For veteran Star Trek Voyager actor Garrett Wang, life has been a journey of exploration. From his earliest days as a young actor, challenging himself to understand and portray characters that may have seemed vastly different to him, to his travels around the world, meeting fans of his work and critics of his nation’s government. Indeed his years portraying the role of Ensign Harry Kim aboard the star ship Voyager have ultimately brought Wang one thing; an ineffable sense of perspective. And, when trying to understand a person of a different race, culture, sexuality or an alien species, perspective is the answer to not simply viewing them as an ‘other’. We had the chance to talk about this perspective with him.
GayCalgary: One thing I wanted to talk to you about today is, have you spoken to Kate Mulgrew about the whole controversy over her voice work on the geocentrism documentary?
GW: No I haven’t. I first found out about it via Twitter. One of my followers had it posted.
GC: I haven’t heard her part, but I know she has come out after, and said she was very much misled about what the project was about. She didn’t know that those were the kind of claims they were going to be making.
GW: I would honestly say she didn’t even know what she was getting into. It probably snuck up on her in a way. I don’t fault her for that at all. It’s just unfortunate that it happened. Who, in this life, has not been duped? Everybody has dealt with it in one shape or form. I don’t think anyone should hold that against her. She was hired as a voice over; she was a hired hand. The views of the people doing it [don’t reflect hers]. That’s wrong for people to [be upset with her].
GC: Have you ever found yourself in a situation like that – where you were offered work or a role and there was something that felt like everything wasn’t on the up and up?
GW: Well yeah – years ago when I was on Voyager there was talk of this German production company interested in me in feature film and I started reading through [the script] and it was about playing a Buddhist Monk, and there were scenes where he was masturbating, and I was thinking Oh my God, what am I doing? It was really graphic. It was like and then the camera pans from there to there and I thought No. I don’t think so. So I kind of backed out of that one. That would have given my mother a heart attack! [laughs]
GC: Aw, well, Garrett Wang fans will have to live without seeing you as a Buddhist monk masturbating.
GW: Yeah – as a Tibetan monk in a cave! It was in a cave [laughs]. Other than that, I haven’t really been offered anything too outrageous. But I’m definitely not afraid of controversy, especially if it has a basis in truth. One of the first plays I did was a play called Porcelain. Porcelain is written by a Singapore-Chinese playwright named Chay Yew, and in this play I played a gay Chinese teenager living in London who – the play itself mirrors the structure of Equus, because Equus is about this boy who kills all these horses and you see a psychologist interviewing him.
Porcelain is really interesting because, as the audience files in for the play, I’m the only actor in the center of the stage and the ground is strewn with hundreds and hundreds of red origami cranes, and I’m sitting there folding them one by one, then throwing them on the floor. So once everyone is in the house they turn the lights down, and all the actors come in, and they turn the lights up and we’re sitting on five stools. I’m in the centre and there are two actors to my left and two to right, and all the other actors are playing three to 11 other characters, and I only played one. I played John, the main character. John is the gay Chinese teenager. And the criminal psychologist in our play is interviewing me because in the play I meet an older blue- collar Irishman in a bathroom in England, when gay men meet in public restrooms for sex. It’s called ‘cottaging’. So basically I meet him cottaging, but he’s just experimenting. He’s not looking for a relationship, he’s just looking for sex. And he is very aggressive and rough, but my character falls in love with him. And once he tires of me he dumps me and I follow him back to the same restroom where we met, and he is in there for hours and hours, and it drives me crazy and I end up shooting him. That play put me on the map, for being straight and playing a gay character. To play this character of John Lee, I really had to step it up.
GC: And this was early in your career before Voyager, so it was probably a hard decision for you to make. There had to have been some fears that you could be labelled as a ‘gay actor’ for playing a gay role, and you might get passed up for future opportunities. So was there some inner monologue happening for you before playing that role?
GW: Most definitely but, for me as a young actor, I was very much open to exercising my acting abilities and stretching myself as much as possible. And up to a week before the opening the plan was for my wardrobe to be nothing! So it would have been an hour a half of me butt naked on stage! Literally one week before the play opened the director says to me We are now dressing you in white pants and a white shirt to convey your virginal, youthful side. The subject matter is so hardcore that we decided that you being nude is absolutely hitting the audience with way too much. The play itself will be strong enough to move the audience and, at this point, the nudity is gratuitous. So they took it out. But I don’t have any issues with playing a character with a different sexual orientation than myself.
GC: Well gay fans will be sad they didn’t get to see you masterbate on film or naked on stage! [laughs] So I was wondering, when you are watching the news and see these stories like the missing Malaysian airlines plane, do you go to thinking of Voyager episodes, like that Amelia Earhart episode where it is portrayed that her disappearance was due to an alien abduction?
