‘Star Trek: Picard’s Jonathan Frakes Breaks Down Riker’s Emotional Episode

When this week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard, titled “No Win Scenario,” picks up, the crew of the Titan are almost literally dead in the water. Slowly sinking into a gravity well, with even life support in question, acting Captain William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) has kicked the titular character Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) off the bridge, accusing him of killing them all. Suffice to say, this is a situation we’ve never really seen the former captain and his number one in before on seven season of Next Generation. But for Frakes and Stewart? It was great.

“I think we enjoyed the drama, the conflict,” Frakes, who also directed the episode, told Decider. “It was fresh to us in a way that I think helps the show.”

Spoilers for the episode past this point, the duo make up quickly enough to save everyone from this dire situation. But between Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) blasting evil Changelings, the birth of a race of space squids, and Riker using the tractor beam to throw a frickin’ asteroid at this season’s villain, Frakes — along with writers Terry Matalas and Sean Tretta — makes plenty of time to explore how the characters are feeling in their final hours. That includes Riker trying to tape a goodbye message for his estranged wife Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Picard attempting to bond with his newly discovered son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), and Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) absolutely ripping Picard a new one during a stunning monologue.

To find out more about crafting the episode, including that iconic “engage” moment from Picard, read on.

Decider: There’s been a lot of talk about the different dynamic here on the show between Riker and Picard. You’ve clearly known Patrick Stewart in the intervening years, but what was it like working as an actor on this very different, often more contentious relationship between the two?

Jonathan Frakes: It was actually, I think, exciting for both of us to have a bit of a change of pace. Picard and Patrick are so fluid, and sometimes you can’t see the difference between the two men because he’s embodied himself. But Riker and Frakes are a little different. I aspire to be as loyal as Riker is, and as clear thinking. But having said all that… There’s an informed aspect of looking into Patrick’s eyes and playing a scene with him after 36 years of knowing him and working with him, and having directed a lot of them in the last two or three years, where I gotta say… I think we enjoyed the drama, the conflict. It was fresh to us in a way that I think helps the show.

You give this great speech in this episode about feeling nothing. As an actor, how do you play that? And as a director, even if you’re directing yourself, how do you direct that emotion?

I’m more of a “hit it and spit it” kind of actor, you know what I mean? I don’t try to inform a line beyond what it says. And I don’t try to force emotional baggage onto a line that already is completely clear in its intentions. Sometimes to a fault, and sometimes it’s dull, but I’d rather do less than do so much that you want to roll your fucking eyes and say, “oh my god, I see the acting, I feel the acting, yes I get it, I get it, you feel nothing” – you know what I’m saying? 

Yeah.

Yeah, I defer to a lighter hand.

Maybe it’ll be the same answer for this one then, but I love the scene on the holodeck where Jack and Picard are having this chat, then Todd Stashwick comes in and gives this whole monologue–

Brilliant.

–about the Borg attack, ending with a quiet moment of Picard simply saying “I understand” and leaving. I’d love to hear you just talk through directing that sequence. What was that like putting that together pace-wise?

It was arguably my favorite scene. And the irony is that all of it stayed in. I never thought that we’d be able to hold on to that long speech from Stashwick, but he was so magical. And the moment you mentioned happened in one take.

Whew.

I talked to [showrunner] Terry [Matalas] about it, because it was clearly my favorite take. We had Patrick doing that on the way out, and I tried to reinvent it to get it into a close-up. But it never really quite happened that way again. Because Patrick, once you have a print, like most actors, he’ll do a variation on the next take, and the next take and the next take, but that particular moment that you mentioned, which is one of my favorites in the whole show, is sort of the unspoken. Again, it’s very much, the words say it, you know he understands, and what he understands is how horrible it was to be Locutus, how many people died. He understands the weight of what he, Picard, has participated in, and it’s… Patrick is so tasteful in his acting, I think, that I’m thrilled that you saw it. It was one of my favorite things he did all season. And it really, it says volumes with so little, doesn’t it? 

I also wanted to call out the sound design in that scene because there’s that light sense of the battle with the Borg happening in the background mix. What was it like putting that together in post?

