Just a Geek (16 page)

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I learned from a costumer when I was very young that professional actors always hung up their costumes at the end of the day. To this day, when someone is a pain in the ass on the set, I will say to a costumer, "He doesn't hang up his costume, does he?" So far, I haven't been wrong.

06 DECEMBER 2001

A Sort of Homecoming

It's 1:15 in the morning. The crew is tired. I am tired. Most of the cast has been released, and it's only me, Patrick, and Gates left, along with about 30 background actors. It's the last shot of the night, and we're finally doing my scene.

We block it, rehearse it once, and then we shoot it. It's a pretty complicated shot, camera-wise, and I can tell that the director is getting frustrated with the constant re-takes, and we all know that the studio will not let us go past 1:30, so there's a touch of urgency in the air.

Late on a Wednesday night. Long hours. Most of the cast has been released, because they've got a long day tomorrow.

It's like I never left, and I love it.

There's much, much more, but I have to go back to the studio in a couple hours, and I've got other work to do, so I'll write more tomorrow.

I never did write more, tomorrow or ever. Actually, if I can steal from
Stand By Me
and paraphrase just a little bit,
I haven't written about it at all until just now
. Thank you for your indulgence.

I fell into bed shortly after that, and 10 hours later, I was back on the set.

The day is a blurred composite of images, and no matter how hard I try, I can't get my brain to separate them into individual memories. All I can clearly recall is how I spent the day spiraling around the Yin and Yang of joy and sorrow, until the director called cut on the final take.

"Thank you, everyone!" the First AD called out. "That is a company wrap for today, and picture wrap for Wil Wheaton!"

There was some polite applause from the crew, who really didn't know me, and some very genuine applause from Patrick and Gates, the only cast members who were still on the stage. They walked over, and embraced me. We knew that this was the
real
Journey's End for me and Wesley Crusher, but we didn't talk about it.

This is all about family, and I'm a big part of this family
.

"I'm going to walk back," Patrick said to me. "Would you like to walk together?"

"I'd like that a lot," I said.

It was late, but not nearly as late as it had been the night before, and it was very cold as we walked through the "New York Street" area of the back lot.

"Remember when they built this for
Bronx Zoo
?" I said. "I used to come over here and pretend it was real."

Patrick slowed, then stopped. A huge arc light towered over us. Apple boxes sat on the curb, cables ran into the façade of a deli, and someone had left a styrofoam cup half filled with coffee on the window ledge.

"When I first came here to audition for
Next Generation
," he said, "I didn't know if I'd ever get a chance to be on a back lot again, so I left the casting office and spent nearly an hour's time walking round here."

He began to walk again.

"That's so weird," I said. "I mean . . . here you are, 15 years later."

He smiled. "I know. I remember worrying that the security department would catch me, and I'd end up in a great deal of trouble!"

We laughed together.

"I've lost count of the number of times I had run ins with the security department," I said. "Most of them involved dangerously speeding around the lot in a 'borrowed' golf cart or playing music too loudly in my dressing room.

"I wish I'd been able to hang out with you guys when we were doing this every day," I said.

"Oh, my dear, you missed out on a great deal of fun!" his voice became excited. "The late Friday nights when we'd close down Nicodell's
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were great!"

"Can I tell you something?" I said.

"Of course," he said.

"I really blew it when I was here before. I should have treasured the experience that I had working with you guys, and I didn't. I'm really sorry that I was such a dick when I was a teenager."

He stopped again, and put his hand on my shoulder. "Wil, my dear, you
were
a teenager. We all understood."

"Really?"

"Yes. And when we worked together, I always related to you as an actor, first, and you were a lovely actor. You know, I wasn't thrilled about working with a child, but working with you was a great pleasure."

What do you say to that? How do you respond, when it comes from the man who was, for all intents and purposes, a father figure, mentor, role model, and hero? If you're me, you say, "I'm so sad that this is over for me."

"So am I," he said. We began to walk again. As we turned the corner and neared Stages 8 and 9, I saw someone come out of the stage.

"Hey! That's Brad Yacobian!" I said.

"It is!" Patrick said. "Hello! Brad!"

Brad started as a First AD on
Next Generation
and has worked on all the incarnations of
Star Trek
since then. He was working as the coproducer and unit production manager on
Enterprise
.

"Hey you guys," he said. "Are you just wrapping?"

"Oh yes. It's Thursday, you know." Patrick said. Brad smiled a knowing smile, and I laughed. See, production usually starts out with early calls on Monday, but the Screen Actor's Guild requires a 12-hour break for the actors between their release and the next day's call time. So if we start at 8 but don't wrap until 10, we won't start until 10 the next day, and so on. This doesn't happen very often, because it's very expensive for the studios. If a show doesn't start until the afternoon on Thursday, it usually means that the director is incompetent, the schedule is very complicated, or a little of both.

"Director or schedule?" Brad said.

"Schedule," Patrick said. He pronounced it with a soft "ch" sound, like "shelf." I suppressed a giggle.

"Who's working tonight?" I asked, hoping the answer would be "Jolene Blalock, and she wants to see you without your pants in her trailer right now."

Brad looked at his call sheet. "Let's see . . . Scott is still here—"

"Is he in his trailer?" Patrick asked.

"I think so. You want to say hello?" Brad said.

Oh my god. I'm going to stand with Patrick while he talks to Scott Bakula!

"I'd like to, yes."

Brad walked us to Scott's trailer. It was in the same place where Patrick's trailer was so many years ago.

That's a little weird
.

He rapped twice on the door, and from behind it, a muffled voice emerged. "Yeah?"

"Scott, it's Brad. I have someone here who wants to say hello."

I thought back to all the times I heard this when I was on the other side of that door, and felt a little uncomfortable. The door opened, and there was Scott Bakula, in that cool
Enterprise
jumpsuit.