GW: Yes because you also have to understand that even before Star Trek I believed that the universe is way too big for us to be the only intelligent life form. The 37s [is the episode] where we find Amelia Earhart. And with the Malaysian airlines plane, for something that big to vanish without a trace... could it have been some type of alien abduction? Yes it did cross my mind, or some kind of Bermuda Triangle-like force. With that story though, I really do hope they find closure because those families are absolutely devastated.
GC: Do you find with other news stories you mentally make a Voyager reference or connection?
GW: Often it is in the back of my mind, but yes there is occasionally some correlation at times [between news stories and episodes]. Have you, yourself, ever had any experiences that you have personally had with your own eyes that makes you consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life?
GC: Me personally? I have not, no. But I still believe that we are not the only life form [in the universe].
GW: Well I’ll tell you mine! It happened about, probably my guess is around the late ’90s. I was invited to the Celebrity Sports Invitational in Puerto Rico. It was an event that ended up on ESPN2, and it was basically a bunch of celebs invited to compete in beach volleyball, wave runner races, tennis, basic little fun things to have a little competition among the different celebs. There were Olympic athletes – Buzz Aldrin was there, as well as a slough of TV and movie actors, and some musicians. And we were staying at a hotel that was away from San Juan by about an hour. It was located on the beach, but right next to the El Yunque Rain Forest, which is the largest rainforest on US territory. And they say that if you’re hiking in the El Yunque rainforest, if you hike too deep you’ll come upon armed guards that are dressed in all black; no insignia, no patches; very similar to Area 51. And this area, there’s a lack of light pollution from San Juan, so you could see a lot of stars. l remember looking up at the sky and all of a sudden I saw one star move! Now it wasn’t like a drifting thing, where I could have been deceived by the clouds. No. It was this one point of light, and it moved in one direction and then went completely off in an opposite 320 degree different direction, and then shot off in a flash. It looked like it was going 40 mph one way, 100 mph the other way, and then 5000 mph at a right angle, and was gone. It wasn’t moving at a curve, or a bend, so it wasn’t an airplane, fighter jet or helicopter. So there was no technology known to man that has the capacity to move at those angles and those speeds. It was like it literally went to warp and was gone and I was like what the hell? I was beside myself with regret that no one else was with me to corroborate that. It could have been the El Yunque Rain Forest base – or whatever was in there experimenting – or maybe an alien craft observing El Yunque going OK, what are those guys doing down there? So that is my one and only view of a UFO. It was definitely an unidentified flying object that I observed in Porto Rico.
GC: If we are being observed by some alien race, what do you think their intentions would be? Do you think they would be nefarious or do you think they would be altruistic?
GW: I think that there are both out there. Can I tell you another story? This is stuff I cannot make up. [laughing] I was in a metaphysical bookstore in Sedona, Arizona. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sedona, but other parts of Arizona can be insanely hot, but Sedona is actually 20 degrees cooler, always, than any other part of Arizona. Sedona has all these beautiful rock formations, but it’s also known for its energy vortexes. Some people think it has an extraterrestrial reason and others say it is just the way it is there. So I am walking around the bookstore, looking for stuff, looking for a book, when I noticed this woman starring at me and eventually she comes up to me and tells me that she works there and that she is a dimensional clairvoyant. So she is clairvoyant across dimensions. So I sit down with her and she says, Can I look at your hand? She says I just want to look at your energy vibrations. So I said ok and she looks and says, Oh! You have been visited by aliens before in your subconscious. And I said Wow, so you believe that there are aliens out there? And she says Oh yes, there are. So I ask her, are there one specific type, and she says there are more than one type of species out there. So I ask her what are the different species? And she tells me about "The Greys" who have no mouth and those big kind of eyes, the ones that are in [the movie] Close Encounters of the Third Kind and that we see everywhere. So she tells me they are on our side; that they are friendly and very much known by the government. She says that they are trying to help us, and I said help us with what? and she says with what is coming! [laughs] And I ask her Other than the Greys, who else is kicking around? and she says "The Reptoids", and she said they are not good. And I ask What do they do? and she explains that they are all around us but that we can’t see them because they project a psychic projection of another human. And I ask her Why are they bad? and she tells me that they basically are energy vampires – meaning they suck the energy and life force from human beings. That when we are in our natural state – meaning when you wake up and are conscious – you have a natural aura around you that protects you basically, but when you drink alcohol, when you take any type of mind altering drug, that puts your natural aura down and these Reptoids can go to any concerts, bars etc. where people get drunk off their butt, and they stand right next to you and they suck your energy out. That, when you wake up the next day and have a hangover, it is really because you have been sapped of your energy.
