Hey nerds, I'm Wil Wheaton,
and this is The Ready Room,
your official behind-the-scenes hub
for all things Star Trek Universe.
A quick word of caution: everything you're about to see
is filled with spoilers,
so if you haven't seen the latest episode
of Star Trek: Picard, "The End is the Beginning,"
why are you watching me?
Seriously, go watch that episode, then come back.
That's how it works.
And do it quick because we have some very cool stuff
waiting for you, including our very special guest,
Michelle Hurd, who plays Raffi.
Then, we've got a sneak peek at next week's episode,
exclusive to The Ready Room.
We are very fancy. But before all of that,
can we just talk about the fact
that Jean-Luc Picard has just assembled
the motliest crew in Star Trek history?
If you squint, I think you can see
Vince Neil in the background—because I think
this merits a closer look in this week's edition
of "Producing Picard."
Control room, engage.
Everybody loves Next Gen,
and they love the crew of Next Gen,
both as individual characters
but also together as a crew.
And I think the challenge for us was to come up with
a new version of that crew that was not
comprised of Starfleet officers
but very unique individuals who were outside the system,
just like Picard now finds himself outside the system.
Our group chat on WhatsApp is just "The Motley Crew,"
and I feel like that's fitting.
We're just kinda like pieced together,
you know, ragtag, as they said. You know,
"You wanna come on? What can you do?
Alright, let's just get it going."
[Alison] Nobody's in uniform.
[Michelle] You're not gonna see sort of
a homogenized look.
We don't really fit together.
Some people are technically able,
some people are not. [Laughs]
I'm Agnes P. Jurati. I'm the Earth's leading expert
on synthetic life, and I promise you,
if you take me with you, I will more than earn my keep.
Everybody's a little effed up in various emotional
and physical ways.
You have Raffi and Picard, who have their conflict.
They used to be, they worked together very closely
to do the rescue for Mars.
And then, when Starfleet called it off,
she wanted to keep fighting.
He, you know, felt the fight was over.
Picard comes to me to find a ship,
and I have a companion, a friend that I've worked with
for many years, Rios.
Rios, my character, he is ex-Starfleet.
He is a pilot, a very skillful pilot at that,
and he has a dark past with—something happened
while he was at Starfleet, which was the reason
for him to leave Starfleet, or be discharged.
This is not a Starfleet mission.
This is a person on the verge of death
going on a final adventure, as he sees it,
and as a way to make peace with
his best friend's death.
So you have all these people who have something to hide
and all who are coming together
because they have something that they want
to ultimately find and gain.
Each of us, I think, are searching for community,
and love, and kindness in the furthest reaches
because we're all kind of broken, sad people.
Our crew is really about the human story.
Every single person has something
that they might be damaged about,
that they're trying to heal,
that they're trying to resolve,
that they're trying to figure out how
to make peace and make whole.
Getting all those nuggets is what
propels you through the season.
Engage.
I am thrilled to be joined today by Michelle Hurd,
who plays Raffi on Star Trek: Picard.
She is one of my favorite characters
in the Star Trek canon.
She is amazing.
She is.
Raffi and Picard have such an interesting history,
and it's an incredibly deep, incredibly rich history.
Yeah.
We know about Picard's relationships with Riker, and Data,
and the Next Gen cast.
We don't really know a lot about their relationship.
Did you do work with Patrick and the showrunners...
Yeah.
To develop the specificity of that relationship?
Yeah. Well, you know, the character was
so well-vetted out, you know.
They had the history of it.
Yes.
I have a nice little sort of backstory
that I really sort of dug into and asked
lots of questions of and we vetted out,
and it's so layered.
It's so rich, and it's so real.
People exist in our day that are just like Raffi,
who are struggling daily to just get through
and to still show up even though it's incredibly difficult.
So that was just great to jump into
as an actor. And then, you know, you get on set
with Patrick, and he is just the most generous actor.
Yeah, he makes you better.
He makes you better.
Yeah.
