CAPTAIN ON THE BRIDGE
UNLIKE HIS ON-SCREEN PERSONA, TODD STASHWICK IS VERY EXCITED TO BE ON BOARD THE TITAN WITH THE CAST OF STAR TREK: PICARD
THE GENESIS OF LIAM SHAW, Captain of the USS Titan-a, goes back almost a decade, to when Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas cast Todd Stashwick on Syfy series 12 Monkeys. “We immediately got on like we’ve known each other our whole lives,” the actor recalls.
It was August 2021 when Matalas contacted his friend and said, “So we’ve got a role for you in season three of Picard that we’re writing.” Stashwick says his immediate response was, “Well, great, I can’t wait to see who’s going to play it…” joking that things never pan out when people say they’re writing a role for you. “But Terry being a man of his word, about a month later, I got all the paperwork and was showing up for my fitting.”
He laughs when he recalls that fateful day. “I walked in and on the wall, they had all of the concept art and they had Photoshopped my big noggin on to my captain’s uniform. Already, I was over the moon.
“My first action figures in 1974 were Spock, Kirk and Mccoy. So Star Trek has been in my blood since 1974. If somebody had told that kid in ’74 he would be wearing the uniform, I would have said, ‘Yeah, that totally tracks.’ Because I was playing Star Trek back then. So there’s not much difference between 50-something me playing Star Trek now,” he says.
Regarding those figures, he gives a knowing look and states, “Don’t think that I don’t have them again.” As for potentially being a Star Trek figure himself? “Then I will just walk into the ocean because all will be complete.”
MONKEYING AROUND
Shaw’s not an immediately likeable character; from his first meeting with Picard and Riker, he makes it perfectly clear that he’s not impressed with the Starfleet legends.
“Working with Terry and also some other
12 Monkeys writers, Chris Monfette and Sean Tretta, these guys were very in tune with my style and what I do as an actor and what I bring to the table, and so it was very much written in my voice. It was hand in glove.
“When I stepped onto the set, and when I read those scripts, I already knew what it was going to be. It was such a comfortable role to step into, and not without the challenge.
The kind of depth that this guy has, and all the notes that I was being asked to play. It just felt right, immediately.”
He says that playing an unfriendly character against such an established ensemble probably made the experience easier.
“It wasn’t that feeling that you often get when you’re a guest star and you’re not wanting to disrupt the furniture in someone else’s house. They immediately let me know this was my house too. So that laid the fabric for my experience. Then because my character did not see these characters as higher status than himself, that’s where the fun came in.
“I’m talking to these not only legendary actors, but legendary characters, and they are not legends to my character. In fact, quite the opposite. So to be able to lean into his disdain for them was really fun, and to just step right up and be completely unimpressed by them – in character – I think somehow made it easier.”
So much easier, in fact, that Stashwick quickly found himself part of an established “found family”.
“There was one great moment I got to share,” he enthuses. “I’m sitting there in the captain’s chair in-between takes and Patrick is sitting right next to me. Somebody comes over and starts playfully choking Patrick, and I look up and it was Brent [Spiner]. Then Brent looks at me and then Patrick looks at me and goes, ‘Oh, have you met Todd Stashwick?’ and then with his conspiratorial voice, he says to Brent,” – he breaks into a remarkably good impression of Patrick Stewart – “‘He’s one of us’. And I fainted. It was great. I felt I was knighted by the knight.”
The relationship with Stewart’s on-screen persona is something quite different, given Shaw’s history with the Borg and experiences at Wolf 359 – which all comes to a head in an astonishing scene on the Titan’s holodeck.
“That was part of Terry’s pitch to me…” Stashwick corrects himself. “Not that he pitched me, like he was trying to get me on board. It was like, ‘Would you like to be on Star Trek?’ ‘Yes. Oh god, please. Yes, I will pour Earl Grey tea hot, whatever you need,’” he laughs.
“But he was telling me about the character and what the plans were for this guy.” He pauses. “Let me back up. I watched ‘The Best Of Both Worlds’ back in the day when I was living with my best friend Oliver in Chicago. TNG was appointment television when I was a young actor in the early ’90s. So these episodes loomed large in my nerd history.
“So now, when I was reading that monologue – and again, what a gift for an actor to just sink his teeth into – I was placing myself on one of those ships in that episode. You’re going, ‘Oh my god, young Liam is in the engine room on one of these ships during this assault, this battle, alone.’ It recontextualised things for me, Todd. I know what the battle looked like from
Without being too precious, you could tell something special was happening
the outside because I watched those episodes – but then to put myself in the place of one of the characters on the ship during the assault… It made it so visceral and real for me to connect to, and have images and thoughts about, that I could easily go back into and visualise what Shaw was going through when he was a man in his twenties working in the engine room during the attack. So it was such a fun experiment, such a fun acting opportunity.” It’s one of many moments that adds to the cinematic scope of season three, which has been receiving an overwhelmingly positive response from fans. “Without being too precious, you could tell something special was happening,” Stashwick suggests. “You could feel that we were part of something big. This is to TNG what The Wrath Of Khan was to The Original Series, in that level of heart and warmth and jeopardy and action and pathos and thoughtfulness and character. “Then cinematography, how they lit the scenes… it just felt like classic. That wonderful ’80s rich filmmaking, things landing with authority and crafted shots. You could tell we were connected to something bigger. I’m almost at a loss for words, which is rare for me.”
He’s quick to add that this could all be his point of view, simply because it was a
“rare, wonderful opportunity” to work with the cast – and not only those that he’s been a fan of for years, but those he has personally known and loved as long.
“One of my science officers [T’veen] on the bridge, Stephanie [Czajkowski], was in my improv school. I’ve known her forever, so it was such a special thing. I’m only speaking for myself, but I really felt like I was part of something big.”
CAPTAIN’S ORDERS
As a fan, it seems he’s still pinching himself. “Little Midwest Todd Stashwick somehow is sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Titan,” he grins. “It was never lost on me.
“I had to kind of bifurcate during the job, where part of me was the adult, professional actor man, doing his job and serving the scene in the story and the characters and connecting with my partners, and serving the moment. The other part of me was like, ‘Holy expletive deleted, this is so incredibly fun’.”
Picking a favourite moment from production proves hard for Stashwick. “I certainly loved shooting that scene on the holodeck. Because, again, especially in television, you’re rarely given the amount of real estate permission and trust with such wonderfully written material. So that day was a highlight.
“Frakes was directing and he just kept giving me permission. Patrick just giving me…” he trails off. “You know what, I get a little choked up. When you think about a show that’s called Picard, and then my character basically drives this whole scene and then Patrick’s character has to sit and take it. And then after that scene to have him walk up to me and put his hand on my arm and go, ‘So expletive deleted good’. That was really special.
“But then again, the 12-year-old in me getting to run down a hallway and shoot phasers and get into fights,” he laughs loudly, “that’s pretty great. To say things like ‘Evasive manoeuvres’, ‘Battle stations’, ‘Red alert’, all that stuff. All the captain stuff was super great. A thousand little moments were the highlights for me.”
He notes that he’d already “checked that bucket list box” for appearing in Star Trek with a 2004 role as a Vulcan who, it turned out, was actually a Romulan.
“If we wind it back, I thought my Star Trek journey was over when I played Talok on Enterprise. I thought that was special, right? So this, this exceeded anything… To be at the captain’s table, man. It’s an honour and I feel a responsibility as a custodian to it.
“I would love to see miraculous things happen for Captain Shaw,” he laughs. “Anything could happen! Here’s the reality: if I never get to play Shaw again, I am absolutely cool with that. Because wow, I got a chance to do it like this and this was stellar.”