Brooks: 'Star Trek' Gives Us Hope

In a recent interview with a German web site, Avery Brooks spoke about the hope for the future offered by the television franchise and recalled some of his memories from filming Deep Space Nine.

Brooks told TrekZone.de that Star Trek "gives us some hope that we might be able to overcome our weaknesses in a few hundred years and that there will be peace for mankind". He said that he was drawn to the story in the pilot episode of a captain who had suffered a great personal loss and could not make peace with himself until he traveled to "an unknown part of the universe" and defended his people against other intelligent species.

"Star Trek allows us to speak about the world and shows us things that cannot be dealt with completely at this point of time," added the actor, who noted that he thought it was an obvious choice to make his own African-American origins a part of Sisko "because my origin is obvious...I am the embodiment of my culture, whether I'm deliberatively connected with it or not."

Brooks said that he did not appear with his head shaved in the early episodes because his contract contained a clause in which he agreed to let his hair grow, which he speculated stemmed from the producers not wanting him to be mistaken for his previous television character, Hawk. "As time passed, they permitted me to shave off the hair again completely and to let the beard grow."

Because of the weekly filming schedule, Brooks said that he became a more spontaneous actor on Deep Space Nine, particularly after one director forbade him to use his hands. "That takes a large part of the spontaneity away from you," he noted, adding that he trusted the writers and acted "'from the belly'".

The complete interview in German can be found here. Thanks to Mr. Neelix for translating.

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