by Wil Wheaton
"Nothing is as late as Late Night With Les,” he said with mock gravity.
We laughed together, and it was like I never left. I felt a new knot beginning to form in my chest. This time, it wasn’t regret, though, or embarrassment. It was sadness. I missed Jonathan. I missed Brent. I missed this.
“Did you get the latest draft of the script?” Jonathan said to Brent.
“Oh my god, they’re talking about Nemesis!” my inner fanboy said.
“Shut up!” I said back. “You’re not a fanboy here. You’re a peer. Be cool.”
I took my own advice and stood there, silent, and listened to them talk about the movie. Production hadn’t started yet, but I could tell that they were excited about putting on their uniforms and getting back into character.
While they talked, I felt like a grounded kid, sitting at the living room window, watching his friends play kickball in the street.
“They want to make some substantial changes to the wedding,” Brent said.
“I like it the way it is,” Jonathan said.
“Well, I’m talking with Stuart and Logan about it,” Brent said. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Is this really the last one?” I asked, in spite of myself.
“Yeah,” Brent said.
“I think so,” Jonathan said.
That made me incredibly sad. In the hallway, the elevator bell rang again.
“That’s really sad,” I said. “It’s like the end of an era.”
“We’ve done it for so long,” Brent said. “I think it’s time for me to do something new. I’m getting too old to play Data.”
“I’m the only one who’s changed. They’ve just gotten older.” Jonathan’s words echoed in my mind.
A deep, commanding voice bounced off the marble floor of the hallway and filled the room before its creator crossed the threshold.
“Are there Star Trek people in this room?” it boomed. “I just love those Star Trek people!”
We all turned to the door as Patrick Stewart walked in.
Patrick is one of the most disarming people I’ve ever met. If you only know him as Captain Picard or Professor Xavier, his mirthful exuberance is shocking. Patrick is one of the most professional and talented actors I’ve ever known, but he’s also one of the most fun.
“Bob Goulet? I haven’t seen you in ages, man! You look great!” he said to Brent and hugged him.
“Jonathan Frakes! I am a big fan,” he smiled at Jonny and hugged him to.
He turned to me. “Who are you? You look familiar, but . . . I can’t place you.”
“Wil Wheaton, Mr. Stewart,” I said.
He looked thoughtful for a moment and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I was Wesley on Next Generation,” I said.
“Get out! You were never that young!” he said.
“Oh, but I was, sir,” I replied, solemnly. “I believe we spent some time in a shuttlecraft together.”
He nodded slowly, but remained unconvinced. “Go on . . .”
“That’s all I’ve got, man,” I laughed.
“Wil, darling, you look wonderful.” he said with a huge smile. He held his arms wide and pulled me into a warm embrace. “I am so happy to see you!”
He held me at arm’s length, and looked at me. Even though Patrick and I are the same height, I felt, like always, that he towered above me.
“You too,” I said.
“I like that shirt, Wil. It’s very cool.”
He looked at Jonathan, then at Brent. We all wore black shirts. Brent and Jonathan wore black pants. Patrick wore a blue shirt and khaki pants.
“I guess I didn’t get the memo about wardrobe,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think anyone will notice.”
“Gentlemen, we’re ready for you downstairs,” one of the convention volunteers said from the doorway.
I felt a surge of adrenaline as we walked to the elevator.
I was silent, and mentally checked my notes as we descended 20-something floors.
The doors opened in the hotel lobby, which was packed with fans. Some convention staffers walked ahead of the four of us, as flashbulbs popped and fingers pointed. I was somewhere near the middle of the pack and felt incredibly out of place.
I heard pieces of conversation as we walked across the lobby: “. . . Picard! . . . Data! . . . Wil Wheaton? . . . on stage now! Hurry!”
This continued for the remainder of our walk across the lobby. It’s always easier for me to be in front of people when they’re obscured by footlights, and this walk provided no such barrier. I smiled and waved to a few people, but kept my eyes mostly down, until we turned a corner and headed down a hallway to the ballroom.
The four of us crowded the doorway, and looked into the room. Robert Beltran stood on a stage in front of about 300 hundred excited Star Trek fans. Our escort waved at him, and he nodded. We walked toward the stage, and he lifted his microphone to speak.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome, from The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Wil Wheaton!”
We took the stage as our names were called, and the audience applauded ferociously.
My heart raced in my chest and pounded in my ears. I was scared, excited, and overwhelmed.
“I can’t fucking believe that I’m on fucking stage with these fucking guys! Holy fucking crap!”I thought.
“Watch the potty mouth, mister!” my mom’s voice said.
I spent the next hour in a complete daze, and I can recall very little about what happened. It’s interesting (and a little anti-climactic, I know) that I can recall my backstage conversations so clearly, but the actual “performance” is a blur . . . that’s the way it always is with me, though. When I do well in a show, I never can recall exactly what happened, because I’m too busy reacting to the audience or the other performers to watch myself. When I tank (like my talk did in Vegas, for example), I can recall every word, every step, and every painful silence with photographic precision.