That was a lot of Drew Nichols, our favorite editor and Terry’s favorite editor. They embellished it. Drew introduced it in his cut and then it felt like the right thing to do because we are all reminded — once you start talking about the Borg, a lot of images come to mind, especially to the fans. The Cube obviously, the destruction… The history, all the way back through Alice Krige. I mean there’s so much history around the Borg, and part of that is oral and the suggestion really worked subliminally for the audience –  obviously, again, you’re very observant and I appreciate you picking it up. But I think Terry and Drew get most of the credit for that.

Later in the episode, you’ve got yet another iconic moment of Picard sitting in the Captain’s chair and saying “engage.” Given there’s been hundreds of those moments in the history of Star Trek, yet you still feel the weight of him finally sitting down in that chair… How, as a director, do you keep a moment like that fresh?

Patrick wisely felt that that needed to be earned, if you know what I mean. And I feel like it was. He resisted and I persuaded, and Terry persuaded, and ultimately he… Because he didn’t want it to feel like the cliché, or the meme that it has become. And, I think, again, the addition of age empowers and informs his performance, my performance, people’s perception. There’s a lot to be said for the twenty years that happened between the end of Nemesis and this season of Picard, and I think the reading of that particular “engage” – especially given what you mentioned earlier in this interview about the conflict between Picard and Riker – gave it its own color.

To get back to Riker for a second, towards the end of the episode he finally is able to talk to Deanna and tell her what he’s been feeling. Where does that allow him, and you, to go emotionally with the character next?

I have a long – “I” Riker and “I” Frakes – have a long relationship with Marina and Troi that, frankly, we kept alive through the 182 hours of seven seasons of the show and three movies and then somebody brilliantly said, “Oh, well wouldn’t it be great if these two got married?” They had forgotten that in the pilot of – or not forgotten, they had chosen to sweep under the carpet – the fact that Troi and Riker were lovers prior to coming to serve on the Enterprise, and that actually they could communicate empathically the way she naturally could as a betazoid. So we collectively as actors decided that we would not give up our passion for each other so that in scenes throughout the seven seasons and all the other movies, we invariably shared looks and moments that were, again, informed by the relationship that she and I believed we still had with Riker and Troi. So that, going forward, I think Terry again wisely picked up that, wouldn’t it be interesting if this relationship had — if there was a problem in this marriage. In the beginning of the season, that’s peppered throughout, and it allows for a different dynamic in a relationship that people are used to seeing a certain way.

This is more of a general question, but there’s been also a lot of talk online about the use of language on the show, specifically cursing. Which I’ll caveat; I’m fine with it. I don’t have a problem with it. But I was curious –

I don’t either. [Laughs]

Yeah, well I was curious to get your take on it.

We’re all adults here. It’s also the 23rd century. 

So you’re saying, it’s not a big deal to have cursing on a Star Trek show?

No, I don’t think it’s a big deal. I mean, I’m a fan of the idea that Tarantino wanted to do a show and you know there would’ve been cursing in his version. 

Probably a lot more, too. This is just par for the course by now, but you’ve got this beautiful scene of these space squids being birthed. When you’re directing a cast to react to something like that in absolute wonder and they’re most likely seeing nothing on set, how do you handle that?

I generally try to get a graphic representation and some boards, so that I can give them something, some idea of what the design may or may not be. And then I’ll have the writer describe what they believe it’s going to be. I mean, I’ll give them as much information as they can have for whatever kind of actor they are. You know, some actors are fine just looking at a tape mark on a green screen and you can feel what they’re seeing. Others would love to have as much information as – so before rehearsal of a scene like that, I will gather everyone, I’ll share all the stuff I’ve been able to find during prep visually, and then I’ll ask the writer to share their description of what they believe it’s going to be like. I’ll generally have the representative from the visual effects department describe what they believe, we may even have an animatic, we may even have early stages of it, but I try to share. Generally, my approach is, I share as much information as I have. I don’t think there’s any value in keeping secrets from people.

Before I let you go… You’ve been directing TV prolifically for a good, long while now, but is film anything you’d ever want to return to?

I would love to get out of movie jail. However, I think TV is kind of where it’s at right now.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Star Trek: Picard streams Thursdays on Paramount+.