During the course of the seven years I played scenes with an oil slick, I played a scene with a grain of rice. Sometimes with indescribable creatures. I remember having a conversation with something which was simply a smell, that's all. It was part of our job.
As the captain, I was going to be having the dominant role in most of the episodes, and that was appealing. I wasn't interested in coming to Hollywood to sit around.
As time went on, I did campaign to lighten the character a little bit, to introduce some romance into the episodes, outside activities, horse riding and fencing and mountaineering.
During my time we had two chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, at different times of course, on the bridge, both of whom asked my permission to sit on the captain's chair.
Encouraging people to believe in it was the most important thing of all. It's one of the reasons I was always uncomfortable whenever film crews came on the set to shoot things. I didn't want our make-believe to be exposed.
Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.
Having spent so much of my life with Shakespeare's world, passions and ideas in my head and in my mouth, he feels like a friend - someone who just went out of the room to get another bottle of wine.
I am told that there have been over the years a number of experiments taking place in places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been entirely based on concepts raised by Star Trek.
I became a better listener than I ever had been as a result of playing Jean Luc Picard because it was one of the things that he does terrifically well.
I began directing episodes, which was a great light every couple of months. We never short-changed our audience, but it became something that you had to work at rather than something that was a pleasure.
It wasn't until the first season ended that I went to my first Star Trek convention. It was in Denver. There were two and a half thousand people there.