What I do recall, however, is how much fun I had, how happy I was to be on stage with my friends again, and how wonderful it felt to be on the same “level” as them.
I can recall all of us teasing each other, and saying to the audience, “Hey, which one of us doesn’t belong up here?” in reference to myself.
We spent about 30 minutes just talking and reminiscing, before someone (Patrick, I think) suggested that we take questions from the crowd.
“Well, time to sit down and fade into the background,”I thought.
I was certain that, with The Big Three present, people wouldn’t want to ask me about anything . . . but lots of them did. Most of the questions I fielded were about my website, which was still in its infancy. Though my stats showed a few thousand readers a week, I was still having a hard time accepting that anyone actually visited WWdN on a regular basis. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed that so many people were asking me questions, when Patrick, Brent, and Jonathan were right there . . . but it felt good.
All that improv warm up in the car paid off too. When we were done, I had made the audience, myself, and (most importantly) my peers, crack up several times.
Our time onstage flew by, and before I knew it, the hour was up. The audience cheered for us, and I allowed myself to bask in their approval before I walked off stage.
Jonathan had to leave early, because he was taking his daughter rollerblading?, so I walked back to the green room with Patrick and Brent. I felt far less self conscious than I had just an hour earlier, but it still floored me when Patrick turned to me at the elevator and said, “Wil, I had no idea you were so funny!” He looked to Brent and said, “Can you believe how funny he is?”
“You’ve got the funny, Milt,” Brent said to me, using the nickname he’d called me when we were shooting TNG.
“Thanks, you guys. It was . . . well, it was really fun. I’m so happy that I got to be part o
f this with you.”
Patrick put his hand on my shoulder, and leaned close to me. “Wil, I must tell you, it’s simply wonderful to see you. I was so happy when I heard you were coming today, because I thought you’d just vanished over the years.”
I didn’t know what to say. He was right. I had vanished, and I would probably vanish again. The undeniable fact was, and is, that I feel ashamed when I have to face anyone from TNG. I still regret my teenage idiocy—the big film career I was hoping for when I left never materialized and probably never will. Whenever I face anyone from Star Trek, I can’t help but replay all the mistakes I’ve made, and I nearly choke on regret.
“Well, I did vanish,” I said, “but I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it is to see you today.”
I thought about exchanging phone numbers with them before they left, but I lost my nerve.
When the day was over, I felt like I was part of the Star Trek family again . . . even if I was the Black Sheep. The timing was perfect, too, because an off-handed remark I’d made while taping Weakest Link was about to put me back into a Starfleet uniform for the first time in over 10 years.
13 NOVEMBER 2001
Tonight At Last I Am Coming Home
When I played Weakest Link, I was placed right next to LeVar. We were talking during the commercials and I said to him that I really missed them. He said to me that I should be in the movie, especially since it’s going to be the last TNG movie. I told him that I would love to be in it, but I thought that Berman and company really didn’t like me. He seemed surprised and he told me that he was going to call Rick the next morning and suggest to him that I be in the movie, at least as a cameo. I thought that would be really cool and told him so.
Last week, on Friday, my agent called me to let me know that there was an offer from Paramount to reprise the role of Wesley Crusher in Star Trek X. We just needed to work out the details.
So we spent some time negotiating it and—get this—Rick Berman told my agent that he was “very pleased” that I was going to be in the movie!
I am really excited about this for three reasons:
I am going to get to work with my friends again.
Wesley Crusher will have some real closure, finally.
For the last five years, at least, everywhere I go, fans ask me if I’m going to be in a movie, and what happened to Wesley. I can honestly say that I’m doing this for the fans, because it will be so damn cool to see all of us together again.
WHEEE!
I wasn’t under any illusions that this small role would have a significant impact on my career, but I didn’t care. The wish I’d made in September, on the bridge of the Enterprise in Vegas, had come true. I would get to go back to Star Trek and appreciate everything that I should have appreciated back when I was a teenager. I got my second chance.
I didn’t work on the movie until the beginning of December, but I counted down the days until production like a kid waiting for Christmas. On December 2, the script finally arrived by messenger. I signed for it with trembling hands and tore the envelope open before the front door was closed. I ran into my office, shut the door, and began to read.
Page 1.
Holy shit. That’s awesome.
Page 4.
Holy, Holy, Holy shit.
Page 28.
Oh wow. That’s cool!
Page 38a.
That’s funny.
Page 73.
Okay, that was sort of stupid, but I’m sure they’ll fix that.
Page 82.
This is far and away the best Next Generation movie.
Page 97.
Okay, this is the best Trek movie since Wrath of Khan!
Page 99.
Gasp.
Page 105.
What the—?
Page 114.
Oh god. This really is the last Next Generation movie.
I closed the script, and gently set it down on my desk. The Next Generation was really over. Sure, they left a tiny window open, but TNG as I knew it, with the cast that I loved, was done. If this realization had come to me . . . well, any time before Vegas, really, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but as I sat there in my office, the sounds and smells of the holiday season creeping in under the door, it hit me hard. I vowed to take nothing for granted when I worked on the movie.
