by Jerry Seward & Anthony Van Pyre
In meeting actor Gary Lockwood in person, you'll find he's a world traveler, a man with strong opinions about our tumultuous society, and a really nice guy.
Over the years, he has treated us to a diverse range of characters. Most of us are familiar with Lockwood from his roles in Stanley Kubrick's SF masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the episode that sold STAR TREK, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (it's been speculated by fans and novel writers that Lockwood's character in that episode, Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell, was Capt. Kirk's original First Officer). More recently, he appeared in NBC's UFO drama DARK SKIES.
POWER STAR's Editor-in-Chief Jerry Seward and Assistant Editor Anthony Van Pyre had the pleasure of taking part in the recent Q&A session with Lockwood at Her Majesty's Entertainment/VISIONS '97. Lockwood began by discussing the dearth of quality in the new crop of science fiction films (none of which he says are anywhere near the league of 2001).
GARY LOCKWOOD: The only way we may ever see again really great science fiction is if a real talented, well-connected individual gets into a position where he makes something that works financially.
I feel that what science fiction filmmakers are doing now is nice technically, but storywise, it's kind of lame.
You couldn't make 2001 today unless you were Kubrick or maybe Ridley Scott, who made BLADE RUNNER, that was totally brilliant but fell on its ass financially and he couldn't get a job for awhile.
There isn't anybody out there right now that's as good as them. I mean, I hear about these hot directors like David Lynch and I go see their movies and they only go so far. If ERASERHEAD is brilliant, you guys are on to something that I don't get.
Q: Yes, a lot of SF is "been there, done that," but what about BABYLON 5?
LOCKWOOD: I don't watch television. I'm not a TV guy. I'm a typical California boy. I watch cooking shows and a little sports. I watch a few movies on television; I have a great big, giant-screen TV, but I watch like some wolf trying to eat a Mountie on the Discovery Channel.
It's just not my thing to sit and watch BABYLON 5. Since I've been out on the science fiction trail here, I've turned it on a couple of times, but I don't like to just watch two actors stand in front of a white wall and talk. That just drives me crazy.
The only television show I watch and it's because they're both friends of mine is NASH BRIDGES on Friday night. It's completely commercial crap, but I watch it. Why am I watching this? Because Don and Cheech say funny little weird things that to me are kind of a kick. It's meaningless, trite banter, but it's fun. No one on the other detective shows are doing that; they play it so bloody straight.
Q: Have you watched THE X-FILES? That has good banter?
LOCKWOOD: I've seen a couple of good X-FILES. That's maybe the only other show I've ever watched.
I'm a little burned out on sports because there's so much now. UCLA played last night and I don't even know if they won; I fell asleep...that's not true, I went to the bar. (laughs)
This is fun, shooting the breeze with people with different point-of-views, like last night, with some Brits and there were some crazy women. In all the traveling that I've done doing this, I very honestly don't think there have been many people like me. In other words, maybe you would think so, but I've been a sailor, a cowboy, a surfer, and an actor and I've been all over the bloody world. So, I get out on the road like this and once in awhile, I meet maybe a Brit, male, who's been like me. But for the most part, no.
My whole life's been kind of nuts and fun. I went up the Amazon in '68; that was one of the coolest things I ever did.
Q: Hasn't it changed a lot because of all the deforestation?
LOCKWOOD: I know they're cutting a lot down, but it's vast. If you go up the Amazon tomorrow, trust me, there'll be a lot of snakes and a lot of weird people, so don't start thinking it's going to be the way you read about it. When I went up, the weird people were Europeans with earrings in their nose, mercenary soldiers with scars, truly weird people. I finally bought a gun because I said if I'm going to get it, I'm taking somebody with me.
The world's a fabulous place though. I hate to see a photograph of a bunch of black kids in the street all pissed off at life or I see a bunch of rednecks who are ready to blow up the government. I see certain elements in our society and I just think
you're too dumb to breathe. You should really go see the bloody world; get your ass out of Montana or get out of the ghetto. Just get out of there! Quit listening to the jerk next to you, that's my attitude toward these losers. Get out there and see what a vast world it is and all the different people in it and all the different problems and how fucked up religion is. I don't care if you are religious, I'll insult you anyway. (laughs)
No, I really mean that. My attitude is don't give to the jerks, give a guy who's starving something to eat. I have strong feelings about it because I've been all over the world a lot.
What was Timothy McVeigh's methodology? What were they really going to create in blowing up the building? They become so polluted in what they think they understand and believe they think they're right. Well, how do you know you're right? How do you know until you've gone out and seen the whole world?
How can you grow up in any pocket in this world and think you know something?
I lived in South Africa for three and a half months. For me, it was unbelievably strange. I did a movie there and at the end, I threw a party for all the cast and crew. I said I know how you are about your skin colors, but I'm throwing the party, I'm paying the bills. If any of you because of who you are and what you believe in don't show up, I'll understand. 85 percent showed up. The black people who didn't want to come because there were white people they didn't like and the whites who didn't want to come because we had blacks didn't come. Everybody else came and I told them thanks, eat, drink, and I'll see you around.
Q: What film was that?
LOCKWOOD: It was some terrible sci-fi movie that never worked out. I don't even remember what the hell it was called.
Q: Isn't it something that nearly thirty years after the release of 2001, you're at a convention to talk about it?
LOCKWOOD: I didn't even know they existed two years ago. I knew there were Trekkies. To my knowledge, the TREK conventions didn't really spring up until a couple of years after it went off the air.
STAR TREK wouldn't die. There were a whole lot of young people who were touched by the thought process of science fiction. If you watched a cop show, there wasn't anything that was going to stimulate your mind.
But these young people today that are in these gangs...they ought to go to Los Angeles, into the inner city, where the blacks hate the Mexicans and the Mexicans hate the blacks and they sometimes jump on the Koreans who then shoot them. They ought to take them all sailing - into big storms. (laughs) Two Koreans, four blacks, three Chicanos, a couple of white rednecks...put them on a sailing ship in a storm. I've sailed a lot in my life and let me tell you that when you're out in a big storm on the Pacific, you don't have any macho. That would be a way to solve problems. Get all these people who hate each other and sail them around the world so that they have to help each other live.