mean... my English is not good, I know that.

KM:  Your English is very good.

Q4:  Thank you.  You understand what I like to say?

KM:  I understand exactly what you are saying.

Q4:  Thank you.

KM:  I'll throw it back at you and then you can correct me if I'm wrong.  You like the way Kate Mulgrew has endowed Captain Janeway.

Q4:  Yes.  And my question is I think it is very hard to have a normal life when you are a character.  What do you do when you go shopping or you walk on the street?  It's very hard every time when you go out...

KM:  I don't really.  I mean ... I get up at 4:00 a.m. on Monday morning because my call is 5:00 a.m. at Paramount Studios.  And I work from 5:00 o'clock in the morning until 8 or 9 that day.  Then I come home, and I have two in help in my house, so generally when I get home the boys have had their dinner and I will spend an hour or an hour and a half chatting with them, helping them with homework and then I will go upstairs with my script and I will work for another two hours and then I have to get on Tuesday and be there at 5:30.  So the whole week is like... there is no time to do anything else.  And on the weekend I go to my sons' soccer games or baseball games or usually there's some sort of press event or.... I hear a little fraulein... you hear the babies...? German babies are the most adorable babies.  I mean I stopped in the street last night and... these babies are the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life... they have little rosey cheeks and then they open their mouths and they go 'ga ga ga'... and I say 'I'll take you!'

So my life precludes any normal daily activity.  That's what I was just saying to this gentleman.  And I'm sorry about that but I accept it because this is where I am right now. And it's foolish of me to bemoan it because the other part of my life is so gratifying.  Janeway is nurturing me beautifully.  In a creative way.  So for that I will trade off time...lovely time, as we know it.  I'll reclaim it when this is over.  It will be over... won't it... some day?  I think in about 3 years this will be over.  And then I will go back to my life.  However Patrick Stewart told me something interesting a couple of weeks ago.  The four captains got together for an event... it was the first time I think in the history of Star Trek - I think.  Avery Brooks, myself, Patrick Stewart and William Shatner and Patrick turned to me and he said "It never ends".  (much laughter and applause here... ed.!)

Q5:  Miss Mulgrew.  Miss Mulgrew..  here.

KM:  Yes.

Q5:  Miss Mulgrew.  Do you ever have a real problem with fans.  I mean you're very popular here in Germany and there are even more fans in the States ... oh... I'm here in the middle, right here in the middle....

KM:   Now I know you're all thinking ... no wonder she got lost in space!

KM.  Yah.  I see you.  I see you!

Q5:  I just want to know if you ever have a real problem with fans.

KM:  I have no problem with fans.  They have been nothing but respectful and gracious to me all my life. And in the last four years.  Never have they been obtrusive or arragant or pushy or mean spirited.  But you see I'm not overwhelmed by them... what's your name?

Q5:  Britta.

KM:  Britta.  I don't have that problem.  And this harkens back to the previous question.  I'm not a star.  You know, some actors want to be stars.. they want to put that out.  Do you understand what I'm saying?  They rather like the fact that the fans are circling them like sharks and they like to punch out the papparazzi and they like to have all those problems.  I don't really like those problems.  I think I understand very much what this relationship is about.  Without you, I do not exist. Do you understand. And the greatest happiness I can have is an exchange with you, like this, on an intellectual level.  Because you are here to tell me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.  So my relationship with fans has always been one of quality.  So I don't have that problem.  No.  It's never a problem to be told that you are loved, is it?

Why is it that all the Brittas in the world are beautiful.  I can see she's beautiful even standing here.  Doesn't she have long blonde hair.  Yes.  They all have long blonde hair.  A lot of German women do, don't they?  Oh... it's breaking my heart.  Next  question.

Q6: Madam Captain.

KM:  Ya - Ya.

Q6:  I'm up in the balcony.  I have brown hair.  Although I'm German too!

KM:  Good for you!

Q6:  The thing is I'm doing a seminar at Heidleberg University which is called Star Trek as a Mirror of Contemporary Society...

KM: Good for you.  Why?  What is your work?

Q6:  Well, I'm doing a seminar and we watch episodes and discuss whether we are like this or can be like this.  And the question is  do you believe that one day we will achieve this...like Star Trek,  that this is really our future and that humans are ready to be like this?

KM:  Interesting.  A very very good question.  A question that speaks to my soul. And one I addressed last night at dinner.  I had the good fortune to have dinner with a group of highly intelligent science fiction buffs last night.  And I think that Voyager is grasping your imagination in tandem with your intellect and asking you to extend your spirit four hundred years into the future in the profoundest and most meaningful way of all.  Which is to say that Voyager represents the potential of for human race.  Not only to survive and explore, but to show with what courage they can extend their pioneering spirit.  So do I believe that in graphic reality this will happen?  I don't know.  But do I believe in the hope that it signifies?  Absolutely.

And you know what else we were talking about.  Never ever say never and always ask
'why not'.  Look what's happening on Mars.  Did we think we would live to see this?
I mean it is so mysterious and exciting, isn't it?  Why should we not be exploring the Delta Quadrant one day?  And if you get there... could you give me a clue how to get home!  Next question.

Q6:  Thank you for answering the question and I want to say you're doing a great job.

KM:  Thanks.  Thank you madam, very much.  And thank you for conducting seminars of this nature.  It means a great deal.

KM:  Good morning.

Q7:  Sorry, I'm kind of nervous because I'm talking to you.

KM:  You shouldn't be nervous.

Q7:  I would like to say you are a great actress.  I really love you and it's most happiest...

KM:  Come a little closer...!  I need to see this handsome creature!

Q7:  Here I am.  I am so happy that you are here and this is one of the most happiest life (?) of all times.  Thank you...

KM:  How lovely.  Thank you very much.

Q7:  No - thank you...

KM:  No no - danke you!

Q7:  We could go on like that....

KM:  Yes we could!  Do you have a question?

Q7:  No, thank you.  I just want to say that.

KM:  What a lovely thing to say.  Let's give him a hand!
May I ask you a question... how old are you?

Q7:  17.

KM:  You are 17.  Now - did any part - why are they all...? You are 17, aren't you?

Q7:  Right.

KM: When you began watching Voyager did some part of you, do you understand me, was some part of you concerned that a woman was in the Captain's seat?

Q7:  No.

KM: No?

Q7:  Absolutely not.

KM:  Atta boy!  I like these German herren I tell you!
Ya?

Q8:  Hello.  I like your reading of Mosaic, the audiotape very much.

KM: Oh, thank you yes, Jeri Taylor's book.

Q8:  I want to know if you have some plans to do that in the future.

KM:  You know I've done a lot of books on tape... what's your name?

Q8:  Yes! Kirstin.

KM:  Kirstin.  Before I did this I did a lot of books on tape, and I've used my voice extensively as an actress over the years.  And I very much enjoyed doing Mosaic because it was the story of young Kathryn Janeway.  And I will do many more when this is over.  But it's hard.   You know you go into a studio for a couple of days and you shut the door and you just talk and talk and talk all alone.  But I will do them again, and I thank you.

Q8:  I'm looking forward to it.  Thank you very much.

KM:  Thank you.  Ya?

Q9:  Hello.  On the balcony, beside the left spot.  On the balcony.

KM:  Oh.  Balcony again.  All right.

Q8:  Hello.

KM:  I can hear you.  And I can...sense you... that's enough!

Q8:  Okay what I want to ask is have you ever met Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks and exchanged tips on what to be a commander.  What they should look for.

KM:  Well.  That's a good question.  Because you can imagine how nervous I was in the beginning. Everybody was watching me.  And I knew that the jobs of many people hung in the balance.  It was very important that I make a good impression as a commander, very fast.  And the first or second day that I was shooting on Stage 8 Patrick Stewart came in... he had an office upstairs... and he came in to get a cup of coffee and I was standing by the coffee machine... I think I lost 30 pounds in two days when I started this job... and I said oh God, am I going to survive this?  'Of course my dear.  One day you'll look back over the last seven years of your life and you'll be proud, damn proud of the work you did.  But' he said ' pace yourself and put the money in the bank. Good bye.'

And Bill Shatner, you know, is a very different person.  You know that.

Q8:  Yup.

KM: The first year that I was doing this, I was asked to go to Dallas, Texas to be honoured by some philanthropic society along with Bill Shatner and Avery Brooks.  We were given these wonderful awards.  They were quite beautiful crystal things.  And we were told to go out, there were 2500 people in the audience who had all paid a great deal of money to come and see us and the man (said) 'you may speak for 15 minutes, and that's it, about how great it is to be the captain and then you let the next person have their chance'.  So out I went and I had my little 15 minutes and I bowed and I went and then Avery Brooks came out and he did his 15 minutes, and then Bill Shatner came out... and I swear to God 55 minutes later I was standing in the wings and this is what I heard him say: "And by God, those elephants were copulating!"  It taught me more about command than I care to tell you!

Yes.  Next question.

Q9:  Hello.  Good morning.  Left side.... Right side.  Excuse me.  Here!

KM:  Ya.  There you are.

Q9:  First I have to say that I think your performance of Captain Janeway is very charismatic.  And my question is was there one thing that you really didn't like at the set?

KM:  One!?  Do you mean at the beginning?  Is there one scene or one episode that I really didn't like?

Q9:  Yes.

KM:  Yes!  Don't you remember that episode?  Where Tom Paris abducted me in the turbo lift?  The one chance Janeway has in having sex and what does she have?  Little lizards!  Ridiculous!  You know... God bless them...the writers have to work overtime.  They're up there... wracking their brains to come up with new and novel ideas every week and that week I think they were taking a little nap, don't you?  That one sticks in my mind.

