Jonathan Del Arco may have only appeared in two episodes of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, but he made a major impact and his story will be among those that continue on the new CBS All Access series ‘Star Trek: Picard’.
Del Arco and Jeri Ryan have the unique challenge of coming back as Borg characters and as Ryan confessed, she had a very hard time finding her way into Seven of Nine after all this time and Del Arco echoed that experience.
Del Arco, Ryan, and Jonathan Frakes appeared at a panel at Star Trek Las Vegas 2019, and Del Arco discussed coming back to the role after all this time:
“There was a lot in the Borg experience from the end of TNG to now that was emotionally easy for me to connect to. However, there was a lot of Hugh’s physicality that came from the wardrobe, which I loathed at the time, because it was impossible to wear. I wasn’t sure how much of myself I could use. I didn’t want to lose the complete physicality of the old Hugh. Jeri and talk a lot about when you are doing Star Trek, you are doing it for you guys [the fans].…We did not want to mess it up for you…We would say: “they are going to kill us if we do that!” We have to be true to our base, to our audience. They know our roles in some ways better than we do ourselves. So, I was in a panic.”
Del Arco expressed that the best part of working on ‘Picard’ is working with Picard, or rather star Patrick Stewart. From the sound of things, almost all of Hugh’s scenes in the upcoming series will involve one-on-one interaction with the once-retired Captain.
“To get to work with him in your 20s, like whoa!… So, coming back to the role as an adult and getting to spend – honestly the entire job has circled around for me the amount of weeks I have had to have one-on-one scenes with Patrick, and have time hanging out with him, talking and getting to know him and our shared love of rescue pit bulls and food and wine. I just adore him. For me, the gift has been to get to work with Patrick.”
‘Star Trek: Picard’ launches on CBS All Access next year.
Source: Trek Movie
