Alice Kridge – Borg Queen

Q.  What was it like for you being asked to reprise your role as the Borg Queen in the final “Voyager” episode?

A. I was really quite apprehensive because I didn’t know whether the character would have the same impact on television as she had on film.  I had been on the crew for the film but wasn’t on the crew for the TV show and people kind of came by during the course of the two days I was working on the TV show just to say hello.  So, there was this constant stream of people kind of dropping in to say hi and how you were doing.  That was really, really lovely, usually one does a job and you move on and you don’t necessarily ever see those people again.  That was great and it was very interesting to find that the character had more and more exploration, that she was kind of, there was a whole lot more to explore and it was also lovely to work with a whole new group of actors, specifically two women.  That was very, very interesting as well.  So, it was a very, very good experience despite my apprehensions before starting. 

Q.  What do you think it is about “Star Trek” that continues to hook fans?

A.  I think it asks questions that are kind of big and important, you know, about things that affect society at large, or our society.  I also think that human beings have a need for fantasy and I think “Star Trek” fulfills that.  I think the universe and the cosmos are endless and you just have to walk outside and look at the night sky and you start to imagine what it is like out there.  It’s fun to be given a means of going up there and exploring up there and I also think that “Star Trek,” to a great deal, deals in archetype.  It’s only recently that part of the power, when you deal with one archetype, it sets all the others reverberating.  Because the Borg Queen is the archetype individual without morality and consciousness and that sort of sets off in your internal landscape all the notes about creation and destruction.  I think it just kind of activates all sorts of synapses that your regular subconscious doesn’t and I think that’s maybe why it’s had such staying power. 

Q.  What first attracted you to the role of the Borg Queen?

A.  When I went in to do the first audition I just was kind of interested by it.  I think getting up and doing the scenes in front of Johnathan Drake and Rick Berman and how it brought her alive rather than leaving it on a page.  I just suddenly felt she would be very interesting to explore.  We are all, most of us, a great majority of us, are entrenched with a sense of right and wrong and what is acceptable within the human community.  To be given an opportunity to explore a being to whom those things are completely irrelevant is really, really interesting.  You wouldn’t want to go there in your own life, all of your conditioning wouldn’t let you.  To be allowed to do that is kind of wild, it’s very interesting to play in that fantasy, without consequences, is very interesting.  I don’t know, what is it, it sounds like a weird thing to say but I suppose that is what makes some actors be interested in acting because you get to experience being immersed in different realities. 

Q.  With this release of the new “Star Trek: Borg Collection” DVD, what do you think it is about these particular episodes that made them fan favorites?

A.  I am afraid I can’t answer that question because I haven’t seen it.  I can imagine the Borg is a very, very disturbing concept.  More than twenty thousand people voted online for the most popular episodes and these are the episodes that came back.  They voted for popular themes and the Borg Queen was one of them, which is part of the reason why this collection came together.  What is interesting to me about the Borg is that I’ve spoken to many, many people and many people have come up to me and initiated conversations about the character and it means something slightly different to everyone.  It’s almost as if,  they in creating the Borg Queen was like a worm, that wormed its way into people’s fears and people’s worst nightmares and through that way that technology dehumanizes human beings, be that whether it is a sort of metaphor for forces of darkness or for all things destructive in human beings it’s somehow tapped into people’s fears this character.  The way it taps in is different for each individual and I think people don’t have an answer to it because she generates such ambivalence.  David said to me the thing about her is that she is both sexy and evil and that is just one of the aspects of it.  That sex should be evil is frightening and that evil should be sexy is equally as frightening.  There is such ambiguity and such ambivalence in people’s response to the character.  Many people found her beautiful but also very frightening, but I think that no one ever gets closure about the character because she is both attractive and repulsive.  People can never try and pigeon-hole her and I think that’s probably, or the Borg for that matter, I think that might be why she has stayed with so many people. 

Q.  You’ve got a new film called Silent Hill coming out.  What can you tell us about the premise of the film and your character?

A.  The film is extremely complex, I haven’t seen it, it’s based on a vastly popular computer game, a Japanese computer game, called Silent Hill.  I believe it has a gaming base of like thirty-five million people.  The first part of the film is very faithful to the game, so much so that some of the camera angles are actually recreated I believe according to the director.  The rest of the film goes into the realm of the possible back story of the game and it is about a cult that burns witches.  This cult has kind of gotten trapped in a parallel universe because it embodies the fight between the forces of darkness and the power of love as it were.  What it means to me, I have no idea what it means to anyone else, this is a highly personal interpretation of it.  I saw a ten minute trailer, not the one that’s been out in the theaters, but the one that they sent to a Con and we had only been shooting for three weeks and I found it very frightening.  I don’t know how the film has turned out because I haven’t seen it but it was a very overwhelming experience to do it.  It is about the battle between darkness and light and the power of love and as I understand it, the ending is quite ambiguous.

Q.  Why should viewers take the time time to check out this film?

A.  Because it operates on many, many levels and it asks some difficult questions.  I think it operates on pure, spectacular entertainment and kind of it works as a thriller and also it’s got some shockingly powerful images.  They stir up all sorts of emotional responses in the audience, I think it’s just very gripping and it’s a wild imagined universe.  I haven’t seen it, it’s very difficult for me to talk about because I haven’t seen it.  In fact, I’m going to Spago to attend a convention to do a Q&A about it and I haven’t seen it, which makes it very difficult.  I’m just talking from my experience of doing it.  If you want intense go see it, it operates on the science fiction level, on a horror level, on a thriller level and it’s very sort of layered.  It also poses a bunch of philosophical questions about parallel universes and parallel layers of reality.  So, it’s complex and thought provoking and certainly emotion provoking.