Brooks, Mulgrew Greet Fans In Las Vegas

Star Trek captains Avery Brooks (Sisko) and Kate Mulgrew (Janeway) spoke to the more than 15,000 fans who attended Creation's Star Trek convention in Las Vegas last weekend, discussing their connection to the fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager.

Brooks, who rarely attends conventions, reiterated several times, "I must do these things more often!" after receiving accolades from guests and a hug from his onscreen wife Penny Johnson Jerald (Kasidy Yates Sisko), according to StarTrek.com. "I do very few of these. Not because I don't want to see you. Because I'm shy," he told the audience.

Brooks, who has said in the past that he took the role of Sisko so that African-American children would see a role model on television, reiterated that he had wanted to "keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon. To let the children know that there is possibility...somebody has to keep the horizon happening." He invited a young girl onstage to ask a question and welcomed Tucker Smallwood, Star Trek: Enterprise's humanoid Xindi council member, who had recently appeared at UCLA with Brooks' on-screen son Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) to discuss people of color in science fiction.

"We have to understand that we are myriad in who we are," said Brooks when asked about that topic. "And once we understand that we are connected in all the people who contributed to who we are, the better off we'll be — in the world, let alone in the sci-fi world."

Mulgrew, who talked about having turned 50 in April and her sense that "most of my life has been lived", said that she intended to slow down her acting career and focus on both her family and her charitable commitments such as the Alzheimer's Association. ""To be perfectly frank with you, acting is wonderful, God knows it's been sublime, but I henceforth would like to be driven by love," she explained.

Meanwhile Mulgrew will also continue to tour in Tea at Five and to appear in New York in Antony and Cleopatra. She said that playing Janeway had given her greater discipline and cited her acting mentor and her mother as her greatest inspirations.

Never afraid of controversy - she expressed strong dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church earlier this year at a convention in England - Mulgrew responded to a question about what she thought Janeway would say to President Bush about the Iraq war by saying, "You know that little expression — 'I'm going to beam somebody out now.'"

The original report is at StarTrek.com.

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