Garrett Wang is probably best known for his role in Star Trek Voyager as Harry Kim, having also reprised the character for the independent film Star Trek: Renegades which has just recently gone into production, as well as playing Commander Garan in the independent miniseries Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. Wang has been a science fiction fan from childhood, in particular Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, and although he saw all the Star Trek films that came out in the cinema, he never really got into The Next Generation series prior to his work on Voyager (largely due to him only ever seeing the same episode whenever he attempted to watch it!).
It was fantastic to meet Garrett Wang at Winter London Film and Comic Con, and an absolute pleasure to chat with him about Star Trek and his work on Voyager.
Hello sir!
Hello! How are you?
I’m very well, and how are you?
Very good, thank you.
How’s your weekend been?
It’s been good, yeah.
Obviously you’re well known for playing Harry Kim on Star Trek Voyager. How was it working on that series?
It was like a dream come true for me, being a sci-fi fan. If you look at the sci-fi shows out there, very few members of the casts of any sci-fi show were sci-fi fans to begin with - I mean, they’re actors, not sci-fi fans! I find myself in the minority, that small club of people who were sci-fi fans before they got on their shows! So it was great to work on Voyager.
Had you been a fan of previous Star Trek series, like the original series and Next Generation, that had come beforehand?
I was a fan of the movies. I never really got into the original series because, for me my first sci-fi ever was 1977 Star Wars, and 1977 Star Wars visual effects is a thousand times better than 1966 Star Trek visual effects right? It was kind of hokey, kind of cheesy. Next Gen came on when I was in college, and the episode that came on was Code of Honor. That episode is agreed upon by all writers of Star Trek to be the worst episode ever. So that episode comes on and I’m thinking, “this is horrible,” so I turn the TV off. Six months later, I turn it on again to watch Star Trek The Next Generation, and it’s a repeat of Code of Honor. I turn the TV off. A year and a half later, I try to watch Next Gen, and again it is Code of Honor. Three times in a row I tried to watch Next Gen, and it was the same shitty episode! So I said, “you know what, this is a sign from God. God is trying to tell me something. Do not watch The Next Generation.”
Which is a good thing, because if I became a Next Generation fan, it would have adversely affected my audition for Voyager. I would’ve been so nervous that I think I wouldn’t have gotten the role. So I think it worked out fine. But since I’ve been on the show, I’ve gone back to see Next Gen, Deep Space, and I am a fan of those shows now. But I didn’t get into it beforehand because Code of Honor kept playing over and over again!
It’s like the Universe really didn’t want you to enjoy Next Gen!
Nope, the Universe certainly did not!
So how did you feel about the character of Harry Kim?
I think they should have let him do a little bit more than he did. I felt like any time the other actors got to go down and do like cool things, like the episode where we went to Earth and they got to wear normal Earth clothes, Kim was left on the ship. The episode where the Hirogen take over the ship and use it as a training tool for all their hunters, everyone gets to do a holodeck simulation where they’re wearing World War Two clothing, Neelix got to be a Klingon, Ensign Kim is wearing his regular Starfleet uniform maintaining all the sensor arrays, you know. I really wish I had a chance to be included in some of these episodes where they got to wear other clothes other than the Starfleet uniform.
And he was never promoted above the rank of Ensign!
No! It’s ridiculous.
He’s such an integral member of the crew! Why not?!
I have no clue. If you’re talking about who deserves to be promoted more than anyone else, it’s Kim! All the crap he went through, all the things he did… It’s Kim! Not Paris. Not Tuvok. Kim! It was quite annoying, not being promoted.
Seven years!
Seven years!
I think Starfleet ensigns are promoted in that time even if they’re not exemplary officers!
Kim should’ve just walked in and phasered everybody. “Take that! Take that! I’ve gone postal! AHA!” Kim should’ve gone mad in the last episode and just shot everybody, that would’ve been the way to go!
Haha! Psychotic Kim, would’ve been brilliant!
Speaking of which, is there anything you wished you could have done with the character?
Yes, shoot everybody on the ship! Psychotic Kim.
I wish they would’ve taken advantage of more comedy, more humour out of the human characters. They shouldn’t leave it up to just the Doctor to be funny, which is what it ended up being. They didn’t really let the human characters engage in comedic moments. And if there were comedic moments, they were horrible! I remember at the end of one episode, Paris looks at Tuvok and says “Tuvok, you’re a real freakasaurus,” and I thought, wow, that’s really not funny at all!
There was certainly room for more humour from the human characters.
Are there any particular moments that were your most - and least, for that matter - favourite moments throughout the series?
Least and most favourite moments…
Least Favourite Moment: Filming the shoot when I got bronchitis...
Bloody hell, that must’ve been horrible.
Yeah, that was not good.
And favourite moment would be being told by the producers that I would be the integral character in the 100th episode, Timeless, which was supposed to be, in their estimations, the best stand-alone episode of all Voyager episodes. So I felt somewhat valued that they chose me to be the main character for that episode.
Would you say Timeless was your favourite episode then?
It is. It is. In my estimation, it is probably one of the best, if not the best episode of Voyager.
Fantastic. And what other projects have you been working on recently? Anything in the works at the moment?
I’m working on a film called Unbelievable, it’s an independent film, sort of a comedy mixed with sci-fi, so… It’ll either totally flop, or it’ll be a cult classic for the rest of time, so we’ll see what happens!
Can you share anything about the film (non-disclosure agreements permitting!)?
There’s a problem with the Lunar Base, and astronauts have to go up there to fix it. There is a marionette puppet of Captain Kirk in it… It’s an interesting film.
Well I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it! Thank you for your time, sir. It’s been a pleasure!
Thank you sir, and you.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
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Garrett Wang's current projects, Star Trek: Renegades and Unbelievable are currently in production. You can find out more about Renegades here, and check out the Unbelievable Facebook page here.
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