JdL Con Appearance, 11/11/95, in Sacramento
(Qsome@aol.com)

Last Saturday (Nov. 11, 1995) I attended the Fanfest convention
in Sacramento.  John de Lancie was the featured speaker and I
recorded his Q &A with the audience.  He wore a black suit
with a blue polo shirt and looked good.  He was animated and
fun to watch.  Please excuse all of my typos, misspellings, and
so forth.

JdL: Hello.  These are the rules; I am happy to answer any
question that you pose.  Please don't ask me if questions, like
"What if Q met Godzilla?".  But I have already said those things
before and also until recently I would have said...  You know
what, it is awful tinny (referring to the audio system)...those
base tones aren't there.  Up until now I would have said "Don't
ask me whether I am going to be on Voyager and don't ask me
whether I am going to be on Deep Space Nine or in the movie". 
Well, I still don't know about Deep Space Nine or the movie,
but I can tell you I just finished an episode of Voyager.  And I
think that you are going to like it.  When I read the script, I
was really  knocked down by it.  I thought it was one of the
best scripts that I have read.  I finished it, jumped up and called
Michael Piller, I told him "Listen, I don't know if this is the
level of writing that has consistently been on Voyager or not,
but this is really top notch, this is what Star Trek Sci-Fi should
be."  and he said "Well, I think so too."  And just to wet your
appetite, we take you into the continuum.  I bring certain
personages back from the past.  You already know who.  And
we find out things about the continuum and me that I think you
are going to be quite surprised.  It is going to be a little
different than what your used to.  In the first scene, it is old Q,
but from then on, it begins to change a little bit and we begin to
discover more about what the problem is.  

Enough about me.  Ask me questions about me.  Yes?

Audience: Is there any relationship between Q and Trelane?

JdL: Not any relationship that I was aware of.  I am sure that
Gene, when he wrote it, the first episode of Farpoint must have
gone back into his memory of the best things of classic Trek and
I think Trelane was one of the better things of classic Trek, and
I am sure whether consciously or unconsciously he included
that.  I didn't know anything about Trelane or really very much
about Star Trek, except for the movies when I auditioned for it. 
So nothing.  Actually for even the next three years I had never
heard of Trelane until somebody sent me a tape with Trelane on
it.

Audience: How did Guinan and you meet and why do you hate
each other?

JdL: The simplest way to explain it is that it was a bad date. 
People have bad dates and there really isn't much more that you
can say about that. In reality though, it was an idea that was
born more out of the necessity to give a spin to a scene...Say,
can I ask you to stop with the photographs for a few minutes
(responding to all the flashes) OK...because it is just like (makes
a face). You can do it maybe just towards the end. I'll stand
here and pose (makes a silly pose) and you can flash way.  But
until then...  so that is really as much as there is to say about
Guinan.  It really is a matter of a couple of actors going
wooooooouuuh like that to try and make it work. 

Audience:  What did you do to Vash to make her so mad at you
on Deep Space Nine?

JdL: I think I ignored her.  Isn't that about the worse thing you
can do to anyone?

Audience:  Have you thought about going back into the theater?

JdL:  I have done a lot of theater. The reason that you know
most of my work being on television is because that it is the
ubiquitous medium that we have these days. I just finished doing
(a play) at Lincoln Center just less than a month ago and that
was my last theatrical venture.  Even an audience this large for
a play in Los Angeles is kind of unusual.  So assuming you
would have an audience like this, you are only acting for five to
six hundred people a night as opposed to five or six million.

Audience:  Did you fell left out of Generations because the
Nexxus was a thinly veiled Q Continuum?

JdL:  No I didn't feel left out of Generations.  I will tell you in
Generations that Nexxus and Dr. Soran was really secondary in
that show, and when I read the show I was shooting at the time
All Good Things and there was a script laying around and I read
it.  I was really glad frankly that I wasn't in it because that
show was really about and should have been even more about
the passing on of the baton from one generation to another.  
That was what the core of the show was.  It didn't have any
room for me and I would have suffered the same fate that
Malcolm McDowell suffered in the show in that he is really a
kind of who cares type character.  It only seemed to work when
the two guys were dealing with each other and that was the
event on-stage, and you have to be careful about this in drama
and theater, offstage. If the event offstage is more important
than what is going on on-stage then you really got a problem. 
After I finished reading the script it was evidenced to me that
was going to be the case and I was happy not to be given the
opportunity because I probably would have said yes and I will
try and I'll make it and I will be able to overcome that problem,
but in reality I don't think anybody could.