He makes everybody better.
You know, what I love is that everything always
sort of tumbles down from Number One, right?
- Yeah. - Number One sets the tone
on any production, any job.
We're talking about Number One on the call sheet,
the first person who, on Next Generation
and on Picard, was Patrick. Continue.
Right, and so the Number One is, you know,
he dictates how the set's gonna be.
Sets the tone.
And he, the first day, every day,
when he walks on set, you could sort of feel all of us,
we kinda like, you know, you wanna sit up straighter.
You wanna make sure everything's all in line.
But he immediately puts you at ease.
You know, he's calm.
He's funny, he's self-deprecating,
he's ensemble-focused. So he really—
and he's so respectful of the fans.
I mean, we have done scenes where we would be
in the middle of shooting, and he'll stop,
and he goes, "No, the fans will know
this is not right."
Yeah.
"We need to change this."
And we'll stop, and we'll work it out,
we'll vet it out so that it's respectful and true.
So, when you have someone like that,
you can't help but want to bring your A-game
and wanna try to do the best you can
in the most authentic way that you can.
And it's an honor. It's just an honor.
He's on my phone. He's my friend.
I could text him now.
- Yeah. - Isn't that crazy?
- Yeah. - It's crazy.
He's, in a very real way, a father figure to me.
A hundred percent.
And was that, and it makes me so happy to know
that, at this point in his life
he has earned the right to take his foot
off the gas a little bit.
That's right.
And what I am hearing from everyone that I've talked to
is that that is not happening.
No. Oh, I went to see— 'cause I'm a New Yorker—
I got to see him in A Christmas Carol.
Yeah.
Two shows.
Yeah.
43 characters.
Yeah.
Sir Patrick Stewart.
Yeah.
43 characters, and it was amazing.
We all know that story, right?
You're like, "Oh, it's Christmas. Bah, humbug,
there's Tiny Tim, and three ghosts,"
and you know the story.
Every single person in that theater was
enraptured with him.
I literally looked around at one point,
and everybody was leaning forward.
Yeah.
Just locked into him. He's phenomenal.
There's no pedal stop in there.
It's like that on the set too.
Yeah.
When he's working on the set,
I feel like when Star Trek is really cranking,
when all the cylinders are firing,
that everybody is leaning forward.
You're absolutely right.
You're watching, and you're like deeply into it.
That's absolutely right.
Raffi clearly did not take losing that uniform well.
Yeah, no.
That still haunts her.
A hundred percent.
She's angry about it.
Yeah.
But she seems to me to be a little self-destructive
as a response to that.
Do you wanna talk at all about what she
has been doing?
Lives out in the desert by herself.
Clearly not in Starfleet anymore.
How did she get where she is now?
Well, you know, Raffi's backstory is
really deep and complex.
She was brought up with,
her parents were in the Federation.
They worked there, and they ended up having
to leave her behind so that they could
pursue their careers.
So she was sort of raised by other people,
which causes her to have guilt, and spiral,
and question her choices.
And within that, she starts to lean on some crutches.
She has some vices.
She smokes, she drinks, but I really wanted
to tell that type of a story because
we have so many people in our world today
that have addictions, and there's a weird
taboo about talking about some addictions.
Some people try to push them to the side;
they're not worthy of being at the table.
You have Thanksgiving, "Don't bring that one
'cause they're gonna make a mess."
And what I really wanted to show with Raffi
is that she's still viable.
She still has a lot to contribute.
She's just trying to get through the day.
She's haunted. She's haunted by decisions.
And her relationship with Picard,
he pulled her out of her addiction.
When she started to work with him,
she started to get braver and wanted to achieve
and wanted to be present.
So she stopped her crutches.
She stopped drinking, she stopped smoking,
and she stayed with him.
And he was her saving grace, her lifesaver.
When this situation with the Romulans happened
and he resigns, it was a huge slap in the face for her,
a huge betrayal of the relationship
that they had made.
That he walked away from something—
That he walked away.