"Hey, Patrick! How are you?" he said.

Oh . . . they know each other. Interesting
.

"I'm well," he said. "Scott, this is Wil Wheaton, he plays Wesley Crusher."

Plays Wesley, not played Wesley. That was cool
.

He extended his hand and I shook it.

"It's really nice to meet you," I said. "How are you guys doing?"

"It's Thursday night," he said with a tired grin.

"Some things never change, I guess, " I said.

We all laughed.

"Listen, Scott," Patrick said. "I've been on and off the lot for several weeks now, and I should have come over much sooner to say hello to you."

"Thank you," Scott said. "I've seen you pass by several times, but I've always been too busy to say hello myself."

They talked for several minutes about the things that you talk about, I guess, when you're the captain of the
Enterprise
. I remember Patrick said, "You're doing a wonderful job," and I realized that he was having the conversation with Scott that Shatner should have had with him in 1987. He was passing the torch to—well, to the next generation.

I looked at Brad, and before either one of us could say anything, his walkie said, "We're ready for First Team on the bridge." How many times had I stood in this exact spot and heard those exact words over the years?

"Gotta go to work," he said. "I'm so glad you stopped by. I'll come over and visit you . . . are you on 16?"

"Shortly," Patrick said. "We're on 29 until tomorrow, then location."

Scott shook my hand. "It was nice to meet you."

"You too."

"Have a good night, you guys," Brad said, as they walked into the stage. "I have Scott, and we're walking . . ."

I turned to Patrick. "That was very cool, man."

Patrick just nodded.

We arrived back at the dressing rooms. My trailer was farther away than his, so I said, "I guess this is goodbye."

"Not goodbye," he said. "Farewell."

We embraced. "Have a wonderful shoot. If I'm on the lot, I'll be sure to stop by."

"Please do." He walked into his trailer.

An assistant director walked over to me. "Michael Westmore is in the makeup trailer, if you'd like to have him take your sideburns off."

"Okay," I said, "Thank you."

Jonathan and LeVar were in the trailer, having their makeup removed, when I walked in. I took a seat in the chair between them and waited.

"You back with us tomorrow, W?" Jonathan said.

I shook my head. "Nope. This is it."

"You were only here for two days?" LeVar said.

"Yeah," I said.

"It feels like it should be longer," Jonathan said. "Much longer."

The prodigal son had come home.

Months later, I heard that Jonathan had directed a movie that my stepkids really wanted to see, called
Clockstoppers
. I had no problem calling his office and asking for some passes to see the film.

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A restaurant that used to be on Melrose, with a back door that opened right onto the Paramount lot. It was bulldozed for "progress" in the 1990s.

21 FEBRUARY 2002

Still Cool

Okay. It's 1988 and a little show called
Star Trek: The Next Generation
is in its second season. It's struggling a little bit, experiencing the typical sophomore slump of any new series and a writer's strike is not helping very much.

We are all working late one night, probably shooting blue screen on the bridge, so we all wrap at the same time (a rarity). I excitedly walk to the parking garage with Jonathan Frakes, who I am already looking up to.

We're walking back to our cars and we're talking about something, I can't quite remember what, but I really feel like Jonathan is treating me as an equal. He's not treating me like I'm a kid. It really makes me feel good and I say to him, "You know, Jonathan, I can tell, just from talking to you, that when you were younger? You used to be cool."

He laughs and I think to myself that I've cemented my position with him as cool contemporary, rather than lame-ass kid.

Then he says, "What do you mean, used to be?!"

I realized what I'd said, and how it didn't match up with what was in my head, which was, "
Gee, man. You are so cool now, as an adult, I think that you were a really cool guy who I would have liked to have hung out with when you were my age."

He knew what I meant, I could tell, and he really tortured me about that for years. Every time I see him nowadays, he turns to a person nearby and he says, "You know, Wheaton here told me that I used to be cool." We laugh about it and I make the appropriate apologies and explanations, while Jonathan makes faces and gestures indicating that I am full of shit.

Now, when I was working on Trek, I always wanted to be:

• As good an actor as Patrick
  

• As funny as Brent
  

• As cool as Jonathan
  

I'm still working on those things, but Jonathan just recently showed me how cool he still is.

Jonathan directed this new movie, called
Clockstoppers
. It's a movie geared toward kids, but it seems smart enough for their parents to sit through it without dreaming up ways of eviscerating the writer responsible for robbing them of 90 minutes of their weekend, which sets it well apart from most "family" films.

Ryan and Nolan have been talking about how they can't wait to see this movie and I mentioned to them last week that I was friends with the director and I had heard that it was going to be really cool and I was pretty sure that I could get us into a screening.

I called up Jonathan's office and asked if I could get some tickets to a screening, so I could take the kids and be a hero to them. Jonathan's assistant said that it would be no problem and I'd hear from someone at Nickelodeon about the screening.

The next day, the phone rings and it's totally Jonathan himself, calling me back, telling me how happy he is that I want to take my stepkids to see his movie and that he's really happy to get me into the screening on Saturday.

See, the thing is, Jonathan is what we in Hollywood call A Big Deal™ and usually people who become A Big Deal ™ don't usually talk to people who aren't also A Big Deal ™.

But Jonathan is not only A Big Deal™, he's also A Really Great Guy™ and he didn't need to call me back, personally. Actually, I really didn't expect him to.

But he did and that proves that he is now and always has been, cool. Despite my fumbled proclamations as a 16-year-old dorkus.

A few months later, Jonathan called me in for an episode of
The Twilight Zone
that he was directing. I was excited to be called in, but the whole experience was made even more meaningful because Jonathan called me at home himself, to tell me that he was having his casting people phone my agent. He really was Still Cool™.