Yes madam.  Oh how lovely.  Peace and love... thank you very much.  Thank you very much.  You see what I mean, about the graciousness of the German people.

Yes.

Q10:  Good morning Kate.

KM:  Is that you?

Q10:  Yes.

KM:  That's you.  What's your question?

Q10:  First of all I want to thank you for being here with us in Germany...

KM:  No.  Thank you...

Q10:  You are doing a marvelous job portraying the Captain, and it was about time that a woman got the lead role.

KM:  Thank you.  I love it when women say it.  But I sort of melt when men say it!  Yes, go on.

Q10:  As you've mentioned before you were cast very late...

KM:  Well we don't have to push this thing...

Q10:  After filming of the pilot already had begun... so I think it must have been very difficult for you to familiarize yourself with the world of Star Trek in such a short time.
How did you manage to do it so well?  To overcome those problems?  What was your help in this situation?  Have you good friends....

KM:  I am a practicing Roman Catholic and I fell to my knees and I asked my Father to forgive me for all of my sins and just to get me through that first day.  And he did.  Because I didn't have clue what I was saying!

I was hired on a Friday to begin shooting on a Monday.  On the bridge.  You remember that scene?  Introducing everybody to everybody else, laying out the co-ordinates, going through all the stuff - Ops, tactical, the helm, science, boom!  I just... did it.  All of the suits' were there from Paramount,  all of the producers... everybody stood in their suits watching me.  I was... such a small person under this huge microscope.  And I did what I always do on the stage.  See this is why the theatre stands you in such good stead, 'cause there's not much you can do when the cue light goes off.  You gotta walk out.  So generally speaking, I throw up, I put new lipstick on and out I go.  That's the job.  And I did it.  But it was a wing and a prayer.  Also I was filled with ... such excitement.  Just imagine me, I mean it was terribly exciting.  And it was a great privilege to be there.  And Rick Kolbe, who was directing was very helpful to me.  And all the guys who were there on the bridge, you know, supporting me.  I could see, when I walked into work that morning, that first morning.  I still get choked up.  When I walked into work that first morning, they all stood, that's 60 workers and they gave me the 'toot', the captain's 'toot'.  I tell you, tears just streamed down my cheeks.  It was great.  Thank you for that question.

Yes madam.  Look at... a little pig.  And it says 'good luck'.  It's a piggy bank but there is nothing inside. Ya?  Ah, thank you.  Thank you very much whoever you are who gave this to me.  How lovely of you.  Look at the shuttle!  I think I'll put the piggy... on top of the bear.  Now then... all right.  Is there another question?

Q11: Hello... on the balcony.

KM:  Yes ma'am.

Q11:  First I want to say that I am very very happy that you are here... and then I want to ask you, do you really think in our reality aliens exist?

KM:  I think I missed something.  Do I really think what darling?  You'll have to say again.  I think I missed your question.

Q11:  Do you think in our reality, aliens exist?

KM:  Oh.  Do I think in our reality aliens exist.  Martians?  Is that what you mean?

Q11:  Yes.

KM:  I do.  I mean don't you think it's rather shallow to think that we're it?  We're the only species.  The Universe is a vast and marvelous place.  I certainly do think there are other life forms.  Who agrees with me?  Just clap if you agree with me.  (Lots of applause here... ed.!)  Otherwise, ladies and gentlemen, why would Star Trek be so successful?  Why would you all be here if you weren't wildly interested in other forms of life.  Right?  You're all intelligent, educated people. Right?  Done. Solved.  Of course.  There are aliens.

Next question.

Q12:  Miss Mulgrew... here on the balcony.  Good morning and welcome in Germany. I have a question.  What was your most beautiful experience in your life?

KM:  Oh I love questions like that.  But you know we need a good bottle of wine and about 5 hours.  I've had so many.  I have had so many.  I have had such a charmed life.  Difficult, at times, and a lot of tragedy, but so much joy.  I mean, I've had children whom I adore.  I've sailed the seas.  I just dove with the whales last week.  I was in the Sea of Cortez on a raft.  A very small rubber raft about as big as that platform and I was surrounded by 8 blue whales...one flick of the fluke and I would have been a missing number.  And it was just myself and the guide and do you know what he said to me?  "They know exactly where we are.  They're more sensitively aware of you than you are of them".  Joyful experience, right?  Then I go back to the boat, and I go down to dinner, dinner's over and I'm sitting and talking some people and I look across the room and I see my 13 year old son engaged in an animated conversation with an 87 year old woman.  And I see him embrace her.  And I think to myself - these are the moments I live for.  But they happen to me all the time.  I think life is really about a gift of happiness, isn't it?  It's just saying, this is a hell of a trip, isn't it?

Q12:  Thank you.

KM:  Thank you.

Q13:  Hello.... Hi Kate.  In the middle, down here.

KM:  Ya!  There you are!

Q13:  Welcome to Germany.  First of all I would like to tell you that I think you are a very disciplined and talented and brilliant actress...

KM:  Thank you.

Q13:  And then I learned that unfortunately you don't do the autograph session and I was a bit disappointed about that but I heard that the money goes to charity when you buy an autograph and I would like to know to which charity and why you don't do the session?

KM:  Well I signed thousands of pictures ..

Q13:  Oh those are the ones that are sold, maybe...

KM:  And sent them.  You know there is never enough time.  I would like to do nothing better than sign an autograph for you, right, so we'll arrange that.

But these charities are very dear to my heart. I think that when you are given a job of such privilege as I have, it's very important to give back.  And throughout my life I've had charities that I've espoused.  Some have been dearer to me than others.  Of late, for the last four years I've become involved with an organization called the Incarnation Children's Centre which is for children with AIDS in Harlem.  They're children who are usually just dumped on the doorstep - mothers are usually crack addicts, no father to be found.  Their life span will be seven to nine years at most.  But in this facility they are not only given medical care, but every child has a caretaker, so they're given love.  And I think, of all the things you could say about the great tragedy of life is not so much that we have to suffer physically - my guess is that 99% of you in here will suffer physically before you die, in one way or another.  That's part of life.  But the inexcusable tragedy in life is that we should die alone. Don't you agree?

Q13:  Yes, I do.

KM:  And even worse than that is that a small child should die without love.  So in this house they are given love, and sent to their deaths with warmth.  And that, to me, is the most important thing.

Yes!

Q14:  Good morning Kate.  I wanted to say that you are a great inspiration for me and I think for any woman in this hall and in the world...

KM:  Thank you.

Q14:  And I have a rather different question.  Are you aware of the slash stories on the Internet?

KM:  Slash stories?

Q14:  I will explain...

KM:  Sounds spooky...

Q14:  They are stories that are romantically involving the characters of the series in a homoerotic way.

KM:  Homoerotic?

Q14: Homoerotic... yes.

KM:  Hmmm... this could be interesting...

Q14:  And I wanted to ask if you would play something like this?  The stories .... Chakotay and Paris, or somebody like this...

KM:  I'm lost on this.  Is she saying that this is on the Internet?

Q14:  This is on the Internet, yah...

KM:  Is Janeway doing homoerotic things?

Q14:  Yes.

KM:  Is she good?  (much laughter and applause here, ed.!)

Q14:  Yes.

KM:  I mean, I can't keep up with it all.   Yes darling....

Q15:  I forgot what I was going to say... When you auditioned for the role of Janeway, were you aware of the Star Trek movement or was it just another show for you?

KM:  Well I was aware of it, of course.  I mean you'd have to be really out of it...

Q15:  Was that one of the reasons why you auditioned for it?

KM:  No, it wasn't.  And I'll tell you story, because it's sort of interesting how it happened.  Do you want to hear it?

Q15:  Of course!

KM:  I was in Ireland with my sons, spending the summer on the west coast of Ireland in County Kerry when my manager called and said "I think you should get on a plan and come home because they're looking for a new female captain for Star Trek", right?  And I thought, I mean I didn't know, exactly, the ins and outs of the whole affair, so I thought, oh, they must be looking for a new lead in one of the movies, those Star Trek movies that they do, right.  So I say to him of course I'm not going to interrupt my only holiday with my sons - I'm not coming home.  When I finally got to New York, about a month later he called me and he said "They haven't cast it yet, they're down to the wire.  So why don't you run down to Times Square and they'll put you on tape".  So in the pouring rain I went down, right?  I mean I was a sopping, soggy, rag when I got into that room, right.  Can you imagine Janeway in this gray rain coat, right, with my sun glasses, my hair pfffft, and they handed me three pages of technobabble and I just said to the camera 'you guys have got to be kidding'.  And I did it.  But it was appallingly bad.  And then I got into the taxi and raced uptown because I was meeting somebody there I was very fond of.  And when I saw this person I was very fond of, he said "what is that under your arm?"  And I said 'oh this thing I just auditioned for but it's impossible, I'll never get it.'  He said, "Let me take a look at it."  I said 'don't even bother, let's have a drink, it's not going to happen, blah, blah, blah, blah..."  He looked through it and he said "You're going to do it".  I said 'now why would you say that?'  He said "Precious, you're going to play Captain Janeway".

And then, of course, I went home to Los Angeles and they told me it was cast.  It's cast.
Who's doing it?  Genvieve Bujold, this French Canadian actress.  I said, okay, well, we'll put that one to bed.  Then they call a week later and say "Guess what.  She quit."  I said, okay, it's time for me to have a major meeting with my people.  My agent, my manager, my lawyers.  I get them all in a room and I say 'I pay you guys good d money, don't I?  Get me in that room.  I want to audition for this.  Get me in that room with all the big guys.  I want the top brass.  I want one more shot.  Just do that for me and we'll call it square.'

And they did.