She then tells me the Greys are here to help us from these aliens from the deepest reaches of the galaxy that are on their way, and they are called "the Dark Ones" and she says they are like the Borg in Star Trek – they try to take over every part of the universe – and that we have to repel them to the best of what we can. So I ask her Can anything can be done? and she says Oh yes! All the answers lie within your episodes! [laughing]
GC: [laughing] So there we are! Everyone needs to go back and watch all the old Voyager episodes just in case!
GW: [laughing] Exactly! And the thing is, I know that with Star Trek, when you watch an episode there is an actual story. Like we meet an alien race, and they have a problem, and we help them, or whatever, but because of the way Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, it’s all about the underlying messages. That legacy has continued through from past Star Treks. The writers stayed true to [the idea of] dealing with these other issues like racism, classism – not just what you see. So I have always known that to be true, but in terms of knowing about "the Dark Ones"... I don’t know that to be true. [laughs] But if everyone was to be of one mind, in terms of taking on all the messages of Star Trek to be better humans, then we would be unified and be better able to repel evil. If there was a unification of mind and spirit, and the abolishment of money, then all the deaths and murders and wars would disappear without profit. If we have the universal consciousness to do good, that will make us stronger. This is also touched about in The Fifth Element. So maybe she is right in that regard.
GC: That speaks to one of the things that I have always loved about the Star Trek cannon; that they did kind of have hopeful messages that were dealt with nicely and wrapped up, and we were given an inspired feeling at the end. So I was wondering what you think of the shift to some of these shows today like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, where it is the exact opposite, and all is not hopeful?
GW: What that tells me is that people need to watch more reruns of Trek shows [laughs]. No, but you have got to balance out the views. It can’t all be these fatalistic shows where every week somebody dies and it all starts to feel the same. We have this morbid fascination with death. I don’t know if you have been in L.A., but any time there’s a horrific accident on the freeway, all traffic goes to a standstill because people want to see the gore. It’s ridiculous. We have this crazy fascination with death but it has to be balanced out. You have got to balance out the fatalistic view. So someone always watching those shows, along the same lines, they need to watch one episode of Star Trek for every three episodes of Walking Dead to balance [their] soul. [laughs]
GC: Maybe it should be the opposite. For every one Walking Dead episode you need to watch three episodes of Voyager! [laughs]
GW: [laughing] Doctor’s orders! Take three episodes of Trek and call me in the morning. What I was going to talk about was, do you remember the movie Galaxy Quest? So Galaxy Quest is funny in that there is that one scene where they are talking about... everything on that ship operates according to what the processes of the buttons that they pushed on their own TV show was, including the driving of the ship and transporting of people, and so on. When I watched that I was like Oh my Lord! If aliens ever watched Voyager and thought that that is how you re-route energy from one relay to another... I did that stuff all the time, so if they copy what I did, I’m screwed! [laughing] When I pushed buttons I would push buttons and make designs. Like little Christmas trees and happy faces, and there was never any consistency with my button patterns. So if aliens ever abducted me and expected me to know what buttons to push, I would probably set off the self-destruct sequence! [laughing]
GC: That would be a really funny way to go back and watch episodes: to watch for the various patterns you’re making when operating the ship! What do you think about the concept of a possible colonization of Mars?
GW: I think it’s necessary the way the population is increasing. One day there will not be enough room on Earth; it will be so overpopulated that it will be rough. There needs to be a moon base and Mars colony. Any other planet that we can get to and put a colony on, we need to. The only other way is if we, say we pick a lotto ticket and at birth it’s random, like who gets to live on the surface and who has to live in subterranean cities. There are just too many people on the planet.
GC: It could be an opportunity to do things more sensibly – where we don’t have a huge bounty of resources and where everything matters. It all has to be renewable.
GW: They would have to use solar and wind turbines – anything other than burning fossil fuels. That would be the most green residential area known to man; just environmentally friendly and utilizing what you’ve got there. Totally.
GC: I saw that you completed a project called "Alongside Night". Could you tell us what that was like?
GW: Alongside Night may turn out to be a project which I don’t share the views of the writers. The movie is based on the book that the director also wrote. A lot is anti- government – how the government is doing this and that and talking about having to go to the gold standard, and going back to gold because of the riots that are going to happen in the streets, because of all kinds of negative economic forces. It’s a bit conspiracy theorist but it definitely warns people against the ‘Big Bad Government’.
GC: You can understand why that speaks to people today – with all the economic instability on the planet.
