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Report on an appearance by Robert O'Reilly (Galron
Report on an appearance by Robert O'Reilly at the Big E Con in Norfolk,
Virginia, on 10/30/94 by Barbara S. Parker (CIS #71041,1517 or Prodigy
#GGBX52B).
Mr. O'Reilly greeted the audience with a big KAPLAH! to which the
audience replied back, KAPLAH! Prior to this appearance he was doing
a film and has to fly back following the convention. He was playing
basketball (in the movie) for the last three days on asphalt so he "has
no feet left." Someone gave him two dolls (action figures) of Lursa and
B'Etor. He proceeded to toss the dolls (still in their packages) to the
stage floor and pretend to stomp on each of them. "They're great. I love
them . . . a lot of fun to work with," he said referring to the actresses who
played these characters.
A couple of months ago he was in Germany doing a convention. He
said he flew into the airport there and was picked up. The driver took
him on the autobahn and he was sitting in the back seat, not realizing just
how fast the car was going (at least 140 mph). He opened the car
window . . . just a little crack to get some fresh air. Suddenly he let out a
scream and was plastered against the window. "Yeeeeaaaaaah, slow
down!" he said to the driver.
In response to a question by a little boy about how many shows he's
been on, Mr. O'Reilly said about five to his knowledge, with the most
recent involving scenes with Armin Shimerman on Deep Space Nine.
Armin and he are old stage buddies who've "got a rapport and have sort
of a close relationship" from working together. They finally got to do
some "Klingon comedy" together. He said Armin is "just fabulous to
work with."
Asked what he thought about the VCR board game he said it was
great and he had a lot of fun with it. Another version of the board game
with John de Lancie is coming out soon.
Mr. O'Reilly brought up his part in the Hallmark commercial for the
Christmas tree ornament. He asked if anyone had seen it to which the
entire audience responded with an enthusiastic "YES!" Applause
followed. He said it was a lot of fun because it's always fun to speak
Klingon (and he gave a few ad-libbed examples). To speak proper
Klingon he said you have to spit and you just spray people as you go.
Sometimes the words are really hard to say, especially wearing those
teeth. Sometimes the teeth just go flying out! He said he thinks that's
why Klingons have so many bumps on their heads.
An audience member asked him if he would "do the eyes" for
everyone and Mr. O'Reilly kindly obliged by moving to different parts of
the stage, pausing, bulging those famous eyes and everyone was able to
take photographs. He worked the crowd beautifully and it was obvious
that his fans appreciated the gesture. He referred to himself as "ole
bugeyed Bob." The eyes even scare his wife he said. When he was a kid,
his father never had to shout. His dad would just give him this look at the
dinner table which he called "the moose mean look."
A little boy wanted to know how he learned the Klingon language to
which Mr. O'Reilly replied "I still haven't!" Marc Okrand, linguist creator
of the Klingon language and author of the Klingon Dictionary, has
become a good friend of his. He sent Mr. O'Reilly a tape of exactly what
he was to say for the Hallmark commercial so he could study it. It's not
really that hard to learn the lines because usually they (his lines) aren't too
long and he doesn't have to speak a lot of Klingon. However, the
commercial was done with subtitles and shooting a commercial is not
about acting he said, it's about time. Marc would send him the tape and
say this is how you say it (ad-libbing Klingon again). He would diligently
study the lines and get it almost perfect. Then at the set he's told it's a
thirty-second commercial and he had to say all the lines in twelve
seconds. So he practiced saying his lines faster and faster.
Mr. O'Reilly loves playing villains because they're more fun than
normal characters. When asked if he'd like to do nice guys he responded
"Nah.!" Then he said he guess he would like to, but he feels more at ease
with villains. The actors who get to play the good guy all the time
"always, always want to play the bad guy."
How does it feel to have a toy of himself? He said that people come
up and ask him what he does for a living to which he responds "I'm a
toy." They go "you're a toy?" He says "yup, I'm a toy." They say "no,
no, what do you do?" He says "I'm . . . a . . . toy. You got something
against toys?" They say "are you anatomically correct?" He says "am
I?" (laughs). It's weird, he says, to know that you're a toy.
It takes three hours to put on his makeup for Gowron. He gets to the
makeup room at 4:16 a.m. and sits in a chair for three hours. Not fun he
says. The time has to do with some kind of rule with the makeup people.
They get there at 4:00 a.m. and have fifteen minutes to set up and then he
comes in.