Audience:  Do you think they should have had some of the old,
Classic Trek actors on there to resell the idea of the baton going
from one generation to the other?

JdL:  I think if you subscribe to the idea that the theme of the
movie was handing over the baton, then anything that would aid
that, would be good.  Any seem that does not fit into that
theme, is extraneous.  So the answer would be yes, but of
course how would it be done and on and on.

Audience:  Do you like using those powers on-stage?

JdL:  I like using those powers on-stage AND OFF-STAGE
(audience laughs) Sure it's fun.  I'll tell what isn't fun is doing
it. What is fun is looking at it.  It takes us forever to do it. 
You think of different ways to sit and snap your fingers and all
sorts of things happen or what have you. Yet you have to
understand that it takes along time to get that.  They're
measuring out a centimeter here and your finger right there and
all sorts of stuff, so there is no sense of power at the moment. 
The power comes when you see it are all those flashes and
everything else.

Audience:  Have you had a recent role in a movie?

JdL:  I just finished a movie called Multiplicity with Michael
Keaton.  (Audience oohs and ahhs)  He didn't do that to me. 
Some of you out there seem to do that too.  No, he is a very
nice gentleman.

Audience:  Will Q make any references to the other crews now
that Q has been on three shows.

JdL:  I will give a little snippet of dialogue if I can remember
it.  I come on and I ask this - I don't want to give it a way to
much - but this one person "How did you get out?" Janeway
says "I let him out." and I say  "Oh, I guess that's what we get
when there is a women in command."  I then go on to say "You
know, I was betting that Riker was going to get this post, or
even Worf, but then again they have him trying to save that
dreary space station."  (audience laughter)  I think you will find
that this script is filled with all sorts of  little bon mots like that
that you will enjoy. 

Audience:  Why did they take Next Generation off.

JdL:  I don't know.  I will tell you a funny story.  At the end
of, for the screening of the last episode, it was a big deal and
All Good Things was being shown in three big theaters on the
lot and there was an enormous party afterwards and the
production of the screening in the screening room I was in,
where most of the principals were, the head of Paramount got
up and talked about what an extraordinary franchise this show
was.  How just phenomenally successful, financially successful
it was and went on and on and on. It most was like a board
meeting report about the numbers that we had to show. 
Afterwards, at the party I was standing next to Rick Berman,
producer of the show, and I think the head of the television at
Paramount came up to him and said "I had no idea that these
numbers were so phenomenal."  and Rick said "Yes." and he
(television head) said "Well, why are we canceling it?" an Rick
said "I don't know. You guys are canceling it."  (something I
didn't get)  I began laughing and I said to Rick "Did you plan
that?  Is that like a goof?  Are you playing goof on me?  This
guy doesn't know."  In a funny way I have never found anyone
who really knows what the answer is.  Maybe they decided it
was too expensive.  Maybe they decided they couldn't get the
actors. Who knows?  Whatever it is , they made their choice.

Audience:  Why did they cancel Legend?

JdL:  Well, it is unfortunate.  Here I am even closer to the
problem and I can tell you I really don't know. There was every
indication that Legend was going to make it. I got very good
reviews, actually about 85 percent of the reviews were very
good.  It was on a new network, UPN, not to be misconstrued
for UPS,  and they pulled it after three episodes.  I don't know
why they pulled it.  I just don't think that it is good television. 
What they put in its place was abysmal and I think it was
getting ratings in the area of one, and they pulled that.  I just
don't know, I don't know.  If you don't husband shows along at
all, you will simply have these very expensive turnarounds
understanding that the show doesn't really make its money at the
front end because the show is very expensive.  Our shows were
running close to 2 million an episode and they were very hard to
shoot.  Very, very hard to shoot. You make them at the back
end, but you have to have enough shows, you have to have
enough momentum, and you simply trust that by advertising,
and stuff like that.  There are people around the country, there
was some of the Legend episodes were being aired in cities at
midnight.  In some cities they were being aired at four o'clock
in the afternoon.  In some cities , you only saw 45 minutes of
the show because the first 15 minutes were being used as station
identification, moving from one network affiliation to another.
It's really crazy, and it's too bad because in I think in the end
you the general public lost out because there are not that many
shows that you can sit down with your children and your
grandchildren and everybody at whatever level of education and
age that they are at can derive something from the show. 