I had my final costume fitting the next day, and the day after that, I found myself at the Melrose Avenue guard shack, half-an-hour early for my 8:30 a.m. call time.
“ID, please,” the guard said.
I pulled my driver’s license out of my wallet, and gave it to him.
“And where are you going today . . .” he looked at my license. “Wil?”
“I’m working on Star Trek,” I said.
"Enterprise or Nemesis?”
The Next Generation.
“Nemesis,” I said. “I play Wesley Crusher.”
He looked up at me. “Oh my god. You are Wesley Crusher. You look so . . .”
Washed up?
“. . . grown up.”
“Yeah,” I said “It’s been a long time.”
“Do you know where to park?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know where our dressing rooms are.”
But I do! I do know where our dressing rooms are! They’re trailers on the street in front of Stages 8 and 9. Mine is filled with Warhammer 40K figures and GURPS books. It’s right next to Brent’s trailer. It’s 1989, and I’m back. I’m back home.
“Okay,” he said, and gave me directions to an area on the lot where I’d never been before.
I parked my car and picked up my backpack. Inside was my script, a note pad, and a few tapes: Only A Lad, Music For The Masses, and Squeeze: Singles 45 and Under . . . all of them music I listened to when I was working on the series. I remember, when I put them in my backpack, that I thought to myself, “Maybe I can sit in my trailer, listen to ‘Never Let Me Down,’ and imagine that I’m back.”
I locked up my car, and walked toward the dressing rooms. Other than the addition of a back lot, Paramount hadn’t changed in any substantial way since I was on the show, and my thoughts drifted as I walked down those familiar streets on autopilot.
That’s where I met Eddie Murphy when I was 16 . . . Hey! I crashed a golf cart there when I was 15 . . . There’s the mail room . . . There’s Stage 6, where the bridge set started out . . . I almost got up the courage to kiss that girl at the Christmas party on that stage in . . . there’s the stage where Shatner told me, “I’d never let a kid come onto my bridge” . . . this street feels exactly the way it did when I worked here . . . here’s where my trailer used to be . . .
I stopped, and tears filled my eyes—tears of joy: It’s so good to be here, mingled with tears of sadness and regret: why didn’t this happen years ago?
Because I wasn’t ready for it to happen. I walked a few more steps and looked into the foyer that led into Stages 8 and 9. Enterprise lives there now. At least they kept the stage in the family.
A few minutes later, my cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
It was my wife. “Are you at Paramount?”
“Yeah! Anne . . . it’s so cool—”
“Wait. I just checked our messages, and they pushed your call to later.”
“Uh-oh. How much later?”
“11:30.”
I looked at my watch: it was only 8. What the hell am I going to do for three hours?
“D’oh!” I said. “Well, I guess I need to find something to do.”
“How are you feeling?” she said.
“Excited,” I said. “And sad.”
“That makes sense. Have a good day, and call me when you can. I have to get the kids to school.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“I love you too. Don’t forget to relax and enjoy yourself !”
I laughed. “I’m pretty sure I have that covered. Bye.”
It was so familiar to stand there in front of the stage . . . I
closed my eyes, and tried to put myself back in 1989.
No dice. Turns out I’m only a Time Traveller on Star Trek. Maybe I’ll go eat breakfast.
I walked to the commissary and ordered a bowl of Irish oatmeal, two pieces of dry wheat toast with marmalade, and a large orange juice. It goes without saying that this was my usual, right?
I took my time and read my script while I ate. I had only three lines, and I’d learned them long ago . . . but it seemed like the right thing to do.
“Thank you, Captain. It’s good to be back.”
“Oh, the Titan is going to be a great ship! The warp core matrix is—” Goddamn technobabble. What the hell is it?
I laughed. Ten years ago, I would have hated the technobabble, but now . . . it was cool.
Time passed quickly, and around 11, I walked across the lot again, eager to report to duty. I mean, eager to report to work. Yeah, work.
A woman I didn’t recognize spoke into a walkie talkie when I approached. “Wil Wheaton is here,” she said. “Copy that.”
She introduced herself to me as one of the assistant directors and walked me to my dressing room.
“I’ll come back and get you when there’s an available chair in the makeup trailer.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be here.”
She left me, and I changed into my spacesuit. I put on a black undershirt, my pants, then my boots. I was wearing a formal Starfleet uniform, and the jacket portion stayed on the set until we were actually ready to shoot, so I put on a fleece jacket—similar to the one I had when I was on the series—and was very happy when I realized that I wouldn’t have to wear an embarrassing fake muscle suit like the one I wore when I was a teenager.
I sat down and looked around. The trailer was bigger than the ones we had when we worked on the series. I guess it was a fringe benefit of the bigger budget. Thankfully, there was a tape player. I put on side one of Music For The Masses and remembered playing it in the makeup trailer when I was a kid. I remembered Jonathan laughing about the name “Depeche Mode,” and Gates, who was fluent in French, telling me that it meant “Fast Fashion.” I remembered how much Gates liked Oingo Boingo, and how great it felt to make that connection when I was 14.
There was a knock on the door, and the assistant director was back. “There’s a chair available for you, Wil,” she said.
