Rapp: Mirror Universe And Stamets’ Future
2 min read
Anthony Rapp shared with TrekCore what it was like for his character Paul Stamets to be comatose and then play against his Mirror Universe double, plus what the future holds for Stamets.
Being comatose meant “milky-white contact lenses,” said Rapp. “I could see light and shadow, but no depth. Nothing. So I would be lying on the bed with my eyes open…my sense of hearing increased, like my sense of smell. You’ve probably heard this; if you deprive yourself of one of the senses everything else kind of wakes up.”
Playing against himself was not easy for the actor. “But when it came down to shooting it, it was a big puzzle. I’d rehearse both sides, so we could get the timing of it and the spacing, the blocking of it, and there was an actor, who was my double, who had a recording of me in his ear so he could match the rhythms.
“It became a way of reverse-engineering it so that we could then ultimately do it piece by piece. It worked out and was really exciting in the end, but it was certainly a very strange an unusual way to go about it, but it was very, very satisfying.”
With the death of Stamet’s partner Dr. Hugh Culber, and the loss of the spore drive, what’s next for Stamets? “Well, there’s time given to deal with all of that, which I’m really grateful for, because there wasn’t time to deal with it in Season One.
“So now we’re sort of staring in to the abyss; a little bit, of what’s next after all this and so there’s a real exploration of that and I think it’s really interesting. Certainly interesting to play as an actor, and I hope that it’s interesting to the audience.”
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