Graham: T’Pol Was Soval’s Daughter
2 min read
When playing the Vulcan Soval, Gary Graham took suggestions and had some of his own to offer regarding his role as the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth.
“I asked Rick Berman who the Vulcans are,” said Graham. “I had gotten the role, so I had an inkling. But Rick told me — they aren’t beings without emotion; on the contrary, they are so passionate, they realized they needed to learn how to suppress those emotions for their society to survive. That was my key to understanding Vulcans.”
“Also,” said Graham, “for my key to playing the Ambassador, I took a cue from Archer’s line in the pilot, when I react emotionally to his words: ‘Raising your voice to make your point? Ambassador, you have been on Earth too long.'”
Graham had an idea of his own for Soval’s backstory. “I came up with the notion that T’Pol is my long-lost daughter (just based on the fact that she is a spitting image of my younger sister when she was very young, who everyone told me looked like me). I thought it was a slam dunk when I suggested it, but it was never picked up.”
Working on the set of Star Trek: Enterprise was rather different for Graham than working on the set of Star Trek: Voyager, where he had a guest star role as the Ocampan Tanis in Cold Fire. “Though I enjoyed most of the cast members on Voyager, the tone on the set was tense,” said Graham. “It wasn’t like the very relaxed and joyously creative set I’d grown used to on Alien Nation. The Enterprise set was also a very relaxed set. The people all got along; the DP played rock music while they were changing lights, the mood was light and playful and Scott Bakula was extremely welcoming and made the experience fun and wonderful. Scott’s a very hard worker, but also kept the mood light and fun.”
Graham is currently appearing with his rock band, The Gary Graham band, and his latest movie, Dust of War, will be out this spring or summer.
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I loved the Soval character. Really well done by Gary Graham.
“No, T’Pol. I am your father…”
Thanks for sharing the link to my Vulcanology blog.
What’s interesting is that had Enterprise got a fifth season, T’Pol’s lost father would’ve been a Romulan infiltrator.
The tone on the Voyager set was tense? That’s odd. Most of the behind the scenes stuff I’ve seen (and guest actors comments, like these) have said that the Voyager cast was as laid back and jovial as the TNG cast.
I’ve heard the DS9 set described as “tense.”
From what I’ve heard the workplace drama on Voyager was in the writer’s room. 🙂
Sometimes it’s annoying when the actors suggest stuff like that, but as I look at the two of them, there is a resemblance. So I guess that wasn’t so off the wall.
yes… I never would have thought of it, but I can definitely see a resemblance. Maybe it was better left alone, though. In these prequels it seems the writers are all too eager to tie in every single character and plot element to something that comes later (the Ferengi and Borg on Enterprise, for example, and almost everything in the Star Wars prequels!).
The astranged father of the Vulcan science/first officer being the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth… hmmmm… that would’ve been…. repetitive.
Not ‘Voyager’, Bobby, ‘Enterprise’.