Cranky:   Now that the icon is created, in Star Trek: Insurrection you get to expand upon it. I think there's more character development in this movie then there has been before.
Stewart: In the first two movies that's true. What we have done is draw on the series much more. All these people existed like this all the time. It's just that the situation just was right in either Generations or First Contact to really exploit it. We looked at the first two movies and saw their strengths and weaknesses.

Cranky:   Have you adjusted from doing a one hour television show to a two hour movie every two years?
Stewart:   Adjusted to that? I couldn't wait for the series to be over. It was a great relief not to be doing that every week, simply because it had been a long time and I was anxious to do other things. I was anxious to go back to the work that I'd had to give up to do the series. Now that we do it every two, or three years if there is to be another one, I have an appetite for it again.

Cranky:   Speaking of the theater work, are you doing A Christmas Carol this year? Or have you taken a year off?
Stewart:   It's a year off in a sense. We are now in pre-production for a film version of A Christmas Carol which my company is co-producing with Hallmark entertainment for Turner. That will air Christmas 1999. We'll start principal photography at the end of January in England

Cranky:   Was it tough performing at the high altitudes? did you find yourself out of breath?
Stewart:it actually was. I'm not good at altitude and I went up several days early to acclimatize and it was good that I did 'cuz I kept falling over the first couple of days. But spectacular locations. Once I got well, I loved every minute of it. That's the high Sierras in California. Mammoth lakes. Whew. It's awesome. People keep asking me if we used blue screen on this; no, that was all right there. I continually count myself blessed that I can go and work in those places and get paid for being there. It was fantastic.

Cranky:   You're also credited as Associate Producer. What does an Associate Producer do?
Stewart: Heh heh heh. As far as I can tell, I get two extra comps for the premiere. That credit, which I'm very proud of, I get my name twice on the posters is only a formal recognition of what I'd been doing anyway. Nothing changed. I didn't do that much in generations because we were shooting the last episode of the series up to three days before I went in front of the camera for the movie so I was otherwise busy. From first contact on I had been involved in what was undoubtedly a producing role. Rick Berman and I have a terrific working relationship and it's been in place for years. He's always been open and generous and flexible, particularly on script matters. We both have the same point of view about this. We want to make The Next Generation articulate; the language interesting. Always assume that your audience is many times smarter than it is (and you find out that it is many times smarter) and be challenging in what people say and do. In the case of Insurrection, it even went back to... my I'd only just arrived in Australia to start Moby Dick when he called and said "How do you feel about approaching Michael to write the screenplay?" so that was I was involved then. In fact I can remember several occasions taking new pages on the deck of the Pequod with me tucked into the inside pocket of Ahab's garments so that in gaps of filming I could be studying. I remember sending notes, (sending) one fax to them and I said "Today I saw the white whale for the first time" and then I was in Washington doing Othello and the same process continued. There was no difficulty about director. We talked about it of course but I was on my knees morning noon and night hoping Jonathan would say yes. And of course casting. Principal guests and so forth.

Cranky:   Had you ever spoken with Roddenberry about the concept of the show? Any philosophical long talks about the past? [Stewart laughs] About what he wanted to do...
Stewart:   Of course I spoke to him. One of my regrets, and I think I said at his memorial service, was that he and I kept saying "One weekend we're going to get together." We never did. And then he got too sick. But I'll tell you what we did do. Before we started filming "Encounter At Far Point" (the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot) I said "Gene we should get together and talk a little about this" He said, "Fine! Come around! We'll have dinner Sunday night." We went to his club and we were having a real terrific evening. I said "Gene I want to talk to you about Picard" and he said "You ever read the Horatio Hornblower novels?" When I was a kid I loved them. I read them all. He said, "Go back and read 'em again. OK, let's have another round of drinks" [laughs] and that was the extent of my conversations with Gene about Jean-Luc Picard. The fact was that all the fundamental things in Picard now are there in that pilot episode. It's just a case of an actor running with them, but no we never had those conversations. I used to ask Gene a lot about his past. I was always interested in his life in the LAPD and as a commercial pilot and so forth, but we hardly ever talked about Star Trek.

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