Someone asked Mr. O'Reilly if he was disappointed that he didn't get
to work with James Worthy to which he answered "yes," and proceeded
to tell his James Worthy story. On the way home from his very first
convention he was at the airport, turned around and was looking at
somebody's kneecaps. When you come up to somebody's kneecaps, you
know they're a basketball player. He looked up and he went "WOW!"
He's not a big basketball fan but he always loved the Lakers, and the old
Knicks. So he and James Worthy are on the same plane together. Mr.
O'Reilly went up to Mr. Worthy, said hello and introduced himself. "My
name's Bob O'Reilly," he said, "do you like Star Trek?" Worthy goes
"yeah." O'Reilly asked "do you like Klingons?" Worthy goes "YEAH!"
O'Reilly asks "do you know Gowron?" "YEEAAAHHHH!" says Worthy
in a deep voice. "I'm Gowron!" says O'Reilly. Worthy gives him a look
like no way can this guy be Gowron. "No, no really . . . I...am . . .
Gowron!" O'Reilly says. "Prove it," says Worthy. So O'Reilly does his
famous Gowron bug eyes for James Worthy and after a long pause says
"yeah, you're Gowron." O'Reilly had some autographed pictures with
him and asked "hey, I've got pictures here, would you trade two Gowrons
for a James Worthy?" Worthy answers, "okay." So they board the plane
and Worthy tells O'Reilly how much he loves Star Trek, that it's his
favorite show and he'd love to be on the show. O'Reilly told him to just
call the producer and they'd love to have him. Worthy said he'd really like
to be a Klingon. O'Reilly said "yeah, you'd make a GRRRREAT Klingon,
but don't take my job!" O'Reilly just told Worthy to call up Rick Berman
at the end of the season and he did, and it happened (being on Star Trek).
O'Reilly said he's kind of proud of that one. Of course, what he really
wanted was courtside tickets to a Laker game and says he'll get them.
Among his favorite episodes he sort of likes "Redemption II" but loves
the photography in "Rightful Heir." When he was face to face with Worf
during the argument and the camera was sweeping around them, that
camera work he thought was just excellent. He likes different episodes
for different reasons. In his most recent work on Deep Space Nine there
was a scene that he took from Charlie Chaplin and made a move like
Chaplain. It was the scene where the Klingons were holding hand
computers if you watch carefully. He found the notion of Klingons
working with computers and adding machines rather absurd, which
brought up a cute story. One of the fun things for Mr. O'Reilly was
having Dr. Stephen Hawking suddenly appear on the set in the middle of
a show. Apparently Dr. Hawking loves Klingons and Mr. O'Reilly had a
picture taken with him. O'Reilly describes the photo as "the mathematical
genius of the universe and the mathematical idiot of the universe."
He said his Shakespeare background has been useful because it is
necessary to act through the makeup when you have as much on as he
does in his role as Gowron. At that point an audience member asked if he
would perform a piece called "The Jabberwocky," a poem written by
Lewis Carroll. Mr. O'Reilly apologized in advance if he missed any lines
and entertained the audience with his interpretation of the poem. His
performance was absolutely riveting! He credited his English teacher in
high school for making him memorize it (when he didn't want to).
Mr. O'Reilly has all sorts of methods for memorizing a script. He goes
over it, and over it, and over it. He looks at it, says it, looks at it, and
then he gets a tape recorder and puts the other actors' lines on tape with a
silent space where his own lines would go. It takes him hours. Some
actors can just look at a script and do it, but he's not like that. There are
much less lines in films and you get much more time to prepare, but
television is much tougher. Television basically is a business of "talking
heads." It's not the acting that's difficult, but all of the technical stuff
around it. There's something in the business called "walk and talk" and
that's what the nightmare is for him. As an example he gave the corridors
of the Enterprise where he's shooting a scene with Patrick Stewart. The
two of them are walking down the corridor and talking to each other
while a camera in front of them is rolling away on a track. There are
wires everywhere. While Patrick is saying his words he (O'Reilly) is
trying to walk over the wires all the while looking involved in what
Patrick is saying.
Mr. O'Reilly was asked what the difference was between acting on
stage and acting on television. Sometimes, he said, there is no difference.
It depends on the play. If it's Shakespeare, you're larger. You have to be
specific. Certain characters he has done in the past are huge when done
on stage, but with "cowboy stuff," for example, the camera has to come
to you. He loves to "do cowboy stuff."
Reference was made to the robe he wears as the character Gowron.