Audience:  Kate Mulgrew said you made her watch all the
episodes you were in.  Does she make you watch all of hers?

JdL: You're saying that Kate Mulgrew said that I made her
watch all of those episodes?  You remember the movie
Clockwork Orange?  I would strap her into a chair, put those
things to open their eyeballs, the lids really wide,  and say "Hey
Kate, here it is.  Encounter at Farpoint.  Number 107."  She
never saw any of this stuff.  She just said that. 

Audience: When you were on the set of Next Generation, did
they play pranks on you?

JdL: You know, there is a lot of discussion about these pranks. 
I don't know what it's about.  I feel like I have visited a
different set.  No. I mean pranks, yeah but there are things
created out of boredom, sitting around, things like that, and
they're not in the same way theater stories are.  Something
happens and you have a live audience and how do get out of it.

Audience: What is your favorite role?

JdL:  Well, I have a number of favorite roles. On stage I think
the role I enjoyed the most was Man and Superman.  Let's see,
in the movies I don't know.  In the movies I tend to play little
roles.  (the role in) Hand that Rocks the cradle was important to
the story, ...but I really enjoyed Days of our Lives.

Audience: In the Next Generation, when you were hanging
naked, how did you stay up?  (hysterical laughter from the
audience, JdL makes a funny wide -eyed shocked expression)

JdL:  This reminds me of the Johnny Carson skit were Arnold
Palmer was asked... Anybody know that one?  No, I am not
going to tell that one.  How did I stay up?  Suspended, in the
air, on the set, without a fluffer.  Is that what you were going to
say?  They had me on a board.  A large board, between two
step ladders and they did that on a blue screen so they could
isolate me from the rest of it. 

Audience: (asks something about the behind shot)

JdL:  This really is getting to be one of those things.  Yes it
was and as a matter of fact I'll cut to chase on this story.  It
took forever to get this shot and I am there at 6:00 in the
morning and I am naked except for a jock strap on and it is not
a comfortable position to be in. (someone from the audience
yells "Encore!")  They were trying to organize a shot that was
an across the butt shot, right.  I kept on saying "What is taking
so long?".   They said "We are having hard time lining it up
because we don't want to get the indent of the jock strap and at
the same time the position of the people on the other side of you
and it is getting very complicated".  So I was still laying there
unhappy and I knew the time was ticking by and it was
uncomfortable, and I said what's the story?"Oh we're still
having a problem."  I said "C'mon guys" so a few more
minutes went by and I said "Are you still having a problem?  Is
it still the..?"  " (they said) Yes"   "OK, I am going to solve
this."  I got off and I said  "Ladies and gentlemen, if you want
to stay, stay.  If you want to go, go now because its coming
down!".  Then I got back on the board and I can tell you this,
they shot that scene in about 30 seconds.

Audience:  Do you have a background in Shakespeare?

JdL:  Yes, I do.  The first play I ever did was Henry V when I
was 15 and by the time I left high school I had done six of
Shakespeare's plays. And then I went on and did quite a few
more in drama school and was at the American Shakespeare
festival in Connecticut.  So yes I do.  In America, we do not
classify ourselves as Shakespearean actors anymore than we
would classify ourselves as an Ibsen actor or a Pinter actor.  We
are actors and the most classification we can give ourselves is
that we have classical training.

Audience: (question I did not get)

JdL:  The question was is that in the last episode, All Good
Things, Picard says "What are you trying to tell me Q?" and I
say "You'll find out."  Part of the job of an actor is to take
material; "What are you trying to tell me, Q?  You'll find out."
Those are the lines, right.  But point in fact what I did is "What
are you trying to tell me Q?" and I went over and began to
whisper something in his ear and then pulled back and went
"You'll find out."  The point of all of that is simply to tweak
you.  It isn't written "Whisper something in his ear." or
anything like that.  There isn't some sort of bracket underneath
the speech that says "and this is what he finds out."  So my job
is to give it a spin and send it out and your job is to ask
questions like that. 

Audience:  What were your thoughts as to what you could give
to the role?