That she believes in.
That they both believed in,
they both believed in.
We both were on the same journey.
- Yeah. - We were going to save them,
and then he resigns?
He uses that as a threat as opposed to
staying in there and fighting?
So she really spirals, and she goes back
to her old devices, and she's mad.
We can see that,
when he shows up. - Yeah.
And we don't know if she is going to shoot him
or just tell him to leave.
You can turn around and call that cab to take you
right back where you came from.
I just want to talk.
There isn't anything you could say
that I want to hear.
You know, how I feel about Raffi,
and I'm sure that we can all experience this
in different ways when you find someone
who's really a mentor, you know,
that person becomes, as you said, your father,
your brother. You have that full spectrum
of a relationship.
And that's who Picard was to Raffi.
She had all those feelings for him.
So she really—it really hurt her.
I don't even know what to say.
It's a lot to take in.
I mean, the obvious way to go would be,
you have some goddamned nerve!
But I gather you already heard that
from your buddy Clancy.
Yeah.
I love that because she is so flawed.
I cannot remember the last time we saw a character in
Star Trek!
Yeah.
In Star Trek, where we're all like,
"No, we're the best of humanity!"
Right, right.
We're like—I think it is terrifically inspiring
and validating to flawed people to see, like, yes,
you can be flawed.
You can screw up, and you are allowed
to get back up and join Jean-Luc Picard in a mission.
Right, Jean-Luc Picard and life.
Yeah.
If you think, she's in a trailer in the desert.
She has no neighbors.
Right.
She has not been living in life.
Her life has been her horgl.
Her life has been her own sort of circling
the same regrets and the mistakes that have happened.
She's literally just been pouring salt into her wounds.
She has not been in life.
My entire life for the past 14 years
has been one long slide into humiliation and rage.
Also, a fair amount of snakeleaf-induced paranoia,
so some things never change.
And yeah, the fact, I love that she's so
perfectly imperfect.
Yes, I love that too.
You know? Because we all are.
We all are at some point. There's some little thing
that we wish was better, but you have to figure out
how to get through it.
She's really, unfortunately, been highlighted,
all of her imperfections and she sort of
has carried them and is wearing them as a ball and chain.
So yeah, I love that aspect of her.
And I think it's really important for us
to tell that story, and I love that we
can tell that story in this situation wherein,
usually, all the people are so put together
and so perfect.
Right.
Yeah, even in that world, we have
perfectly imperfect people, just like we do here.
So she, Raffi, introduces Picard to Cristobal Rios.
Mm-hmm, Rios.
Who's terrific.
He's fantastic! Santiago, woo!
He's really interesting as well.
And in the intro for this episode, I talked about
how he assembled the motliest crew...
Uh-huh, that's what we call ourselves: The Motley Crew.
That's ever been assembled.
How does Raffi know him, and where does that
relationship come into play? Because Picard suspects—
we don't know for sure—
Picard suspects Rios is ex-Starfleet.
Yeah.
He sees something in him.
- Yeah. - Does Raffi see it too?
Oh, absolutely. I think what Raffi and Rios
have in common is their distrust of the Federation.
They both—
Okay.
Yeah, they've both been burned.
They've both been awoken to the fact that
it's not all unicorns and rainbows.
Yeah.
They've been disillusioned by what they—
you know, they drank the Kool-Aid,
and the Kool-Aid didn't taste good.
So the relationship that Rios and Raffi have
is a really, is a close one because they both felt
that they've been burned.
They've been lied to and betrayed
by something that they gave their life to.
So they, after me leaving the Federation or being fired,
and him leaving for his situation,
they found each other, probably at a bar,
and started a conversation about whatever,
and then they came to this, you know, the way they
feel about the Federation, and they bonded.
And they've kept a really good relationship,
a real close thing.
I always joke when we're on set that
Santiago and I are like, or Rios and Raffi are like
Han Solo and Chewbacca, and, any given episode,
we're either Chewbacca or Han Solo.