Had me in.  I got home.  They called me in for the next day.  I went back in.  There were four of us.  That was it.  We each had to go in - network, contract sign - we all gave our little audition.  I'll never forget it because I remember there was much laughter in the room with the actress who went in before me.  There was laughing and there were gales of laughter and I thought 'this woman must be intoxicating'.  I was sitting in the hallway and I thought 'I just can't go in there and crack jokes'.  I just went in and I did it.  I went home.  Nothing.  We were celebrating a high Jewish holiday called Yom Kippur, right. I heard nothing for two days.  I said to myself 'that's it.  I gave it my best shot.  I'm very very sad, obviously, it's not working.' And on that day I did go to the supermarket to get my groceries for the week all by myself.  Pulled my car back home and into the driveway, and my two sons and my housekeeper were standing on the porch... "Come in, come in, listen to the messages on the machine, you've got to listen to them."

I go in, and there's this message, and there's that message, and then there's this message: " Kate Mulgrew..... (here the tape is blank for a few seconds....ed.!)

I said to my children and to my housekeeper 'everybody on your knees' and we did!  Our Father who art in heaven... I said while you're on your knees could you get that bottle of champagne and let's get rolling!

Q15:  Very lucky for us.

KM:  It was wonderful.  Thank you.

Q15:  I've also been asked to pass a letter on to you from a young lady up on the balcony.  Her name is Serita.

KM:  Serita.  Thank you, Serita.  Where are you...?

Ahhh.... See the baby.  Where's the baby?  Ahhh... look at that cute baby.  That baby has no clue what's going on in this room, do you know that?  It just wants to take its nap have its baba!  Does anybody remember being a baby?  You know when people say to you "Don't you remember, I remember when I was a little baby"  I say 'what are you, some kind of a genius?'  My earliest memory was when I was about 12.  All right.  Next question.

Q16:  I only have one little question.  Are you proud of being the first woman ever being a captain in Star Trek?

KM:  Where are you?

Q16:  Here.  On the balcony!

KM:  Oh!

Q16:  Once again on the balcony.

KM:  This is like a nightmare, isn't it?  Here, on the balcony!  I can never see you people on the balcony!

Am I proud?  Of course I'm proud.  I'm deeply proud.  Put yourself in my shoes.  What an exalting moment that was.  And quite a miraculous moment.  Because you know in the moment that it's happening the greater part of the joy, is the joy that you're playing such a marvelous role.  But right next to it is the knowledge, the full knowledge that you're making history.  And that is pretty overwhelming, isn't it?  So of course, I'm deeply proud.  Yes.  Next question.

Q17: Here Kate, on your left side.  It seems we all know about Shatner's wig problems, we know...

KM:  Shatner's wig problem...?  There's somebody else?

Q17: Stewart's bald as is Avery Brooks.  It seems sooner or later Star Fleet captains lose their hair.  Aren't you afraid of that?

KM:  You know what?  I mean, I don't want to sound rude ladies and gentlemen, but I'd like to lose my bloody hair!  It's been such a pain in the neck, about the hair.  They never leave my hair alone.  And here's another problem I have personally as an actress.  I am not a cosmetic actress.  Do you know what I mean when I say that?  I don't like to be touched.  I can do my hair and my makeup and get into my costume in seven minutes flat.  I got into my wedding dress in four.  I don't like the puff and powder routine. Right.  But these guys are so obsessed with my four strands of hair.  And you want to know why?  It's because I'm a girl.  They didn't bug Patrick Stewart, did they?

Q17:  They couldn't.

KM:  That's another thing!  I hate it about the hair.  Ugh.

Q18:  Hi Kate.  I'm in the balcony.  You're going to hate this but I am next to the spotlight.

KM:  And you're English.  Where are you from?

Q18:  I'm German, actually, but I live in England now, so, and I lived in America so everybody thinks I'm Australian, but I'm not!

KM:  This woman is an interesting hybrid, isn't she?  What is your question?

Q18:  Thank you.  Well, I want to ask you something about being an actress.  I'm a drama student in London.

KM:  How old are you?

Q18:  I'm 20.

KM:  Where are you in school?

Q18:  I'm in part time training at the Drama Studio, London, now, and I'm going into full time training at the Academy of Life and Recorded Arts in London so ...  Well anyways...   We always sit around and chat, you know, about what we want to do and the British people always say 'oh I want to be in the Royal Shakespeare Company once', you know, and so the rest of us always sit there and say we want to be in Star Trek because it's such a challenge as actors.  Do you think it's like that?  I mean they give you characters and then they leave it to you to take it really really far over years.  I mean you can develop it and you can go on a journey with this character.  Are you satisfied as an actress being in Star Trek or what else would you like to do after that?

KM:  I'm constantly challenged by Janeway, which is the only way for me to survive.
Who was I reading?  Do you know who Jerry Seinfeld is?  Do you get Seinfeld here?  Well you know it's a huge hit in the United States and now he's canceling it after nine seasons.  And they're quite amazed that he's canceling it.  I will get back to this.  But they're amazed because he turned down 5 million dollars.  He said "no because I need my life".  And finally at the end of the interview he said "I have never made a decision, a creative decision based on money and I never will".  So.  Getting back to your question.  I have never made a creative decision based on money; it's always based on the creative aspect.  Janeway, to me, is a constant and daily challenge.  Not just to fashion her, which I sort of did, out of clay, but to make her infinitely more interesting than she was the season before. To endow her with every facet and colour possible in my pallet over a six or seven year period.  It's hard.  It takes guts.  It takes talent, which I think I have, in limited doses.  I have guts, in bigger doses. And so I am challenged.  I am very excited by the possibility of fulfilling her and I am closer to her every day than you can possibly imagine. So I feel that I owe her, as one might feel one would owe one's best friend the best possible relationship that I can give her.  So it is greatly challenging, to answer your question.

Boy, that was a long-winded answer for such a short question.  Wasn't it?

Q19:  On your left, on your left.  First of all, it's a pleasure to see you on stage and thank you for being with us this morning.

KM:  Are you wearing a Star Fleet uniform?

Q19:  Yes I do.

KM:  Ah.  That's very good.  What are your colours?   Purple.  Command.

Q19:  Captain.

KM: Yup!

Q19:  And I am afraid I have to step into the role of the speakers earlier this morning by saying that over the years I also thought that Captain Janeway would be beautiful and charismatic but now I have to say I apologize.  Kate Mulgrew is charismatic and beautiful.

KM:  Ah.  Thank you.

Q19:  You're welcome.  And ...

KM:  It's going to be a happy birthday!  Yah!

Q19:  And my question is you talked earlier about your life and that the last four years are very beautiful and great for you.  Talking about your life, how do you feel about the fact that in one way there is your face on the action figures that the kids are playing with and on the other way sometimes there is a whole image of you on a life size stand up.  How do you feel about that?

KM:   How would you feel about that?  I think that little action figure is ... frightening.
I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley.  Would you? But I've got a story about it.
I mean I don't really think about it, because I can't think about it.  Do you understand, that I just can't think about it?

Q19:  Yes, I do.

KM:  Little action figures, and big rubber dolls and stuff like that.  But I was driving home from work last year.  I was driving home in my Jeep, you know.  Sunset Boulevard. I pull up to a stoplight, and next to me is a guy in a Mercedes. Looked like a lawyer, right.  I mean his Mercedes and he's got a suit on, his glasses, and he's got, hanging from his mirror a Janeway doll. Right.  So I thought 'hell, I'll give him a little thrill.'  I went beep beep - Hi!  Beep beep beep beep.  I pointed to the doll, I pointed to myself.  He puts down his window and he says "What's your problem lady, want me to call the cops?"  So much for those little action figures!

Q20:  Hello.  Hello.  On the balcony.

KM:  On the Balcony.

Q20:  I have a friend, and everybody says of her that she really looks like you, that she looks like a second Captain Janeway.  And we would like to see this.  Can she perhaps come to the stage.

KM:  She should come down here right now. I want to see her.  Don't you want to see her?  Meanwhile somebody else should ask a question.

Q21:  First I would like to say that Captain Janeway has been a real role model for me these last few years.

KM:  Thank you.

Q21:  I have a bit of a technical question about the show.  All the Maquis wear these little bars on their collars instead of the pips.  What's that?

KM:  Well, they're not Star Fleet.

Q21:  Ya but Tom Paris wasn't Star Fleet either and he's wearing the pips.  He was fired from Star Fleet.

KM:  But he was rehired by me.

Q21:  Okay.

KM:  As Star Fleet.  Yah.  The Maquis symbol is the Maquis symbol, you know.  They're not one of us.  And so they have their own.... I think that was a nice thing that Janeway did to give them their own symbol.  Don't you?

Q21:  I don't know.  It still marks a difference after four years.

KM:  And you know, I think that's an interesting point that you raise, because I think that something that's missing - I've discussed this with the writers -I think that there should be more agitation between the Maquis and Star Fleet.  You know they let go that very quickly, very quickly.  And they shouldn't have done it.  Right?  I mean Chakotay is a fierce and courageous warrior but by the end of the pilot he was completely on Janeway's side.  Now that's great.  But I think we need to see some of that fierce warrior, don't you?  I mean where is it written that he can't countermand my orders and see what happens?  I think he should try that.  Be fascinating, wouldn't it?

I think that when people are lost in space - I think I'm a little too into this role, don't you?!  When any group of people are together for an extended period of time, in confining circumstances like Voyager, tensions arise, don't they?  You think everybody's going to get along like a house on fire?  There's going to be all kinds of mishaps.  Relationships are going to fall apart and certain new ones will evolve.  And there will be agitation and there will be dissent and I think that we need a little bit more of that on Voyager. Just a little bit more.  I think it must be awfully lonely and awfully frightening to be out there for four years, don't you?  I want to see those stakes raised just a little bit.