JdL:  Probably they were close to what you saw.  I auditioned
in Los Angeles, you can audition almost anywhere these days, it
is not an exploration of the potential that the role could have
like a theater audition would be because you have a three week
to a month period to develop.  You are giving what you can do
now and what they can expect to see when you start shooting in
a couple of days from now.  So my ideas for it were probably
not too unlike what you ultimately saw.  The only thing that
wasn't included is that I felt that there could have been a lot of
humorous potential in that first episode and the director did not
want that and whenever I would do things would be different, or
construed in anyway as campy or something like that, he really
put his foot down.

Audience:  Are you going to be guest starring on any other
shows?

JdL:  I don't know.  The season is pretty well coming to an
end.  And what is my next project?  Leonard Nimoy and I are
working on the potential of bringing to you the audience,
specifically you, dramatizations of classic science fiction.  Since
I've come back from New York and since I've finished this
Voyager thing, my days have been mostly spent with dealing
with that.  I take auditions now and then, but I am looking
forward to use the next month and a half dealing with that.  I
did do something recently.  Do you know of a cartoon called
Duckman?  Well, I just did a Duckman.  I never heard of it,
never heard of it.  I am not going to tell you how the first five
words of Duckman start, but I was so surprised.  I thought it
was for kids, must be about farm animals or something like
that, and it starts out WHOA!

Audience: Have you noticed any similarity between Bradford
from Days of our lives and Q?

JdL:  The greatest similarity which I think can go, that can't
hide, is that I am playing them.  (laughter). The deal is, if one
is working well, you bring as much of yourself to the role as
possible.  There are elements in all of those roles that are
standout characteristics that are more pronounced, but that
doesn't mean the foundation isn't the same.  Just like even are
most  extreme and unpleasant human beings, 98% of the
characteristics in them are the same as everyone else in this
room.  It is just in certain situations that they behave
inappropriately or something like that. I don't reinvent the wheel
each time.  

Audience:  What is your favorite episode?

JdL:  Well, it is very possible that the next show, the show you
are going to see, Death Wish, might end up becoming my
favorite episode although I don't know, I have to see it.  I mean
the script itself was clearly the best of all the scripts.  Short of
that, I would say Tapestry was an episode that I liked a great
deal.

Audience:  Did you feel Legend was a rip-off of Briscoe County
Junior?

JdL:   You know what, I never saw that show.  I would have
enjoyed to have seen it.  In a way, everything is a rip-off of
something else, and I guess we were no more successful than
they were.  I understand that show was quite good.  I think I
would have enjoyed seeing it.

Audience: There were problems with the among the cast
members of the original Star Trek.  What was the mood like on
the Next Generation?

JdL:  Oh, I think the mood on the Next Generation Star Trek
was probably pretty good.  What you can't understand is that
the first Star Trek people, the first cast, except for Leonard and
Shatner, suffered quite a bit from the type casting that they felt. 
Some of them didn't have the breadth of experience to allow
them to move on anyway and they had many years to have all of
that ferment.  Next Generation is a little different.  Most of
those actors came from someplace and have gone on to do other
things.  Most actors on television do not survive a series.  
Usually it is only one actor, or the lead actor generally survives
the series and even that is kind of unpredictable.  On the set
everybody seemed to get to work pretty well.  Most of them had
stage etiquette, which means they grew up having done a lot of
plays and there is a certain etiquette in the theater that has to do
with "the play must go on" and you work towards that end and
that kind of greases the wheels.  I generally saw that people
were getting along pretty well.

Audience:  Is there any similarity between your character and
the Q of the Bond films?

JdL:  Oh, absolutely! (sarcastically)  There are great similarities
being in that they are all written by the same people.  Don't you
think?

Audience:  Did you bring your family members?

JdL:  No, not this time.

Audience:  My favorite line is when you call Riker Number 2. 
Could you say Number 2?

JdL:  Number 2.

Audience:  (A question is posed to JdL if he would have taken a
cast position if offered.)

JdL:  There is an if question, if I have ever heard one.  You
know what, I don't know.  The reason I can't answer the
question is because it is not even in the realm of possibility, nor
was it ever in the realm of possibility.  In a way, I am delighted
with the character I play.  After all I have only done eight of
them  (the audience yells NINE!).  I stand corrected.  So it has
given me an enormous amount of notoriety an frankly it has
permitted me to do quite a few other things.   While during the
seven years that most of them were simply doing Star Trek, I
could do other things and still have a certain amount of cache
because of it.

Audience:  How long does it take to make one episode of Star
Trek from start to finish?