So yeah, they have a good bond.
I get the sense that you knew Star Trek before you
were a part of Star Trek.
Yes. Well, you know, I'm a native New Yorker.
I'm a biracial child.
My father is black, my mother is white.
My father was an actor, and back in the day,
it was really important for him
to make sure that when we were watching
any kind of TV or movies or even
going to see Broadway that it was inclusive.
He wanted his three daughters
to see themselves represented.
Yes.
And when I got this job, I literally
had a flashback of us as a family,
sitting around watching Star Trek
and watching the first interracial kiss on television.
Amazing.
Which, if you think about it, as a biracial child,
that was the first time I could
see my parents, basically, represented on television.
Yeah.
It's huge. You know, we don't realize
the impact of that kind of a thing for children,
how it sets into you, that you can actually see yourself
part of society.
So yeah, Star Trek has—and of course,
once I got this job—because
I'm a Dick Wolf kid.
I've done like five Dick Wolf shows.
I'm a cop, a detective, I'm a lawyer.
I'm very "Rrr!" you know? Push the agenda that way,
and I always thought that that was how
really pertinent issues could be brought to the forefront.
I didn't realize, it's sci-fi.
It's under this awning that we can tell our stories.
Yeah.
And Star Trek, particularly, have always put
a mirror up to life and society.
And to be a part of that now, to know that
there's a bunch of little beige kids
with crazy, curly hair out there,
that they're gonna see themselves represented...
That's my question for you.
Like, you saw your family represented by Star Trek.
Yeah.
And I think this is the thing Star Trek does very well.
Yes.
Star Trek represents inclusivity extremely well.
Yes.
No matter who you are, you can see yourself.
That's right.
In Star Trek.
We need that.
Has it really landed on you that you are going to be,
for other people—
A hundred percent.
Who Nichelle Nichols was?
Yep.
Who LeVar Burton was?
Mm-hmm.
Where he was a blind man and showing that
that kind of—
Still viable, still valuable, still contributing. Yes.
Yeah.
Absolutely. I mean, I'm the crazy lady
that I will run across the street
when I see a little mixy kid with curly, crazy hair.
I will go over to them and go, "Hey! I love your hair!
That's awesome!" Because nobody did that for me.
Really?
Oh my god, I'm back in the day of, like, you know,
Farrah Fawcett. The straight hair, whatever.
That's not gonna happen here.
Yeah.
And I've also had a couple shows
where they've straightened my hair,
and it's very frustrating.
I can imagine.
I mean, I was told during one job,
my character was the head, like, had her own company,
and I was told by the producers
that they did research and found out that
women of color, if they own their own business,
they'd have to have straightened hair to be respected.
Like, what do you do with that?
What do you do with that when someone says that to you?
So, yes, I've absolutely— and truth be told,
I actively have tried to always pick the roles
that I've chosen to represent people of color
in a much more fair, broader spectrum
than what you typically think of.
My father marched with Dr. King.
I'm an activist as well as an actor.
I can't help but be that way.
So this, yeah, I'm really aware of that.
You know, Isa Briones is Eurasian.
Evan is mixed. I mean, this crew, "motley crew," is giving
a lot of children and a lot of people their mirror.
I have time for one last question.
Certainly.
I know what's gonna happen.
Yeah.
And it's really amazing, but I wonder if you
wanna tease a little bit of what we're gonna see
from her, if you wanna talk about character moments,
or fun plot reveals, or something that matters to you,
as the season is going to unfold.
What do you want fans to be looking for?
And you're like, "Man, I don't want you to miss this!"
Right.
What do you want, what is that?
That's a good question.
I think, and I've touched on it before,
I think I really want the fans to see this person
as someone who is trying to persevere
over the fact that she's struggling with her addiction.
I just think it's a really important story.
It's a really important story for people to see
that you can spiral, you can fall, you can stumble,
but you can also get up.
And sometimes you need people to help you.
Sometimes you have to rely on yourself,
but that you're still valuable.