GW: In a way there are parts of it that I definitely agree with, because I agree with the notion that power definitely corrupts. Because if you talk about Russia and the Crimea and you talk about mainland China – these were the two most pre-eminent communist countries: China and Russia. And the concept of communism is valiant. It says – unlike in India where it’s a caste system, where if you’re born to the wrong caste you can’t own a store; if you’re born to a family of beggars, you stay a beggar – communism erases that crap. We are on the exact same level, and that basic tenet is amazing, but, unfortunately, over time power corrupts. The ruling party, a communist party leader of a province or of a major city, there is no way they are equal to the peasant who is in the rice field plowing and doing just hard, hard, farm work. You cannot tell me that guy is the same as the communist party leader. And if you look at Putin, my God. He is practically a dictator at this point. It is just sad how governments have just completely lost it and don’t get it anymore. It’s all about How can we make more money or profit right now? It is so sad, and makes me so upset that that’s the way it is. I wish there was some type of way to change that... It’s like when Bush was in office. Everywhere I went overseas people would look at me, after I told them I was American, they would be like Oh, we don’t really like what you guys are doing. I would be like, I’m sorry but I am not part of that. I don’t agree with the fact that he is president. Don’t put this crap on me. I feel that a lot of these terrorist activities are brought upon America. Nobody grows up and just wants to kill Americans, it just doesn’t happen that way. But when you see some of the foreign policies the US government has undertaken, or how they treat people, or how they bring troops in and strong-arm people, then people get pissed. You know what I’m saying? Like, Wait a minute – you’ve got a hundred thousand people in my back yard for security purposes? No; we don’t like that. We’re going to try and get you out.
I personally think for the US to get a better image there needs to be a president or a secretary of state that can speak every major language. Think about that – that is something that has always been a dream of mine. I speak a lot of different languages: I speak Mandarin and Chinese, I speak Russian and some German, a little French and Spanish. If I could get Arabic down pat, and I was secretary of state or president and could walk into these countries and speak their language fluently – everyone would turn their heads and be like Whoa! That would be the most respectful thing to do. They would say the American president talks just like us! That’s the thing – you don’t want to kill people that are like you. And, at that point, I would shut down every overseas military base if I was president. I would bring all those soldiers back home and put them in construction jobs, rebuilding all the damage from say, Hurricane Katrina. We spend billions and billions of dollars overseas yet we can’t fix some of the problems in our own country.
GC: I can’t help but draw a connection between that woman you met in the bookstore talking about "The Dark Ones" coming to take over, and that maybe – for a lot of other people in the world – the Americans were like these dark entities coming from far away to take over their lands, quite often for exploitation of resources or to install puppet governments for their benefit.
GW: Oh definitely! The most insightful thing I ever saw was on a cable television show, and it was a live satellite feed between two high school groups. It was a group of 20 American high school students and 20 Iraqi high school students – and this was back during the Persian War when Saddam Hussein was still alive – so the U.S. had already invaded and had troops in Baghdad and all over the place in Iraq. The students were talking, and the American students said that we had to come over there because they had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and the Iraqi students were like, What weapons of mass destruction? We don’t have anything! They said You Americans don’t understand what we are going through. How would you feel if all of a sudden 500,000 Iraqi soldiers were posted in every major U.S. city? And they’re on every street corner with a machine gun. As you’re going to school, going to the grocery store to buy some food, there are dudes with guns from another country just looking at you as if you were guilty, as if you might be a terrorist. How would you feel? It was an eye opener to the American students. Because, as Americans and Canadians, we have not experienced having foreign troops in our lands. It is such an invasion of space. You fear for your life as an innocent civilian. It is always a perspective that people need to see. Too often people look at one side of the coin but not the flip side of the coin. That’s why I feel people should travel as much as they can and live in another country at some point. Then you get to see it’s not just about you and your little neighbourhood. There is a whole world out there, and you get to see the other side with a different perspective. When you see things from another perspective you gain wisdom.
GC: That’s really what empathy is. Being able to put yourself in another’s position.
GW: Yes! And we still have issues with people not allowing themselves to be empathetic with gender and sexual orientation issues. You know what I’m saying? We still have issues where people can’t see the other side or another’s perspective. When Voyager came out in 1995 we had bomb threats. People could not stand that we had a woman in command. And that’s 1995! And when it comes to issues of sexual orientation, there are still people getting beaten and killed because of their sexuality! Gay bashings are something that is still happening in 2014. It’s ludicrous! It’s like God dang it, everyone needs a dosage of perspective. I would love to take every single bigoted person that is racist and make them live with a black family or an Asian family or in another culture for a few months. Take every person who is anti-gay and make them live with a gay couple for a few months. Then you understand what these people are like. That they are like you. Perspective is the key to everything – whether it’s world peace, or understanding between people of different genders or sexual orientations. It’s all about perspective and understanding how the other half lives. That is the answer.
GC: I think so too. Thank you for your time.
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