Where is this girl who looks just like me?  Come on.  Oh look at how pretty she is.  She's all dressed up.  Come on out here.

Hi.  How are you?  Now let's see.... How old are you?

Q22:  17.

KM:  And what is your name?

Q:  Stephanie.

KM:  She does look like me, doesn't she?  Doesn't she?  Very very nice.  Very pretty.  Thank you for coming down.  Is this the dress that I wore in the holodeck?
How did you... did you make it?

Q22:  My mother...

KM:  Your mother made it.  So do you watch Voyager all the time?

Q22:  No....

KM:  You don't want to be an actress.  Do you think it would be awfully arrogant for me to tell her that she looks very beautiful to me?  You do!  Thank you so much for coming down.  Thank you.  Let's give her a hand.  Watch your step there... very dark.  Pretty!

Q23:  In the middle.

KM:  I'm not finished with this yet!  You know when somebody says that you look like somebody you have to stare at that person for a long time.  She's lovely, isn't she?  All right.  Yes?

Q23:  Now Kate.  There are some people...

KM:  Did you get that tone in his voice... Now Kate, come back to earth, I have a question!   Yes?

Q23:  There are some people like Robert Beltran who like to imitate you.  What about you?  Can you imitate him or the other actors?

KM:  Can I?  Or will I?  You know they spend a lot of time doing that, don't they... those guys.  They should be studying their scripts!  I would imitate them for you except it's so bad at two o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday morning, when we've been shooting for 18 hours.  Do you know how bad they are?  Oh Tim Russ didn't tell you how bad he is?  You don't know the story?  How bad he is?

Two o'clock in the morning.  We've been shooting for 18 hours.  It's my close up.  The ship is rockin' and the ship is rollin', right.  I'm 40 years old.  I need to go home, right?  He's off camera, my close up.... Ayyyyay... in the middle of my close up when I'm talking about getting back....pffft!  Spit ball in my head!  I said 'let's cut'.  I said 'Tim, I'm going to give you one more chance.  Bud.'  Okay.  'If that hits me again - you are dead'.  And then you know what he does.  'Cause men like to do this.  Guys like to do...
"Ohhh... I'm shakin' in my boots.... Ohhh , I'm a dead...."  I said 'all right, let's roll, action, close up'... I'm crying.... Pffft!  I said 'have you liked your life? 'Cause it's over'.

He's joking, we do it again.  We finally do it, we print it.  That's a wrap.  Everybody go home.  And I just say 'Goodnight honey, you're a dead man.'  Right.   No, no, no... that's not the end.  You think I don't know how to keep my promises?  I'm Irish.

I say to the wardrobe guy, who's got the keys to all the trailers, 'Matt, do you love me? You like your job?'  I said 'do me a favour.  Go into Tim Russ's trailer.  I want you to remove every article of clothing, most importantly, his underwear.  I want you to get his car keys, his pants, his underwear, his shirt his jacket.  You may leave one sock and one shoe.'  Matt did this for me.

I come to work in the morning; I'm in the makeup trailer.  Tim comes in "Morning everybody..."  I said 'hi Tim, how are you?'  "I'm just fine Captain, how are you?"  I said 'Oh boy...'

I leave, I go into my trailer for the first time.  I put my key in my door, I open my door, walk in.  Something's different in my trailer.  On every wall, in every corner of that entire trailer were photographs, Polaroid photographs of a certain part of Tim Russ's anatomy!

Thanks, sweetie.  Well, if I start doing this now...I won't ... oh you're here.  Well we'll do this quickly.... I don't think this is fair, actually, is it?  Oh, hang on... let me...

To finish the story.  Not only did he have these photographs of his bare bottom all over.  But under each one he had a little... line.  Like, 'you will kiss this for the next four years!'

So that's just an idea of what goes on, on Star Trek: Voyager.

Yes darling?

Q24:  ?

KM:  We have a member of my Fan Club here, thank you.  Hello.  All you ladies from Now Voyager, thank you for coming.  Where are you?

That's my Fan Club.  Aren't they nice?  All two of them!

Oh... I love it!  I have a little puppy in a basket.  Is that for my birthday?  Thank you.   Thank you very much ladies, for coming.

Anneke?  Oh.  How lovely. She's a member of the Fan Club too.  Thank you very much.  Is that for me too?  I can't... oh... isn't life hard... I can't carry all my presents!

All right.  Does anybody have another question?

Q25:  Hello...

My point is they are very very naughty men!

Q25:  Yes.  This is a practical question.  I read somewhere that you said that exercise in women of a certain age is borderline unattractive.

KM:  I said what!!?

Q25:  That exercise in women of a certain age is borderline unattractive, and that you didn't actually exercise.  And since then I have read you have now a personal trainer.

KM:  Ohhh, God!

Q25:  What's the regime?  For those of us who are of a certain age?  And does it help you with Captain Janeway.

KM:  Where are you first?

Q25:  I'm on the balcony, again.  To your right, slightly.

KM:  You know, I hate to be a hypocrite, but I guess I am one.  However let me expound for one second.

Yes it does help.  But don't forget.  Don't forget ladies, I have to get into a size 4 space suit.  You'd work out too, wouldn't you?  I mean, Captain Janeway weighing in at 250 pounds just ain't gonna cut it!  Red Alert! Right! Ship'll ...boomp!  I have to.... I have to look all right in that space suit.  So about a year ago, after all these years of not exercising, I sort of thought 'it's time to get it together'.  So I do.  I will admit to this.  And I admit to it with a hesitation.  I do have a personal trainer. I run every day, and you know, I do sit-ups.  But it's pretty boring.  I think it's boring.  Exercise is not... I mean how interesting is exercise?  In and of itself, how interesting is it?  It's not, is it?  It's good to feel good about your body.  It's good to feel good about your body, yah, but... you go to the gym and those women are in there for four hours ...haugh, ugh, haugh, sweat...and I just don't think it looks so great.  Do you?

 I think we have a lot of fitness buffs in this audience!

Anyway to answer your question, yes, I do work out now.

Yes sir?

Q26: Hello, yes, I'm on your left.

Q27: Hello...

KM:  I thought, he has a very high voice...

Q26:  On your left.  My question relates to what you said earlier about relationships on Voyager.  Do you really want to go ahead and have a relationship with Chakotay? Because I think Bruce Willis had a series called 'Moonlighting'.  When those two characters got together the series was canceled after another season. And don't you think it's much more interesting to keep the tension?

KM:  I do absolutely. I said we will develop this relationship further in terms of its intensity.  In terms of its confidentiality. In terms of its colours.  Where is it written that Janeway can't have an intimate relationship with him without sleeping with him?  I don't think she will sleep with him.  Somebody has to run the ship, you know.

I think sex... I'll be really frank about this... I have not resolved this completely yet.  All right.  Will you give me that?  I haven't.  It's an ongoing process.  But I think sex for a female captain is not the same as it is for a male captain.  What's good for the goose ain't necessarily good for the gander.  Things change.  At least they do in my opinion.  Wouldn't most of you women agree with me?

I'm not being sexist about it.  I'm being quite practical and serious about it.  Who wants to see their female captain running around having love affairs?

Q26:  Why not?

KM:  Because in my experience, madam, having a love affair requires a great deal of time and energy. Doesn't it?  And once you give your heart to a man, not to mention your body, at least if you're a woman whom I would hold in high regard, you're going to be distracted.  When I have fallen in love I have been very distracted.  Have you not?

Well I have to run this ship.  I've got 160 people on this ship. And we're 75 light years from home. I don't think I can afford that kind of an indulgence at this point.  But I think that I can afford an intimate relationship with a man that I love. Yes.  But they're different, aren't they?

Sex for women, at least for me, is different than sex for men, as we all know!  I mean, hah!  Please! Why am I talking to you like you don't know it?  This is Anatomy/Biology 101.  Men have a certain part of their anatomy that's a little bit different!  Makes it all very, very different!

Yah!  That voice is...Yah?  Where are you?  Are you on the balcony?

Q28:  No, I'm on your right.

KM:  There you are.

Q28:  First of all, it's nice to see you again.  And I wanted to ask - before Star Trek what was your most rewarding work experience you had?

KM:  In film, or in the theatre?  Because it was in the theatre.

Q28:  Film. Film or TV.

KM:  She's not interested in my theatre career.  Ohhh... what would it be?  I've worked a lot in television.  God.  I did a mini series that I loved which is... it's quite some time ago now.  It was called "The Manions of America".  I loved that.  And I loved the life of St. Elizabeth Seton, our first American saint.  That was a great role to play.

But I think my greatest personal successes have been on the stage. "Hedda Gabler", probably.  "The Aristocrats", Shakespeare in the park,  Broadway, have been my happiest experiences.  I'm happiest on the stage.  I'm most comfortable.  I like this relationship.  It suits me and I understand it. You are there, I'm here, there's a chemistry between us.  I can touch you and feel you. I can... your response is immediate to me.

The camera.  The camera is very dangerous and mystifying and baffling sometimes.  And can be very, very critical.  If the camera doesn't like you, you could be the greatest actress in the world and you are not going to look good.  So my challenge with the camera is to seduce the camera. It's very hard to do that.  Because you have to forget about it.  And it's really hard to forget about a machine that is six inches in front of your face.  Rolling film.  You know?  Anyway, that's my answer.

Now this gentleman.  I'm dying to hear your voice!

Q27:  Hi Kate.  I'm very happy to be here at FedCon 6 and this is a present for you.

KM:  This is your present.  Thank you, look at this lovely present.