You're still important to this community, to the world.
You still have something to say.
There's still hope.
You can heal yourself with the help of friends, of family,
but also with the knowledge that you want to be
part of society again, that you know
that you have a voice that is important.
I think that that's one of the most important things
that I want to portray and bring life to of Raffi,
and Raffi does it with humor, with sarcasm,
with grace, and with strength.
And so I think that's what I hope that people
tune into and see.
I get all of that.
Oh, good.
And I love that Star Trek has you,
an actor of your caliber. - Oh my gosh, thank you.
And your pedigree, as part of our family.
Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
Thank you, Wil, so much. It's such a joy. Thank you.
So it's pretty obvious that I love asking questions
and interviewing the incredible talent
that goes into making Star Trek: Picard.
But for this segment, I'm gonna hand
that responsibility to you.
Here at The Ready Room, we collected
a lot of fan questions for the series' cast,
and we asked them on your behalf.
Let's see what they had to say.
From David on Twitter, "What bit of Trek tech
would you most like to have in your life?"
And I would have to say a replicator
because then you can just have anything, right?
That's how they work.
I mean, well, you have to have the right program,
but, I mean, that's pretty instant.
Like, "Hey, I want a hot dog." [Laughs]
I don't why I went with hot dog, but... [Laughs]
Aha! A clue to your nature.
Well, yes. Well, I'm 48 hours away from beginning—
well, we are—our European tour,
and so I would like a transporter, please.
Yes, yes.
In fact, that's all I've wanted for years,
is a transporter.
Definitely.
From Mark on Twitter, "Who was the funniest
person on set?"
Who was the funniest person on set?
I would have to say Patrick.
Patrick, right?
Because he had the funniest stories.
He does.
Actually, when him and Frakes were together.
Yes, that's for sure. Yes.
They were the funniest on set, for sure.
From Roman on Twitter, "What is your
all-time favorite phrase or quote
from any Star Trek series?"
Well, I gotta say, "Resistance is futile."
Yeah.
Come on.
[Laughs]
This is from Katie on Twitter. This says, "What is your
favorite attribute about your character,
and if you could meet them, what would you tell them?"
If I could meet him, I would say
he can lighten up a little bit.
I agree.
But at the same time, one of my favorite attributes
is his self-sufficiency, the fact that he
takes things on by himself and he's managed
to be self-sustainable.
Mm-hmm.
From George on Facebook. George, George's question is,
"If you could have a dinner party with one or two guests,
past or present, living or dead, friends or family,
who would you choose, and why?"
George, can we have breakfast?
[Laughs]
I'm not a big dinner guy.
It would be breakfast, and—
Okay, so who would you have breakfast with, Brent?
Gosh, living or dead, family or—you know,
I think that's kind of interesting.
I hadn't thought of this, but my family,
family who I've lost, I would like to—
What, dead people?
Yeah.
To meet and have breakfast with.
I mean, I never knew my father, really.
I was 10 months old when my father passed away,
and I'd very much like to meet him
and have dinner with him. Or breakfast.
Whatever he wants.
Alright, so Picard has a ship.
Picard has a crew.
We really are at "the end of the beginning,"
but what is next for Picard
and this shiny new crew?
Well, we've got a never-before-seen clip
from next week's episode, "Absolute Candor,"
that I cannot wait to show you.
And I don't have to because we're showing it to you
right here, right now. Check it out.
Hello, hello. How good to see you all again.
Yes yes, yeah. I know you're all worried,
but the Federation and Starfleet are here
to help you settle. You have my word.
You haven't stopped talking about Admiral Picard
since he left.
Can't you find something to say to him?
What did you bring me?
What did I bring you?
Well, now let me see... The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas!
Thank you so much for joining us today
in The Ready Room.
I will be back next week to talk to Santiago Cabrera
about all things Star Trek: Picard
Episode 4, "Absolute Candor."
Until then, I'm Wil Wheaton.
Live long and prosper.