JdL:  It is very hard to tell you how long it takes to do the
writing.  Sometimes the writing happens very easily.  What they
usually do is that they have ideas, which are called story
meeting, and an idea is decided upon.  At that point, that writer
goes off and starts working on that idea, but they are doing this
on maybe ten ideas simultaneously with some concept in the
beginning when these things are supposed to happen.  Say it
takes a month to write the script.  A week before you start
shooting it, you start going into pre-production for that script. 
It takes eight full days of actual filming of the script, the actual
production work.  Then after that what happens is that the script
has to be edited which takes about a week or two and after that
it has to be screened and all of the special effects have to be put
in so it is about six weeks afterward that that script is ready to
go.  So combine all of that and I would say it takes about three
months per script, but of course they are all overlapping as they
are going through the pipeline.

Audience: How did you like punching Avery Brooks?

JdL:  It was OK.  It was just a fight scene.

Audience:  Have you had any contact with the cast members of
Next Generation?

JdL:  Actually a year ago this time.  I hired a number of them
to do War of the Worlds and just recently had contact with
Jonathan Frakes.  I see Renee often and I see Armin pretty often
and Leonard I see a great deal and soon here we are going to be
seeing each other for a number of months.  Six or seven of us
will be seeing a lot of each other because we are going to be
working together.

Audience:  (A question is asked if the character of Q was
present at the outset or evolved with the series.)

JdL:  It evolved with the series. Q was simply a one time shot. 
That was the intention of the character.  The fact is I often
wonder if I would be here today if that same show had not been
the first episode but rather the second episode.  That first
episode in comparison to lets say, the last episode, was rather
clunky.  Farpoint is kind of a clunky show.  It just happens that
I play a pretty flamboyant character that drew a lot of attention
and this has a lot to do with luck.  I just happen to be the guy at
the right place and right time.  If that show had been the week
after...  Farpoint was not written as one show.  It was written
as two shows and the studio wanted a two hour premier so that
is why they have that pretty obvious seem that runs through the
middle of the show.  It was only after I began working on it, 3
or 4 days into it that Gene and Rick came up to me and said we
would like to have you come back.  

Audience:  Did you enjoy Olivia D'Abo's performance and what
was it like to work with her?

JdL:  She was very charming to work with, and will we see her
again?  I doubt it.

Audience: What was the most significant conflict you have had
with your character and the writers?

JdL:  The most significant conflict I had was on the last
episode.  The scene that you saw,  the final scene, after the
trial, after he hits bingo and on and on, was going to get pulled
out.  I said "You just can't, you can't ask an audience to listen
to two hours and then expect them to not have some payoff.  It
is a very short scene, but it actually tells great deal: "I didn't
want to do it, they wanted me to.  There's more out there than
meets the eye.  It is not an exterior exploration, it is an interior
exploration.  If you are very lucky I will see you again". These
are all major plot points, I men Star Trek plot points that are
important and if they hadn't been there, I think you would have
felt it was like a Chinese meal,  it wasn't going to be as
substantive.

Audience:  Do you feel a lot of similarities between Patrick and
yourself?

JdL:  The similarities I think are the ones you enumerated.  We
both were classically trained and blah, blah, blah.  I am not sure
there are any other similarities other than maybe our tastes in
things might be similar.  My favorite scene with him was what
you saw (final scene of All Good Things).

Audience: Do you have any idea when the Voyager episode is
going to air?

JdL:  I have no idea.  Some people tell me it is going to be used
in February for the sweeps.  Somebody else told me it would be
the day after Christmas.

Audience:  What was your funniest moment while being taped?

JdL:  I don't know.  How about the jock strap moment?

Audience:  When you were young, did you ever think you were
going to be on television?

JdL:  No.  I was never really interested in being on television. 
I was interested in being in the movies, but I don't know if I
formulated it past that.  Certainly even to the extent that when I
left drama school it never occurred to me that I would be
auditioning for television and movies and that's what I did
almost immediately.  It wasn't until I was 24 that I had the
concept that the acting world was anything but the theater.

Audience:  Whose idea was it to have the Q name in the titles.

JdL:  The writers.

Audience: How much John de Lancie do you bring to Q?

JdL:  Well, it's kind of not unlike a question before.  I bring a
lot of myself to Q.  I have to, otherwise it wouldn't be
successful.  It isn't just the words you say, its the way you say
it.  You are the filter and if you don't filter the material through
yourself and personalize the material hence giving it weight,
then it might as well be another actor who can give it weight.

