We {Star Trek: The Magazine} talk to the actor behind Icheb, one of STAR TREK's newest Borg -the abandoned, immature drone who became the latest addition to the crew of the USES. Voyager NCC-74656.
Manu Intiraymi originally wanted to play the role of the 'first' Borg boy in STAR TREK VOYAGER's 'Collective,' the Season Six show where we met the Borg children who had been abandoned after their fellow hive members were destroyed. "The audition was for Boy 2 or Boy 1," says Manu. "I read for Boy 2 first, hut then they said they wanted me to read for Boy 1, so I came back and read for that. Then they decided to keep me with number 2, which was the luckiest thing in the world, because Boy 1 croaks! What's funny is that I really wanted that part; I wanted to play a bad guy villain instead of the sensitive number 2. But number 2 lived and became Icheb, so I was very lucky"
Family Fan
Manu's uncle is a big STAR TREK fan, and was able to help out when his nephew wanted to do a little research. Manu says, "I'd seen all the STAR TREK movies and I'd seen a few episodes of VOYAGER, but I hadn't been an avid watcher and I didn't know exactly who the Borg were or how they were supposed to act. When I got the part, I got tapes of all the Borg episodes from my uncle so that I could see what they did and how they moved. Since then I've gone back and seen some of the NEXT GENERATION stuff."
As a young actor unused to prosthetics and the long, regular hours required on a weekly show, Manu has coped well with the physical burdens. "There's been days where I go in for just a few hours, and there's been days when I've worked 15, 16 hours. The first time I got beamed up it was one of those 15-hour days, and I was really, really tired; it was probably 12.45 at night, but my last scene that day was my beamout, down to the planet. I thought, 'Oh, my God, I'm getting beamed up! I think I can do this!' I got beamed up twice."
Feeling The Part
Even the makeup in the first show was an adventure. "It's intense and you're covered in plasticand it's hot and it itches, and I did my share of complaining about it, but I don't think I complained as much as other people do. At least, I hope I didn't. I was OK because, although I
got to itch and it was uncomfortable, just knowing that I was playing a Borg was magical enough for me to love it. Once I had all that stuff on and saw how cool it looked, I thought, 'I can go through with this, for sure!"' As many actors have agreed, the prosthetics help them to get into the right frame of mind for the role. "When you move, it's so constricting that you feel like a robot. And when they were putting on the makeup I would just close my eyes and pretend I was in a Borg chamber and think, 'OK, I'm being assimilated right now.' I'd picture myself in a cube with little electronic things hitting my face, except it was just James [Rohland, makeup artist] with his airbrush!" But Manu is glad Icheb didn't remain wholly Borg. "It would have been a lot harder. I would have kept doing it, but I might be a little cynical and I might be sick of itching, and then I'd be sitting here telling you, 'I'm so tired of this costume!' I'm glad I'm not rubbered up."
Icheb's progression from Borgdom to near-normality has given Manu an interesting arc to play In 'Collective,' he seemed timid compared with the leader of the children's group, but in the same show he proved to be sensible and conciliatory and had been virtually de-Borged when it ended. 'At the end of the show, they were telling me - and the script was telling me - that he was just a 16-year-old kid, so I played innocence and curiosity A 16-year-old in America might not be so innocent, but this kid comes from way in the future and was probably raised strictly by his parents, so that's how I played it."
Strong Episodes
Icheb has since been through a traumatic reunion with his parents and a willingness to sacrifice himself to save Seven of Nine. "I really enjoyed 'Imperfection,"' Manu says. "My cortical node got taken out, so my major Borg component has gone, and it's in Seven's head now. I got to sweat and yell and get mad and challenge people; those scenes were really intense. And in 'Child's Play' I got to do a lot. But I also like shows where they just have me in there for a couple of days.
"Icheb has got more than innocence in his central core; he's got a lot of different things going on. He's gotten really mad and mean and tough, and be's gotten really wimpy; and in 'Nightingale' he was sensitive and shy and thought B'Elanna had a crush on him. When has a Borg, or someone that's part Borg, been shy or flustered? It was fun. I'm very humble, and very pleased with everything that they've done."
Manu misses the other Borg children, who were returned to their home worlds at the start of 'Imperfection. "They were cool," he says. "They were all really excited to be on the show I don't know if I'll get booted off, but they were really, really depressed when it happened to them and they tried to hide it, but they're just kids. I guess in a way it's good; they learned the Hollywood lesson that nothing lasts for ever, that you're going to have to go from job to job. But I loved working with those kids."
He's also enjoyed his interaction with the regular cast. "I've had a couple of scenes with the captain, but mostly I've worked with Seven and the Doctor. Then I got to work with Neelix. It was a hilarious experience; it's hard to stay focussed because Ethan is probably the funniest actor I've ever worked with. Andieri has been great - she's really amazing. We joke around too, but when it comes down to shooting, as soon as she looks at you with that Seven of Nine stare it demands you to come back with something. And then there's Robert Picardo: I knew him as other things besides the Doctor and I've really always looked up to his acting, so working with him is like a dream come true -I don't want to use those words because it's kind of corny, but I guess that's it, actually! I watched him when I was young, and I get to act with him now. It's amazing. He told me a story about working with Jack Lemmon when they were on Broadway when he was 20-something, and it put in perspective for me how long a career can be. You can get to work with people like Robert Picardo in your 20's, and you can be an actor your whole life if you want to be.
Welcoming Cast
"Roxann was really cool too - it was very easy to talk to her about what we were doing in the scenes. In a lot of shows that I've done guest work on, the regular cast isn't very accepting; they're kind of condescending, but with STAR TREK I've found that to be absolutely the opposite. I've felt very welcomed by everybody I've worked with there. They pick on me a little bit, but it's just good fun!"
Manu would love to be a regular in a long-running series: STAR TREK for preference, but anything that has a moral center. "STAR TREK affects people in a good way; it inspires hope in its fans, and teaches a lesson. As long as I'm in something like that, where I think my work is doing something important, I'd be really stoked to work on a show for seven years.
Future Hopes
Meanwhile, Manu has been musing on what the writers might have done with him. "In 'Child's Play' the captain says Icheb was bred to kill Borg, and from that I thought they were going to make me into a weapon. But it didn't happen." So Manu is looking forward to a future for Icheb, although he knows his main ambition isn't likely to be fulfilled. "I'd like to be tough," he says. "I'd like to get my own little ship with a bunch of young badass kids with guns and go out and destroy inter-galactic bad guys, but that's not STAR TREK" Meanwhile, then, he's happy to see what the future shows hold for him, with one proviso -"I don't want to die!"