"That robe is a nightmare," said Mr. O'Reilly, "it was made for Charlie
Cooper who's six foot five and weighs two-forty, and I got skinny
because I gave up smoking!" The audience cheered at this point. He
smoked for thirty years and has been "off the stuff" for eight months and
feels great, except that he's got a little stomach now. Back to the
robe . . . he says it feels like a hundred degrees when they're filming and
they like to put smoke in Klingon scenes. There's no air conditioning
because it would blow away the smoke. There is the scene where
Gowron is robed, like being crowned, and Patrick (Stewart) puts the robe
on him. It was "take after take" to get closeups, etc. and Patrick has to
hold up this robe. Someone says "action" and Patrick holds up the robe
for a very long time and when the director said "cut" Patrick almost
screams as he drops the robe because it's so heavy. When they put the
robe on Gowron for the first time, Mr. O'Reilly tried to play the role as
"big, strong Gowron, leader of the Klingons," but when Patrick put the
robe on his shoulders he nearly fell down from the weight of it. Another
reason for the bug eyes he said! Some days filming is just sheer torture.
The project Mr. O'Reilly is currently working on is a movie called
"The Ox and the Eye," in which a football player gets hit really hard, goes
blind and sort of gives up on life. The player then meets a character
played by Jeffrey Hines, who is in a wheelchair. The two become friends.
They enter a rafting race at which time they meet a character played by
Robert O'Reilly. O'Reilly's character won't let them enter the race. The
two men talk him into playing a football game and if they win they get to
race. That's the scene O'Reilly was doing before he came to this
convention, filming a football game for three days (on asphalt).
Patrick Stewart is "one of the most generous actors" he's ever worked
with. Patrick never tells you what to do even though he's in a position to
do that. Mr. O'Reilly called him a "pure actor, really an actor's actor."
When asked what actors he'd like to work with, Mr. O'Reilly said he'd
really like to work with Jimmy Doohan. They've developed a special
relationship and have a good time together, often behaving like little kids
laughing, giggling. They met through the conventions. He also wanted
to work with Armin Shimerman on film for years and finally he did.
How tall are most Klingon actors? Most of them are actually taller
than Mr. O'Reilly, who is six feet even. Some of the actors have to wear
lifts in their shoes. In a scene involving himself and Patrick in the Klingon
high council there was an actor (as a Klingon) who was tall to begin with,
like six foot four, and he had to wear three inch platforms, why no one
knows. The actor was having problems walking around and during one
scene there was suddenly a big CRASH. When you are filming you have
to keep going until the director says "cut!" So Patrick and he continue
with their scene all the while making funny faces with their eyes in
response to the crash. They turn around and there's this huge Klingon on
the floor. He looked like a turtle O'Reilly said, or maybe an armadillo.
Patrick and he come running up to this Klingon and helped him up.
Patrick asks him if he's all right to which this huge guy responds, "yes,
only my dignity."
The actors he has worked with the most in ST are Patrick Stewart and
Michael Dorn. Michael taught him the ropes of being a Klingon.
An audience member asked Mr. O'Reilly to tell the Klingon pain stick
story. He would travel to conventions and take his pain stick prop with
him, usually carrying it at the airport. One time he had the stick in his
hand and walked through the metal detector at a security checkpoint.
Naturally the alarm sounds. The security guard calls him aside and asks
O'Reilly what that object is that he's carrying, to which O'Reilly responds
"it's my pain stick." "Oh, it's a pain stick," says the guard, "and what do
you do with your pain stick?" "I cause pain," answers O'Reilly. "Ohhh,
you . . . cause . . . pain," says the guard. "Yeah, I'm a Klingon," says
O'Reilly. "Excuse me sir?" says the guard, "what did you say?" "This is
my pain stick and I'm a Klingon," answers O'Reilly. "A Klingon?" says
the guard and calls for backup. Two huge guys appear. The guard asks
O'Reilly to tell the other guys what the object is that he's carrying and
who he says he is. "Aw, c'mon, I'm a Klingon and this is my pain stick,"
says O'Reilly. "Oh yeah?" says one of the two guys. "As a matter of fact
I'm the HEAD Klingon," says O'Reilly. "Ohhh, you're the head Klingon,"
says a guard. The guards all exchange looks. One guard gets on the
phone and calls for a doctor and then they escort Mr. O'Reilly to a room
that's all white and padded. The doctor comes in and asks Mr. O'Reilly
who he is. "I'm Gowron," says O'Reilly. The doctor looks at him in
disbelief. Then, from the back of the room, a voice says in a deep
Scottish accent "hey, lad, there's a Klingon, maybe he's got some dilithium
crystals!"
Three Klingons then came to the stage and escorted Mr. O'Reilly off
to their Klingon jail stationed nearby. Mr. O'Reilly thanked the audience
and walked off with his escorts.
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