To Kate, my favourite actress from Mark ....

Q27:  ......(?ed.!)

KM:  Well, I tried.  It's lovely.  Thank you.

Q27:  I have one other question.

KM:  Yes, yes?  We're going to have to open up this shuttlecraft pretty soon!
Thanks Angie, thanks sweetie!

Did you meet Tim Russ's sister, Angela?  Angela, come out here.  She's an old buddy of mine.  She knows that her brother is a 'dead man'!  Take a bow,  take a bow.  There you go Angie.  He's so lucky.  Gets to take his sister with him.

Yes, what is your question?

Q27: How do you get the job and Voyager and your children?

KM:  How did I get the job on Voyager and how did I get the job of my children?

Q27:  Yes.

KM:  Back to sex!  I think your question is how do I manage to do them both.  Right?

Q27:  Yes.

KM:  That's all I do.  I don't do anything else.  I have no time for anything else. So.  That's it.  I shoot all day, and I come home and I'm with them at night. And I'm with them on the weekends. And I love to cook. So that becomes the centrepiece of the house. The kitchen.  Whenever possible I love to cook dinner. And we have big meals on the weekends.  And that is my focus.  That's it.  It's a discipline.  But it works. It's a joy, too, to serve people that you love.  So it's no hardship right now.  I miss.... You know, the silly things of life very much, but it's not a hardship.  That's how I do it.

Thank you.

Q28:  Hello.  We have here in the hall, we have this little baby... and you know the classic American movie with Judy Garland where she is singing this great song 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'...

KM: Yes....

Q28:  And so for the little baby can you please sing this song, 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow?

KM:  But I can't sing!  You know that I can't sing!

Q28:  We'll find out.

KM:  Where is this baby?  Where's the baby?  Uh huh?  I want to see the evidence.  Where's the baby?

KM:  Singing:   Somewhere, over the rainbow
                          Bluebirds fly
                          Birds fly over the rainbow,
                          Why then, oh why can't I?

KM:  Hello sweetie...(in German) what is this?   These are slash stories.  I have to tell you the truth.  Not madly interested in them. You know what I mean? It's pornography? Right?  Not high on my list.

Next question.

Q29:  Hello, nice to meet you Kate.  Before I come to my question, I'm here in the middle, before I come to my question, I would like to add something you your beginning speech when you told all of us which would be necessary to tell the population, not to all of us because we are fans already.  Which would be the fact that Star Trek itself worthy doing it, is worthy being spread around the world.  Because my observation is that it adds one point to the thinking... tolerance, the concept of tolerance is not passive, it's active.  That's the point it adds that's new to the thinking in Europe, actually.  Because tolerance here is mostly considered to let the other be which means to be ignorant and which means to .... Just don't care about.  This is not tolerance.  Tolerance is an active concept that tells everybody, well, if the other one is different then step in and help him to remain different if he wants to be.

KM:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.

Q29:  And that's what I learned from Star Trek.

KM:  Well, God bless you.

Q29:  Thank you.

KM:  You see how smart she is?  She's absolutely right.  She speaks a great truth.  Tolerance is not compromise.  Right!  Tolerance takes bravery. Doesn't it.

Q29:  It takes courage.

KM:  And a lot of energy.  Absolutely.  Well said madam.

Q29:  And now my question.

KM:  Oh!

Q29:  This is a .... The question is more simple I guess.  I have to run a team of men as well.  Where I have to... I'm working  in the field of finances...

KM:  Lucky you!

Q29:   And mostly I have to work with men because this is a male subject, mostly...

KM:  And you're in charge...

Q29:  And the problem is since I'm ordering them it's.... okay.  I mean my problem is that I really don't like to give orders.  I would prefer to have, well, a general conscious of what is to do and what would be the best benefit for the group. And they don't accept this because their private interests are more and more urging.  So what I don't know is do I have to stand the problem that I don't like to give orders, but I'm ordering them or is there any chance to get them into teamwork?

KM:  What is your name?

Q29:  My name is Ange ? And I'm a Member of Parliament of Germany, a member of the committee of budget.

KM:  I think the men are trying to tell you something, if you listen.

Q29:  Yah?

KM:  I think the men are trying to say that they need you to give them orders.  Because they are not prepared yet, to do it the other way.  That takes time.  That's a transition period.  We're not ready for it yet.  They need you to give them orders.

Q29:  I was hoping you were saying that to me.

KM:  Anyway, it's fun.

Q29:  Sometimes, yah.  I thank you!

KM:  It's fun.   Yes?

Q30:  I'm on the balcony!  And I've got another delicate question for you.

KM:  A delicate question...?

Q30:  Yes.  I Deep Space Nine we saw two women kiss.  When do we see something like this in Voyager?

KM:  Are you personally interested in this?

Q30:  Yes.

KM:  Oh.  We're talking about the homosexual society and when it will be represented.  Is that correct?

Q30:  Yah, if you want.

KM:   I think that's very fair. I don't know when.  We don't have any senior officers who are gay.  Do we.  But I imagine it can, and should be explored.  Homosexuality is a fascinating issue to me because so many of my friends are homosexuals.  I think it's time that we recognize, in a very profound way, the dilemma of the homosexual in our society.  And exalt them, if possible.  So I would embrace it, madam, I think.  I would like to see it represented on my show.  And I would like to see it represented with dignity and intelligence.  Do you agree with that?

Q30:  Yah.

Q31:  Hello Kate.

KM:  Hello.  Where are you?

Q31:  ..... I want to ask, have you a favourite character you want to play?

KM:  Do I have a favourite character I want to play.  Yes, I do. I want to play Lady MacBeth.  And I would love to play Masha in Chekov's 'Three Sisters'.  I better hurry up!  'Cause she's young.  Those two are on the top of my list.  Pretty good, aren't they?

Q32:  Miss Mulgrew?

KM:  Where are you?  Ah, I like it when you are on the right side.  I can see you!

Q32:  First of all I want to say you look beautiful today, like always.

KM:  Thank you.

Q32: And you said you played in "The Manions of America"  and I have a question to that...and I want to ask you what was it like to kiss Pierce Brosnan?

KM:  I'm going to disappoint you all, because we didn't have any sexual chemistry.  Listen, if you were disappointed can you imagine how I felt!

Q32:  Yes I can!

KM:  I loved him!  He was great, and we were great pals, but we had no sexual chemistry.  And you know that really hot scene where we were making out.... Nothing! Acting 101!  He fell madly in love while we were doing that.  And I must say I was engaged to be married as well, so I think our minds were elsewhere.  Quite a career ascendancy for Pierce though, wasn't it?  One of 16 children.  His father was a small farmer in Ireland.  He took me to the 'hut' he grew up in.  I thought this is why life is so exciting. Out of nothing.  This marvelous career.  And this wonderful human being.  You know he had a terrible tragedy.  His beloved wife, whom he met and fell in love with on "The Manions of America" and married, died, three years ago, of cancer and left him with four children.  He's a great guy, Pierce.  That's so Irish of me to finish up with a tragic point like that, isn't it?

Yes.  You.

Q33:  Hi Kate

KM:  Are you speaking to me?

Q33:  I will say I'm really happy that you're here, I think you are a really nice person.

KM:  Thank you.

Q33:  And my question is what was your most remarkable moment in your career?  Maybe in Star Trek, maybe your most embarrassing moment or the funniest moment?  What do you remember?

KM:  Embarrassing...

Q33:  Or funny...

KM:  Funny.  I'm a pretty serious worker.  I'll tell you the truth.  Right.  I mean when I get down to it, there's very little nonsense, but I do have a problem.

None of my fellow actors are in this building, are they?

I do have a problem, and they know it.  And it's called let's get the Captain.  Because once I start laughing, I wet my pants!  And they know that.  So I start to laugh and then I start to sob and it's all over.  And I'm on the bridge, right.  This is hopeless.  And they love to do it.  They're such idiots.  They love to do it!  Why do men love to do that to women?

They see me.  They know I'm weak.  I'm vulnerable. It's midnight.  I start to laugh.  I start to giggle.  And then I explode.  It's all over.  So. That's fair.

Q34: Hello.  To your right.

KM:  Yah?

Q35:  I think it's my turn now, on your left-hand side.

KM:  You think it's your turn. Is that you?

Q35:  Yes.

KM:  Strong.  What's your question?

Q35:  If a fairy came up to you and said 'you've got two wishes... one has to be completely selfish, and one has to be completely unselfish' what would it be?

KM:  I like this guy!

Q35:  I'm a girl!

KM:  It's a girl!  You have a rather deep voice!

Q35:  I think so, yah.

KM:  Very nice. Forgive me, but that was honest, right?

Q35:  Yes.

KM:  Nice voice, and a very good question.  What's your name?

Q35:  Christiana.

KM:  Christiana.  Very good question.  If a fairy came, and I could have selfish wish, it probably.... Selfish....aren't they all selfish.

Q35:  Depends, doesn't it.

KM:  It would probably be that I would become a really great actress in the theatre.  In the New York theatre.

The unselfish wish would be that I would die a deeply good and humble person.  That's the answer.

Q35:  Thank you.

KM:  I mean, it's very tough to answer a question like that, isn't it?  I need to think about that a little bit. Lots of selfish wishes.

Who's up?  Just wave...

Q36:  Don't ask, I'm on the balcony.  So.  I see you here on stage and I have just one question.  How was it for you to play Rambo?  Because, how to say it, you are so smart and warm, and then this one episode you were firing at aliens and ...

KM:  Not Rambo, Rambette!

