Spencer Garrett Looks Back At 'The Drumhead'

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Nutso
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Spencer Garrett Looks Back At 'The Drumhead'

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https://www.startrek.com/news/spencer-g ... e-drumhead
You’ve seen Spencer Garrett in dozens upon dozens of TV shows as well as in big movies like Air Force One and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. Back in 1991, he was a young, green actor who landed the plum role of crewman Simon Tarses in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Drumhead,” directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Written by Jeri Taylor based on a story by Ronald D. Moore, “The Drumhead” — which celebrates its 29th anniversary this month — took the persecution of the Salem witch trials and 1950s McCarthyism and put it in a 24th-century setting. Originally intended as a money-saving “bottle episode,” it became a TNG favorite, and a must-see episode for fans prepping for the Star Trek: Picard premiere.

We spoke to Garrett about playing Tarses in “The Drumhead,” Weiss in Voyager’s “Flesh and Blood,” and the friendships he formed with the TNG cast.

StarTrek.com: What did you know about Star Trek before you got the role?

Spencer Garrett: My only knowledge of it was that my godfather, an actor named Liam Sullivan, was on the original show. On TOS, he was on an episode called “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Do you know that one?

I know all of them, so yes. [Laughs]

SG: When I was cast, he dug out an old VHS copy of his episode, and I put it in my VHS player and I watched it, and that was probably the first time that I had seen any episode of Star Trek since I was a little kid. I was like, “Wow, this is a cool show.”

So how did you prepare for the role?

SG: I was trying to do as much research as I [could]. I mean, what is a Romulan? What does a Romulan act like? I had no clue. There was no YouTube back then; I was trying to find reruns of TOS, and started watching Next Generation to try to get the vibe and the tone of the show. I was asking friends of mine, Martha Lee, my cousin, “What’s a Romulan? How is a Romulan different from a Vulcan?”

I was all of the sudden in this completely foreign world. And I think it was the scene in the trial, where I’m being interrogated by Bruce French, the actor who was representing Jean Simmons’ character, and I started crying, in the scene. And we ended up having to go back and re-shoot that scene because Rick Berman, the exec producer, said, “No, a Romulan would never cry. He would be emotionless.” So we went back and re-shot that scene without me crying.
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