Audience:  Where were you born and trained?

JdL:  I was born in Philadelphia and my significant training was
at the Juillard School.

Audience:  Does Q stand for anything?

JdL:  When I first saw the show, I figured Q must stand for the
word "question" because that seemed to be what I was doing. 
And so I answered that question myself, I didn't ask anybody
else.  A couple of years later I was in Scotland and a lady
showed me a letter and it said  "Dear Janet,  I am writing the
first episode of Star Trek Next Generation and I am going to
name a character after you.  Sincerely yours, Gene
Roddenberry"  And her name was Janet Quarton.  It is just as
well because if I had know that before, it wouldn't have helped
me at all.

Audience:  Have you read any of the books?

JdL:  Yes, I have read them and I have read them for audio
tape.

Audience: Do you consider Q good or evil?

JdL:  I don't consider any character either good or evil.  I don't
think Hitler got up in the morning and said "I'm going to be
really evil today".  I think Hitler got up in the morning and said
"I am going to do what I think is right." which is in a way more
scary.  When I play characters that are villainous, I try to make
sure that there is enough of the other part there, that the
audience, while they might say "I don't believe what he did was
right, I kind of understand his point of view."  That is what I
consider to be the best way to play it.  A character like Q just
depends.  He is villainous in some instances, humorous in
others, and touching in others.  He is multifaceted.  If you only
play him villainously, you as the audience go "Ohhh,.." and you
shut him down.  I think one of the reasons I am here after only
nine shows is that I have been able to figure out a way to keep
you involved and you can't do that by painting with just black
and white strokes.

Audience:  There are many young people here.  Is there any
advice you can give them on acting as a career?

JdL:  I am not going to give you advice on acting as a career
per se.  What I will say to everyone in this group, whatever
their age is, watch less television and read more.  Those who
are younger, the age of my two boys, who are 8 and 11, I
explain to them that reading is like learning to use a tool and the
time one takes reading is sharpening your tools.  Sitting in front
of a television is more often than not a passive experience that
you don't nearly get as much out of although it is wonderful to
turn on the Discovery channel or The Learning channel,  but
most of the entertainment programs on television are just
abysmal and a horrible waste of time and I think in the end
making us as a culture stupid, ignorant. (applause)  As actors,
you have to read.  One of the problems I have as a teacher
when I instruct actors, especially actors who are considerably
younger than I am, I find they draw their experiences from
television.  They act what they see on television, which is not
what acting is about.  Acting is an experiential art.  It is not
mimicking what you see on television.  When you have a scene
and the scene says "I love you", you more often than not get "I
luuuuuuuuvvvv you".  It rings so weirdly and I don't know what
to say..."Your watching too many soap operas".  People don't
talk that way... it is disgusting.  That brings us no closer to the
target.  For those of us who are in their twenties, I think what
you can do is to enjoy acting and not go professional.  What I
say to so many people is that you can have the thrill of an
opening night, the thrill, if that's what you want to call it, of an
audition, the run of the play, the friends and comrades and
everybody else coming to see the show and you can do it within
the community theater and a great time at it and it is as pure an
acting experience as one can get.  The minute you add money to
the issue, that is to say, I have to make my living, it completely
skews it.   The world doesn't need any more actors so no one is
going to embrace you as you come into the fold.  I think you
would be far better off staying and enjoying acting from the
viewpoint of an actor.

Audience:  When you left Days of Our Lives in a time machine,
did you know you were going to be on Star Trek (or something
like that)?

JdL:  Yes.  Gene Roddenberry called Days of Our Lives and
said "In seven years from now, I can see it now, I am going to
need this man out in outer space."

Audience:  (Asks some question about whether JdL made an
appearance on a show and he denies it.)

JdL:  (Commenting on his career)  You can't believe this, but I
would walk in to a producer's office and he would say "What
have you done?".  I have been working for twenty years.  I
have a resume this long (holds out his arm).  (JdL's response is)
"What have you done, and why am I answering this question?" 
They don't know.  They just don't know.  They are
unaccustomed to watching.  Most of us don't watch anything.

Audience:  We have heard that you and Kate Mulgrew are good
friends.  During the taping of Voyager, was there any
interaction between the two of you that we will be able to see on
the screen?

JdL:  Other than being in bed together?  (audience howls)  Well
that's what we are. 

Thanks a lot you guys!