{"id":11117,"date":"2011-01-12T12:27:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/?p=11117"},"modified":"2011-01-12T12:27:44","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:27:44","slug":"koenig-life-beyond-star-trek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/2011\/01\/koenig-life-beyond-star-trek\/","title":{"rendered":"Koenig: Life Beyond Star Trek"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second part of an interview with Star Trek<\/em>‘s Walter Koenig<\/strong>, the actor talks about other roles in his career and what he is doing today.<\/p>\n

Star Trek<\/em> fans know Koenig as Chekov, but he found the role of Bester on Babylon 5<\/em> to be a better and more satisfying role. “[A]s sacrilegious as it might be for Star Trek<\/em> fans, Bester was a more exciting opportunity and a more challenging role,” said Koenig. “It was a fleshed-out character, which was fun to play.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One of his Babylon 5<\/em> co-actors felt that Koenig’s portrayal of Bester needed to be reined in a bit, but Koenig disagreed. “Something interesting is that on Babylon 5<\/em> one of the actors on the show said that I was going too far with the character and suggested that I tone it down,” said Koenig. “I didn’t and I’m glad I didn’t. I feel I put a stamp on that character and that I made him my own, and I had a great time doing it. I was able to be a little bit more inventive and try things.”<\/p>\n

Koenig’s preference for Bester over Chekov does not mean that he does not appreciate his time on Star Trek<\/em> or what doors were opened for him as a result of his time on the show. “…I will always be enormously grateful to Star Trek<\/em> because without Star Trek<\/em> I’m sure there would not have been a Babylon 5 <\/em>in my future,” he said. “Plus, Star Trek<\/em> has provided me with a living, off and on, for almost forty-five years. So there’s that to be said.”<\/p>\n

Working on the fan-produced Of Gods and Men<\/em> was a positive experience because the Chekov played by Koenig was different than the one portrayed on the original series and in a good way. “[Of Gods and Men<\/em>] was a much better experience than I anticipated,” said Koenig. “Initially, I thought I was doing it as a favor for Doug Conway<\/strong>. But when I got the script and I saw that the non-standard Chekov character that I played was really full of passion and energy and anger, it became a much more appealing role for me. It was quite challenging, and the performance was at least modestly successful. So I thoroughly enjoyed doing that.”<\/p>\n

Koenig is currently working on graphic novels, including Things to Come<\/em>, a story about vampires after the Apocalypse. “I’d love to see it adapted into a screenplay and into a movie,” he said, “but the process of writing it into a four-issue comic book is also an adventure and quite exciting. And it’s something I look forward to working on every day when I sit down at my desk.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second part of an interview with Star Trek‘s Walter Koenig, the actor talks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413,2421],"tags":[3496,2576,2589,3346],"class_list":["post-11117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew","category-star-trek-tos","tag-bester","tag-chekov","tag-koenig","tag-things-to-come"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsphere-slider-full":"","newsphere-featured":"","newsphere-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"T'Bonz","author_link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/author\/tbonz\/"},"category_info":"Cast & Crew<\/a> Star Trek: TOS<\/a>","tag_info":"Star Trek: TOS","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11119,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11117\/revisions\/11119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}