I'll tell you something.  This is tooting my own horn....  I love to be physical in this role. I do all my own stunts.  Very seldom is that my stunt double doing that stuff.  So I loved it!  Every now and then it's very good to show that side of her.  She's quick.  She's agile. She's strong.  She can defend that ship physically if she has to do it.  Didn't you like it?

Q36:  Yes.  Very. Very much.

KM:  Anyway.  I think it was sort of a refreshing change that she wasn't yakking away a mile a minute, don't you?

Q36:  It was refreshing, yes.

KM: Janeway... blah blah blah blah!

Yes.  Next question.

Q37:  Here.  In the middle.

KM:  Going, going, going....yes you.

Q37:  Okay. First of all, thank you for your understanding for gays.  I'm gay, and blind on one eye.  I think in every century there is a problem for minorities to be normal.  Thank you.  Did you meet Peter Falk?  You were Mrs. Columbo in a spin off series.  We've never seen it here in Germany.  Could you tell us about it?

KM:  I never met Mr. Falk.  He is referring to a series I did when I was a very young woman called Mrs. Columbo.  But I was only 23 when I did it, and I was too young to be his wife.  And the audience knew that.  So I'm 23, playing 37, to a man who is ostensibly 55, whom we never see.  It was doomed to fail, wasn't it?  But it was fun while it lasted.

No.  I never met him and he declined coming on my show and he was quite right.  So.  Thank you.

Q37:  Next week you have a birthday.  How do you spend this day?

KM:  Oh, God!  Is it next week already?  I'm not really thrilled about 43!  I'll be on a ship with my mother, sailing up the Aegean Sea, the Turkish coast.  Not bad, right.

And apropos of your question, and yours, madam, about homosexuality.  Let me make myself very very clear about the essence of the problem.  I think what's lacking in our society is compassion.  You know, I have a great fear of radical people and of radical thought.  It is very, very important that we open our hearts before we open our mouths.  Right?  That's really where I stand on that.

Yes?

Q38:  Hello Kate.  First of all, I'd like to thank you for doing such a wonderful job.  And the question is; we used to see a lot of episodes where Janeway saves the ship single handedly, and I like those episodes very much, but it seems to have stopped a bit after  'Macrocosm' actually.  And are we going to see more of those kinds of episodes?

KM:  Well, you're going to see something that.... I don't know how you'll react to it.  You know our new character, 7 of 9, who's half Borg and half human, has done a lot of saving the ship this last season.  So I think we need to now find a balance where everybody gets a chance to save the ship.

Q38:  Okay, I see.

KM:  Especially my senior staff.  I'd like to see Chakotay save the ship, wouldn't you?

Q38:  Ya, why not?

KM:  And Ensign Kim could save the ship every now and then, couldn't he?  He's always down there on that holodeck with those girls!  Ensign Kim.  Is he something, or what?  One of the 50 most beautiful people in the world, People Magazine called him.  The luck of him!

Yes?  Next question.

Q39:  Hello Kate.

KM:  Hello, is that you?

Q39:  Ya, it's me.  I have a few questions.  First, do you always get the Voyager script in time? And how fast can you learn it by heart?

KM:  Never do we get it in time! Never.  I'm calling.... I must call six times on the day that it's due. "When's the script coming?  Get the script, get the script, the script..." sometimes it doesn't get to my house until 10 o'clock at night and I've got to get up at 4:00.  But I have a wonderful, I have a wonderful memory. I can memorize things very quickly.  I have a really good process.  I have a trick that I've used since I was 17.

(here Tape 1 ended and several seconds are missing!)

.... And then when I get to it, if I forget what it really is, I go to the page in my memory and I can see it.  Do you understand?

Q39:  Yes. And do you check your mimic in front of a mirror?

KM:  Do I check my mimic?  I never do.... I stay away from the mirror.
 

(Gaps in tape here)

KM: I am never satisfied. The problem with having a good memory... now can I share this with you?  Now everybody in the audience who is an actor is going to go 'oh, she's showing off' but I'm not.  The problem with having a good memory is that I can usually get it in the first take. Right?  I can give you a performance in the first take.  But it's not what I really want to give you.  However, often they print it, because it's fine.  So you see, I have a real dilemma.  Sometimes I have to deliberately 'screw up' so I get another chance. Otherwise they'll do it in one or two takes.  And it's not usually until the fifth, or the sixth take that I really get what I want to get out of it.  It goes very fast.  That's hard for me.  Then I go back and I just beat myself over the head, you know?  It's never good enough.

Do you have another question?  No.

Q40:  Hello.  Miss Mulgrew?

KM:  Yes.

Q40:  I'm up in the balcony to your left. ..... My name is Kathleen, and my 6 1/2 year old daughter Casey would like to know where the bathrooms are on the Voyager?

KM:  Ohhh, Casey!  There are no bathrooms on Voyager!  People have asked this question.  I don't know where the bathrooms are.  I'd like to see the bathrooms.

You know, Genvieve Bujold asked that question.  That was her first question.  She walked on the bridge and they said 'and here's Ops, and here's the helm, and here's the science station, and here's the first officer's chair and here's your chair, and that's the turbolift you come off....  But... uh... where is the toilette?  I cahn't do this if I don't know where the toilette is...'  I didn't ask that question.  And I still don't know where the toilet is.  I'm sorry, Casey!

Q41:  Hello Kate.  Down here to the right, please.  The question I wanted to ask you has already been asked, but, Voyager is my favourite series...

KM:  Thank you.

Q41:  All the time we were looking at Janeway talking like this and acting like this and now I meet you here in person, and I have to say you are a really lovely person, I really love you.

KM:  Thank you, how nice.  What a lovely thing to say.  Is Voyager your favourite series on the air?  Really.

Q41:  I am a Star Trek fan.  From the Star Treks, Voyager is my...

KM:  Oh.  I'm so glad.

Q41:  I also like Seinfeld a lot, but Voyager...

KM:  Seinfeld is great, isn't it? For laughs.  Thank you for that.
 

Q42:  Hello Kate.  I'm here on your left.

KM:  You're Austrian, aren't you? Are you Austrian?

Q42:  No, I'm a German.

KM:  Oh.  She sounded like Meryl Streep in 'Out of Africa', didn't she.  'I had a farm...'
Yes, go on....

Q42:  No, I've got no farm.  First, I want to say, I really enjoy the time you spend with us...

KM:  I do too.

Q42:  And my question is how do you do the scenes when the ship is rocking.  When you go to the left and to the right.

KM:  Shake!  How do we do it?

Q42:  Yes.

KM:  Shake!  I don't even think about it any more. Shake!  Jolt!  Here's a jolt!  Here's a shake.

Q42:  Is it co-ordinated...

KM:  Here's a tremble.  Sometimes we have to do this. Right.  And people come in.  Friends come in or people that are just walking.... They're screaming with laughter.  We must look like a bunch of idiots.  Shake!  What is that woman doing up there?!

After a while... you know in the first season, talk about embarrassing, 'cause we all had to do it together.  Do you understand that?  Those big guys, they're all over six feet, right?  Here's this little woman ... and Shake, somebody screams!  But now, it's second nature to us. Really.  You should see it.

Q42:  Yes, I really enjoy....

KM:  But you're not hearing what's really going on, because somebody is calling out those shakes and jolts.  All that stuff has to be 'looped' in post production.  Every time you see a scene on the bridge where there is a shake or a jolt or something happening, all of that work has to be done again in post production, because of the sound problems.  So I find this to be one of the really difficult things of Voyager.  I 'loop' every single show.  Sometimes for hours.  Every time you see a turbolift door shut and somebody speaking, we have to 'loop' the whole scene.  It's very difficult that, that part.

Yes?

Q43:  Hello Kate.  I wanted to ask.  I heard you played in 'Measure for Measure'.

KM:  Yah!

Q43:  And I just wanted to know, which role?

KM:  Isabella.

Q43:  Oh. Yes.

KM:  Very difficult role, Isabella.  Torn between sex and God.  Ha.  What fun!

Yes?

Q44:  Hello.

KM:  Hello.

Q44:  I read that you are the niece of Katharine Hepburn.

KM:  Is that you, asking me?

Q44:  Yes.

KM:  No, I am not the niece of Katharine Hepburn.  The niece of Katharine Hepburn is Katharine Houghton.  She's much, much older than I am!  Thank you!

Next question.

Q45:  Hello.

KM:  (doing an excellent imitation, ed!) Anyway, do you think I sound like that woman,  do you?

Fascinating woman, Katharine Hepburn, don't you think?  I'll tell you why I think she's fascinating.  She elected to be a great movie star. For this she sacrificed love.  I am not prepared to do that.  She has no love in her life.  The one man she adored, Spencer Tracy, never left his wife to marry her, so she was his mistress, all those years. She never had a child.  And now she's all alone in Fenwick, staring out the window.  I think you have to go for love.  It's more important than being a star, don't you think?

How do I know though?  Maybe she made the right decision for herself.  I mean, maybe she made the right decision.

Yes?  Next question.

Q46:  'Allo?

KM:  Allo?

Q46:  I want to ask you a question.  When you see stars from ....., like when you see Nichelle Nichols which is a star here, how do think will be your relationship to Star Trek in 20 years?

KM:  Why are you all... I hear this low moan in the audience... ohhh... 20 years? Let's hope she's not alive in 20 years!

Ummmm.... I think that I will enjoy a wonderful relationship with Kathryn Janeway until the day I die.  I think that she will be respected, I think that she will be well liked, I think that I will have an ongoing dialogue with the fans about this, and I hope that it will never die.  Because I think that this is an extraordinary opportunity.  Don't you?

I mean, wouldn't it be great fun to come back here, with all of you, in 20 years?  And see how we feel about Star Trek.  It would be great fun.
 

Yes, darling?

