Interview: Alice Krige

Since its inception in the late 1960s, Star Trek has created some of the most indelible villains in science fiction history. Klingons, Romulans, hell, even tribbles have entered the pop cultural consciousness and established a lexicon for bad guys and adversarial figures on TV and in the movies; but of the show's legacy of insurmountable heavies, the Borg has become one of the most formidable - and fearsome - of them all.
1996's First Contact at long last introduced the galaxy to the Borg Queen, a creature whose sensuality was surpassed only by her intelligence; played by South African actress Alice Krige, the Queen quickly went down in Star Trek mythology as one of the most dangerous - and desirable foes the crew of the Enterprise would ever face.

Krige recently spoke to IGN DVD to commemorate the release of Star Trek: Fan Collective - Borg, a fan-picked collection of episodes featuring the Enterprise crew's various encounters with the collective. In addition to her recollections about working on First Contact and her appearances on the TV show, she discusses the prospect of moving from the future to the past, as she did when she joined the cast of HBO's Deadwood.

IGN DVD: The first experience that you had with Star Trek was working on First Contact, correct?
Alice Krige:
That's right.

IGN: How was it to join a cast and crew who were already well-established and tightly knit as a group?

Krige:

They were extraordinarily welcoming. I really only worked with Patrick [Stewart] and Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes, who directed the film]. I met everyone else subsequently when the picture was released and we started to do press junkets and ultimately went on tour for the pice. Then I met everyone else, and the embrace was just extended by them. But what was interesting, based on what I observed, was that they really liked each another and as a group, and when we did First Contact they hadn't worked together for some time and they were just thrilled to be back together.

There was a sort of atmosphere of carnival and playfulness and the kind of teasing that happens among people who are very familiar to each other and really like each other. So it wasn't as if I was made to feel welcome. I just was welcome. It was a kind of seamless thing; it was lovely.

IGN: Did that make it easy to assimilate, so to speak, when you later appeared on the TV series?

Krige:

Yes. By then I was kind of so immersed in it that I felt as if I was part of the group, part of the family. What was lovely about going back and doing the two episodes of the series' finale was that I worked with the same people. Scott Whelan, again, did my make-up, and everyone who had been on the movie but wasn't on that particular episode kind of stopped by to say hello. It was a constant stream of people just walking in to say, "hi, how are you, how's it going?" It was a very special thing.

IGN: One of the reasons the character has been so successful is because she exudes this sensual quality unique among the Star Trek villains. Was that something originally written into the First Contact script, or did you develop that yourself to expand the character?

Krige:

I went in and auditioned and they didn't say too much to me, and then they called and asked me to come in three weeks later. Again, they didn't say too much; they just asked me to do the scenes. And then I worked with Brent one afternoon, and Brent was very illuminating to me because I thought it was about the Borg Queen and Picard. Brent said, "it's not really about the Borg Queen and Picard. It's about the Borg Queen and Data." Because it was Data who managed to release Picard, and she was so entranced by his ability that that's what she comes back for. She comes back for Data, but Picard is "by the way…" and somehow him establishing that there was an attraction there [helped].

It must have been written into the script, but it was never discussed… No one ever talked to me about exuding sexuality; we never had a conversation about it. I just got up and did it. The look of her was so disturbing [to begin with], and that suit was the oddest thing. The first one I wore was too small for me and it made me walk and move in a very particular way because I was always fighting against the traction of the rubber that was too tight. So it gave me a very particular, muscular sexual kind of movement, and it arose out of the suit. It's the weirdest thing; I don't think it's ever happened to me as completely, but only a couple of times have I felt as if I was a conduit, and she kind of did herself is all I can say. I never made a conscious decision to generate a sexual energy, but it just happened.

How much did you know about Star Trek lore prior to working on the film, and how much have you kept up with it since playing the Borg Queen?
Krige:
I had never seen an episode of Star Trek when I was asked to go in and meet them. I grew up in South Africa without a television; there was no television, and the year after I left television arrived in South Africa so I have never really acquired a taste for watching television. I know it's a terrible thing to say given that it's the format that I mostly work in, but I don't watch it. When I'm not working, we live in a very wild canyon, and I just spend time outside.

[But] I know about the Borg and I have picked up through the ten years [since] First Contact a lot of the Star Trek mythology. I developed my own Borg mythology because I had to in order to make sense of her. I have no idea what the writers would think if they knew who I think the Borg is, but I haven't seen Enterprise, for example. It's not for lack of interest, it's just that I can't sort of help it; when I'm not working, I need time out from it. So I have not kept up with it.

IGN: Another show you worked on is my personal favorite currently on the air, and that's Deadwood. What is it like moving from Star Trek's futuristic bent to something equally dense in terms of character and dialogue, but strikingly different in terms of tone and overall content?

Krige:

Interestingly enough, both Star Trek and Deadwood, I admire David Milch enormously. I think he has an extraordinary intellect and talent and imagination and gift; he is a most remarkable man. My admiration for him knows no bounds, and I think it is so difficult to maintain your integrity, which sounds like a highfalutin word, but it's a very real thing to actually maintain it in the face of the demands of series television. Just to survive it is an accomplishment, but to achieve what Milch achieves is remarkable; I don't think there's anyone like him, frankly.

IGN: The DVDs for Season Two, in which you appear, are scheduled for release prior to the beginning of Season Three. Did the producers enlist you to participate in any of the commentaries or bonus materials?
Krige:
I know nothing about it. No one asked me. But what I was going to say was that both Star Trek, at the point that I was working on it, and Deadwood, use language in a very powerful, heightened kind of way, and that's the thing that is the similarity. Actually, both are deeply concerned about social issues, which is perhaps what makes both of them so striking; but I think what Milch is exploring is what the antecedents of America are, and it's so interesting and he takes it on in such a complex way that he doesn't diminish any of the contributing factors. He seems to be able to address it all.

It's not easy for me to work on it, because I think David changed what he had in mind for the character halfway through. So my sense of who Maddie was at the beginning was not a sense of who she was halfway through, [and] I felt as if I was on shifting ground all of the time. It was difficult, but it was extraordinarily challenging because the whole thing operates on a knife edge of Milch's creative impulse, and that's part of what its power is: there's not a second of complacency in any of it.

IGN: As indelible as your performance is in First Contact, is there a specific Star Trek scene or experience that stands out above all of the others?

Krige:

No. It has all been fascinating. I actually have enjoyed all of it, really. I mean, every moment of it was kind of unexpected and interesting. I couldn't choose a particular moment that was more special than another, [although] there was one moment that was kind of heartbreaking. The suit that I wore first, as I told you, on the first day it became apparent had done something unprecedented and shrunk and was too tight for me. We took it off halfway through the day for me to pee and we couldn't get it back on because my hands and feet had swollen from circulation being cut off. So they realized that they needed to make me a new suit, so bless him, Todd Masters worked through the weekend and made me new suit, so I was effectively wrapped in a marshmallow for the rest of the shoot.

But the Borg, my beloved Borg, [they] were in pain constantly - they had blisters on the ankles and their necks, and they were in constant discomfort. But not only were they in constant discomfort, but something very astonishing happened: I was on the set and there was a table with food and drinks, and I was standing and happened to have the craft service table in my line of vision, and there were a couple of people pouring themselves tea. And usually people sort of hang around the craft service table, and the Borg walked out to the craft service table, and these two people without realizing it moved away. It was like not only were the Borg in pain, but they were kind of shunned because they were so weird. The enmity that not the person inside doing the acting, but the character carries is so frightening that people without realizing it would give them a wide berth.

Interview: Alice Krige - IGN (2024)

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