Q47:   Hello.  I would like to say that I really enjoy the way you impersonate Captain Janeway, but I've got a question.  A few months ago, I saw 7 of 9, and my first reaction was 'where is David Hasselhoff?'  Are you reminded of 'Baywatch'  a bit?

KM:  Next question!  It's so hard for me, because I'm basically a very honest person.

It's a pretty knock out body, isn't it?  In a cat suit.  Listen.  That's their decision.  The higher ups decided on this.  She has a beautiful body.  And I think the young male demographic find it very compelling, and therefore we have made our adjustments.  I like this girl very much.  So... I can't really elaborate on that one too much.

Next.

Q48:  Hello.

KM: Yah?

Q48:  Over here, on the right.

KM:  On my right.  You.

Q48:  I was wondering how does it feel for you, when you see an episode with all the effects, all the sounds and everything added to it?  And how do you think, or do you even think about how the reaction fans will be to it?

KM:  Do actively worry or think about what the fans are going to think?  No.  I'm so completely immersed in it when I'm doing it.

Q48:  But do you feel like a fan when you are watching it, or do you feel like an actor?

KM:  Oh, I'm always overwhelmed when I see it.  The special effects on Voyager are unbelievable.  They have geniuses working in special effects.  In CGI with the computers and the opticals.  Don't you think they're extraordinarily well done?

Q48:  They sure are.

KM:  They're unparalleled in television. I am always impressed.  I gasp at it.  Some of those alien creatures, that I myself am grappling with?  You know what I'm really fighting, when I'm shooting it is a guy holding a big blue ball. Right.  A styrofoam ball, and I'm doing all this action, and then in post production they design the creature, and when I see how they have orchestrated this, I am just stunned.  These guys are really geniuses.  But that's a wonderful question.  Thank you.

Yes?

Q49:  Hello Kate.  I'm on your left-hand side.

KM:  Yes.

Q49:  And I have to admit I feel completely stupid standing here and I feel completely foolish...

KM:  Why?

Q49:  Because several people have told you how gorgeous you are, how beautiful you are, how much they love you and now I'm probably the 50, 70, 80 people who said this now to you.... Well my name is Katrin, which is the German version of Kathryn, and well since I know Captain Janeway I've started liking this name.  Before this I always wanted to have another name.

KM:  Did you...?

Q49:  And I was really happy when I heard that you were coming here. And I queued up for an hour to tell you this.  And I feel a little bit... well, I'm shivering, I'm shaking

KM:  Oh.  Don't shake.  How lovely of you to say this to me.

Q49:  And first I said to my friend who had to come with me, she's standing here, because I didn't dare, and I said no I can't, I'm not going, I'm not saying a word.  And what I wanted to tell you, that three years ago my father died, and after this I had a really terrible time.  And whenever I really felt small and bad I watched Voyager and I thought wow, you really want to be like this woman.  I really want to be like her.  Or I read about you, not just the character of Janeway, more about you, and your other films and... well I have your 'life height' stand up next to my bed as we are talking about this.  And I just wanted to tell you that you're one of the most important persons in my life for the last three years... and I hope that Voyager goes on for a long time.

KM:  Thank you.  What a wonderful thing to say.  Will you come up here?

Q49:  Oh my.

KM:  Come on up here.  Come on up here, sweetheart.  And you, her friend.  You come and take a picture.  Will you?  So she has this.  I can't thank you enough.  What a lovely thing to say.

(pause for a hug and applause)

Thank you.  Lovely girl.  Lovely.

Next.

Q50:  Hello Miss Mulgrew.  I'm on the balcony.

KM:  Everybody on the balcony sounds so mysterious. Don't they.  (deep voice) Hello.... I'm on the balcony....

Yes?

Q50:  Here.  Yes.  For your birthday I would like to spend you a cola, if you have the time.

KM:  What did she say?

Q50:  For your birthday, I would like to spend you a cola if you have the time.

KM: For my birthday she would like to spank me a cola?  I'm missing this.  What is she saying?

For my birthday you would like to buy me a Coca-Cola?

Q50:  I would love that!  I thought this was some German slang.  That you were going to spank me a cola.  I thought, well how interesting.  Does she spank me with the Coca-Cola?  Am I drinking the Coke while she's spanking me?  I'd love to have Coca-Cola with you.  What's your name?

Q50:  Sven.

KM:  Sven?  All right, I'll find you afterwards.

Q50:  Thank you.

KM:  Ya!

Yes?  Any more questions?

Q51: Hello, first of all.  What I wanted to ask is when we see Janeway, and the ship is in a fight for example and it's rocking and bouncing up and down and Janeway, for example slides against the wall and we see your hairstyle is a complete mess, and two seconds later we see it's perfect and I want to know, how does she do this?

KM:  The just won't let me... be. When I fall on the floor and my hair is a mess, that's normal, isn't it?  But they come at me.  Seven of them.  With big brushes and combs.  And I say, no, no, no - leave me.  And they come, and they swarm around me and they're finished I look like a 'little, little Barbie doll... it's sooo perfect'.  I don't know darling.  You would have to be there to see that I cannot fight.  They are so strong.  'You will let me do your hair, now!'

I don't know how other actresses do it.  I really don't.  Anyway.  That's the answer to that one.

Yes?

Q52:  Hi Kate.

KM:  Hi.

Q52:  I have a question also regarding 7 of 9.  I saw about the first three episodes with her, and I wanted to ask you how the relationship between 7 of 9 and Janeway will develop in the fourth season.  Because I thought that the beginning was very interesting.  She was very hostile and ....

KM:  The fourth season is all about the Captain and 7 of 9 and our relationship.  The entire season was dedicated to this relationship.  I thought it was overkill, myself.  I just did.  I think it's always boring when you focus too much on one relationship.  There are nine interesting people on the ship, right?

But I think they needed to establish her character, and now they've done that.  I think that our relationship will always be unpredictable.  That's what she brings to Voyager.  She brings a tension and an uncertainty.  You never quite know if she's with the Borg, or with us. Or where she stands.  But she has quickly become very important to the ship, and ship's systems.  She's very smart.  And I think that there is a chemistry between Janeway and 7 of 9 which seems to be enjoying some success, so I'm sure that it will be further explored.  But I have asked them very clearly and very firmly to be sure that they continue to balance the relationships on this ship.  It is a family. And it is imperative to me that everybody get equal story time.  Don't you think that's important?

Q52:  Yes. Thank you.

KM:  Yes?

Q53:  Miss Mulgrew, I'm on the balcony.  At the left spot.  Beneath the left spot.

KM:  I haven't seen any of you all day, on the balcony!

Q53: I'm here.  The left spot.

KM:  All right.  What's your question ma'am?

Q53:  I don't really have a question, I just wanted to thank you for being here, and to thank you for helping me through a life crisis... well not actually you, but Janeway.  What I wanted to say is we can learn from Janeway, from the character of Janeway.  It's a fascinating mixture of compassion, of strength, of discipline.  And I think it can help women a lot coming through problems.  I just, I wanted to thank you for that.

KM:  Boy, I hope so.  Thank you for that.  May I ask you a question?  Did you come through your life crisis all right?

Q53:  Yes I did.  It's the kind of life crisis which are not worth to be there, but which just happens...

KM:  Life is sometimes very hard, isn't it?

Q53:  It is, yes.

KM:  And we have to rely on everything possible to get us through.

Q53:  But as you said it's what life makes it interesting and fascinating and I also learned from this and it made me even stronger.

KM:  You make me very happy.  What a good job I have.  What a lucky woman I am, eh? What a marvelous thing for her to say.  Thank you very much for that.  Very moving.

Yes?

Q54:  After having to endure wigs for years, on Voyager, what took it for the producers to finally allow you to wear your own hair, to wear this hairstyle for the fourth season.

KM:  Me!  No more Mrs. Nice Guy!  I put up with it for three years, right?  I put up with their obsession about my hair.   Because I understood that they had to obsess about something.  They were worried.  They had a woman in the captain's seat.  So rather than just say 'God, we're so worried, is she going to succeed, is she going to be able to command this ship, is the audience going to accept her authority... rather than tell me the truth, they fixated on my hairdo. Right?  And it went up and it went down and it went over and then they shaved it and then they sawed it and then they flew it and then they blew it and then they whoop!  And at the beginning of the fourth season I just marched up to the offices and I said 'Are you all here, gentlemen?  Are you all met? Is everybody in power in this room?  Good.  Because here's the deal.  No more hairdos!  You've got to leave me alone.'

And I watch other actresses.  And I'm very impressed.  They take the time - 15 minutes - hair  - hair - and then oh oh oh oh  - don't let me forget - lips - lips.  Oh!  I'm just frantic.  I mean I can't!  I don't!  I can't do it!  When I'm in the scene, I'm in the scene.  And if you take me out for longer than a minute I just get ferocious.  So I said to them 'forget it.  Find something that works, find something that you think is attractive and we're going to call it a day. We're going to end this.'

So I'm sure next season it'll be blonde, and in some sort of pigtail or something...

Q54: Don't you think that your hairstyle in the first season, on Caretaker did make you look somewhat like a governess?

KM:  I think that that's flattering.  I thought it made me look like some axe murderer.
Haugh... hummm.... She had that little steel bun, that hair that never moved.  This is the 24th century?  I said if I met her on the street I would shriek!  Ghastly!  Ghastly!  And then it just got worse.  But it's going to be all right from now on you guys.  'Cause I'm going to have patience about it.  I'm not getting any younger, so I'm going to have patience about it. Don't you think I should have some patience? It's important to look in the mirror and try to be nice.  Ugh....

Yes?

Q55:  Hello.  You told us that you are married with a German, and where did you meet each other the first time?  I thought he was a director of Voyager...

KM:  I'm watching these lovers, down here...

Q55:  And second...

KM:  You two, you two...yah?

Q55:  How do your family live with Captain Janeway in their middle?

KM:  First of all I'm not married.

Q55:  Oh.

KM:  Nooo, I'm not married!

Q55:  You live together.

KM: No.  Keep going!  No.  But I like him a lot!  He is my... intimate companion.  I do not live with him.  I live with my sons. Alone.  And for this time I think that is the wisest course to take.  My plate is very full.  But, I adore him.  He is a wonderful part of my life.  He's a director in television, so he understands very much what the constraints of my life are.  And I must say I think I'm very lucky to have him in my life.  And I find the German male to be exceptional.  You know, I grew up with Irishmen, and I married an Irishman, and my boys are Irishmen. And I like them.  That's my clan.  But I find the German male to be, if I may whisper this, the most sensual, the most erudite, the best educated and the best mannered male I've yet encountered.

Q56:  Hello.  Hello.

KM:  Verrry nice, the German male!

Yes?

Q56:  Hello, hello?

KM:  Hello?  Good bye!  Where are you?  Science officer?  You!

Q56:  Last year Roxann Dawson did a little bit of technobabble for us and I wondered if you could do Janeway live, on stage.

KM:  You know, I really... it flies out of my head.  If you had the guys up here I could do a whole thing.  But I can't do it sort of off the bat.

Q56:  Could you do it on the closing ceremony?  Or aren't you there?

KM:  Do you mean just do technobabble?

Q56:  Yes.

KM:  Red alert stuff?  Roxann did that 'off the cuff'?  That little devil!  Did she?  She's one of my favourites, do you know that?  I love Roxann Dawson.  Isn't she divine? Huh?

Do you know that she had a little baby this year?  Did you know she had a baby?  And what do you think the executive producer said?  'Oh good, a little Klingon baby".  She's great, that girl.

I may do it. But I can't do it right now.  It just leaves me.  It leaves my head.  My head is so stuffed with it.  Can you imagine?  For 10 1/2 months I carry all that stuff in my 'memo bank', and I think when they call a wrap at the end of the season I just let it go. But I'll try to come up with something.  Robert Beltran did Hamlet, didn't he? Yah!  He gets to do Hamlet but you want me to do the bridge!

Yes, sweetheart?

Q57:  Three years ago we could see that Garrett Wang does a very funny Captain Janeway, and well, that's your chance to pay him back!  Could you do Ensign Kim?

KM:  I won't reduce myself to his level!  (much applause and laugher here! Ed.)

Q57:  That's an answer too!

KM: And I could see him, right.  Is that what he did?  Yah!  Hands on hips.  He's busy, isn't he, doing all those imitations. Script, script, script!

Q57:  Ya!  I think you paid him back!

KM:  Thank you!  Yes?

Q58:  Hello Kate.  I just want to know, what kind of music do you like?

KM:  I like all kinds of music.  Let's see.  What do I have in my car right now?  Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett.  And then I like rock and roll.  And then I like classical.  Beethoven. Your man Beethoven.  I like it all?

Q58:  Do you like Barry Manilow?

KM:  No. No.

Q58:  Why not?

KM:  Honest to God?  Milquetoast!  Does nothing for me.  Now Tony Bennett... he gives a song an edge, doesn't he?  He gives a real.... Barry Manilow he's always sort of... I think of Barry Manilow as eating a lot of ice cream.  And I like a guy to sing... when he opens his mouth I want to think of him as having a scotch on the rocks and a cigarette, you know.  He's a singer.  He's alive.  He's lived. He's blue.  He's down.  He's deep.  Barry Manilow's kind of 'hi - let's go to the amusement park and take the Ferris wheel'. You know?  No. I don't like him at all.

Thank you.  Next!

Q59:  Hello Kate.  I just wanted to tell you how much you've accomplished because I have to say, and I know everybody will kill me after that, that I was not convinced that a fourth Star Trek show would be the best thing to do, and after watching the pilot I said okay, I'll take everything back I said and I was an absolute fan of it and now I am totally a fan of Voyager.  And I just wanted to say that it's a great part, because it's you.

KM:  Thank you very much.  Did a lot of you have consternation about the debut of Voyager?  Did you think that perhaps it would be a miserable failure in the wake of 'Next Generation'?  You were hopeful that it would be good, huh!

But I understand that some of you were so dedicated to 'Next Generation' that it must be hard to transfer that allegiance to a new show.  Isn't it?  It's not?  If it's good, it's not, huh?  That's fair, isn't it?  I think everybody's asleep.  Are you all sleeping?

Audience:  No, no!

Q59:  I think that was a point, because I loved TNG and DS9 and I wasn't sure if a third series  (? Ed.)

KM:  Well, I'm delighted to hear you say that.

Don't take that baby!  See what I mean. Oh God.  I have to go see it!  See what I mean.  Open that... open that... what do you call it... oh!  Can I see your baby, please?
Let her come in, take that...

Look at this beautiful baby! Hello!  (singing) Danke shoen, oh danke shoen...

Unbelievably beautiful babies in Germany!  Auf weidersein!  Etc. Look at her little hands, look at her little bow.... Is that your only baby?  You should keep going!

All right.  Does somebody else have a question?

Q60:  Yes.  On your left hand side.

KM:  Yes?

Q60: I was wondering.  As Captain Janeway you have to do quite a bit of fighting in this one part of the series where you became GI Jane, and do you think as a private person if it would come down to your children or something, do you think you would be able to fend for them?

KM: Oh certainly.

Q60:  In such a physical way.

KM:  Yes.  I know I would.  I know I would.  I had an experience once, with my little babies.  There was an intruder in the house.

Q60:  Ohhh... scary.

KM:  And I was alone in the house with the nanny and the two babies.  And here's what I did, and you don't know what you are going to do 'til you're there, right?

The nanny turned to absolute frozen mush.  I said 'be quiet and get under the bed'.  And I got the babies out, and I put the babies under the bed with her and I covered them all in blankets.  And I locked them in the bedroom.  There were two entrances to the bedroom.  And I told her, on pain of death not to move from under that bed.

And I went down in the darkness and I grabbed a butcher knife. And I said 'come on out you son of a .....'  And I heard scuffling in the kitchen and I went after him.  I said 'you come out here and you talk to me'. And so he started to come around the corner and then I heard something crash, and the window and out he went.  I never saw him.  But that's what I did.

Q61:  I was supposed to tell you...

KM:  I think any mother would react the same way.  Don't you?

Yah?

Q61:  I was supposed to tell you from Mark Lee that that was supposed to be your last answer.

KM:  That was supposed to be, right.

Next question.

Q62:  Are we going to see you directing an episode in the future?

KM:  I don't think so.

Q62:  Would you like to?

KM: No!

Q62: Why not?

KM:  Because I lack the spatial sense necessary to direct well.  Do you know what I mean by a spatial sense?

Q62:  No.

KM:  A director would be standing on the stage and he would be very aware of all of you.  He would be aware of where you are. He would understand the emotional content of this room. He would see that guy with the camera and he'd be over there. I only see whom I'm speaking to in the moment.  I'm very subjective.  You have to be able to see it all to direct well.  Although I must say I was hugely impressed with Tim Russ and Bob Picardo.  And particularly, ladies and gentlemen, Robbie McNeill and I did an episode called 'Sacred Ground'.  Did you see that?  Didn't you think he did a beautiful job?  Very gifted, Robbie.

Yes ma'am?

Q63:  I would like to know, this is a rather theoretical question, if a future like in Star Trek would really exist, would you like to live in that time, and would you like to join Starfleet? Or would you be an artist, or just an actor, as now?

KM:  I think I'd like be one of those spooky aliens.  I don't know if I... I'm having such a good time now, I'm very glad to be alive right now. But I could imagine that it would it be rather intriguing, don't you think? The 24th century?  And yes, I would join Starfleet if I could be the captain.

I think I can only take one more question.

Q64: Hello Kate, it's me in the balcony.

KM:  In the balcony?

Q64:  Yes, here.

KM:  The balcony, yes!

Q64: Okay.  My name is Astrid Koch, and I was inspired by Nichelle Nichols and the first space shuttle mission to become a scientist and now I am.

KM:  Very good for you!  Where are you a scientist?  Where?

Q64:  I work now for customs and I was a scientist for NASA but unfortunately they only take Americans but no Germans which is really bad.  But I want to talk about your involvement as an inspiring lady and to be a role model for everybody else.  I think you do a wonderful job.

KM:  Thank you.

Q64:  The question is:  do you know there will be the first space shuttle commander lifting off next January or December.  Will you attend that launch?  And do you have programme with NASA  to inspire young females to get into a space related career?  Thank you.

KM:  Thank you.  I would be very honoured to attend that launch.  And I have every intention of being there.

But to respond to your latter question.  I'm not as familiar and hands on with NASA as I would hope to be, but I must say they have been very gracious to me and I have met a lot of the astronauts and I have been squired about Cape Canaveral and I'm intrigued by it. So it's a process I hope to learn more about.

Now.  I want to say this. And this is the truth.  I don't do many conventions.  Because, you know, it takes time, you have to travel and it's hard.  But this has been without question, my most wonderful experience.  You are a great audience.  I think the German people are without question the most gracious people I've encountered in Europe, to date.  And it has been a delight for me to be here.  I hope that I will see some of you after this. If I don't, please rest assured that it means a great deal to me that you are my fan base in Germany, and I will continue to try to give you a Janeway whom you can love, and be proud of.  Thank you so much.

Danke, danke, danke!

..... Voyager music!....

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