onathan Frakes—the Star Trek: The Next Generation actor who also directed the last two Star Trek films—finally steps off the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise and behind the camera for a non-Trek movie, helming Paramount/Nickelodeon's SF family film Clockstoppers. Clockstoppers stars Jesse Bradford (Bring It On) and Paula Garces as high-school students who stumble across a high-tech watch that can slow time to a crawl—"hypertime"—giving them almost unlimited power.
For Frakes, the movie was a chance to stretch his directorial muscles, while putting to good use the SF tricks he learned during 15 years on Paramount's Trek franchise, both in front of the camera as Cmdr. William Riker and behind it. But Frakes hasn't given up Trek entirely. He will reprise the role of Riker in the upcoming 10th Trek movie, Nemesis—though he won't be directing this time around. Frakes is also an executive producer of UPN's teen-alien series Roswell.
Bradford, who turns 23 on May 28, first gained widespread attention in 2000 as Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Eliza Dushku's little brother in the hit cheerleader movie Bring It On. He next appears opposite Roswell star Shiri Appleby in the high-school drama Swimfan. Garces, 28, next appears opposite Lisa Kudrow and Damon Wayans in the hip-hop spoof Marci X. Frakes, Bradford and Garces took a moment recently to talk with Science Fiction Weekly about Clockstoppers, which opened March 29.
Jonathan Frakes, was it your connection with Star Trek that brought you into this movie?
Frakes: I think that I've been pigeonholed ... by virtue of having the Star Trek films and having spent so much time in front of a green screen. Also the fact that Nickelodeon is part of the Paramount family didn't hurt, and I've been over there for 15 years, and they knew that I'd bring the movie in on time and on budget. So ... I don't think it was too big a leap for them. It took me a long time to get off the Enterprise, but I finally did.
What lessons did you bring with you from Star Trek?
Frakes: Well, it's all storytelling, and I think that what happened with Clockstoppers is, we had a couple of kids who hadn't spent a lot of time doing visual effects, and it was helpful to them to have an actor as a director who had spent so many hours with the motion-control camera and the green screen, and ... I think I was able to try to explain to them ultimately what the shots would look like, even though the elements that they were shooting seemed so ridiculous.
What were some of the challenges doing Clockstoppers, compared with directing a Star Trek movie?
Frakes: Well, we had to create everything from scratch. On Star Trek, a lot of things are in place. The cast, obviously, knows how to play their characters. The sets are what they are. Not the style so much, but you have a pretty good sense of how we interact. We have a great shorthand, because we've all spent so many years together. And on Clockstoppers, it was building from the ground up. Casting new people, getting to know what their idiosyncrasies were, deciding how the characters behave, what they look like. So it was more challenging and, as a result, possibly more satisfying.
What attracted you about the script?
Frakes: It's a simple concept, but a high concept. The idea that there's an invention that speeds up your molecules so fast that everything around you appears to be standing still. The idea of that, and the wacky hijinks that ensue and the possibilities of what you can do, I think appeals to kids of all ages, and it certainly appeals to me.
There was a nice in-joke in the movie, when Paula Garces' character says, "Make it so, Number One."
Frakes: That was not my fault. You have Dave Stem and Dave Weiss to blame for that, the Rugrats writers who came on board to doctor up Rob Hedden's original script. That was not my suggestion. I was a little embarrassed by it. But people insisted that it would get a smile, and I hope it does.
Have your kids seen the film?
Frakes: More than once. I'm a big hit at home. I think they're much more excited by this, obviously, than the Star Treks or the Roswells or anything else that I do, because it's right down the pike for kids. And it's also advertised so heavily on Nickelodeon, which is a channel that they spend a lot of time watching.
Are you prepared for Clockstoppers to become a franchise?
Frakes: From your mouth to God's ears. I have high hopes for Clockstoppers. But be careful what you wish for. I think it has great possibility for a franchise and for a TV series. We'll see what happens on Easter weekend. ...We don't [have a sequel script]. We'll see how that opening weekend does, and I bet one could turn up right quick.
Were you offered the opportunity to direct the latest Star Trek feature film, Nemesis, or was that never on the table?
Frakes: I was never offered it.
How did you feel about that?
Frakes: I was surprised. We just finished shooting it. It's actually going to be a fabulous movie, Nemesis. It's back to the great, big action-adventure galactic stakes, with Picard and the Enterprise coming to save the day. It's old Star Trek. It's big. It's a war movie.
What do you know about reports that the cast and crew would have preferred you to direct the film, instead of Stuart Baird?
Frakes: I've no idea.
What can you tell us about the movie?
Frakes: I can tell you that I finally get to marry the beautiful Counselor Troi [Marina Sirtis]. That much I'll leak.
Will this Star Trek feature be the last?
Frakes: I think only if it doesn't do well. I think unfortunately, or fortunately, the reality in Hollywood is, if your movie makes money, they'll make another one. I think that's true of Star Trek as well.
What do you think of UPN's latest Trek series, Enterprise?
Frakes: I actually like Enterprise. I think Scott Bakula is a wonderful leader, both on camera and off. And it seems to have some of the same gestalt as Next Gen. It's got a cast that seems to have jelled. They all seem to genuinely get along. It's a wonderful company of actors. I'm hoping to get over there next year and do a couple of those ... as a director, I hope. If [executive producer Rick] Berman will have me, of course.
Have you heard anything about whether UPN will renew Roswell for a fourth season? There are reports that the cast is already moving on to other projects, and the sets are being dismantled.
Frakes: There is no official word, and we're trying to find another home for it on another network.
The SCI FI Channel?
Frakes: Exactly.
What can you tell us about the pilot you're directing for UPN for a new version of The Twilight Zone?
Frakes: We have too little time. But it's going to be spectacular. [Outer Limits executive producer] Pen Densham wrote it, and I think it's got real style. ... The Twilight Zone [is] a franchise, not unlike Star Trek, that people have very fond specific memories of. ... I think the opportunity to tell these kinds of stories that are realistic ... and still have [them act as] parables is very similar to what Roddenberry's original Star Trek was like.
Jesse Bradford, did you get to keep the watch you use in the movie?
Bradford: I got to keep a watch. And there were plenty. Most of the ones that I wore on a day-to-day basis were inoperative, but they gave me a real, working one. Which is cool, because it's got a compass in it and an altimeter in it and a barometer. It's got, like, everything. It's a neat watch.
Does it stop time?
Bradford: It's the one place where it falls short. I hear they're still working on that ... but they haven't quite perfected that yet.
What would you do if you could stop time?
Bradford: A bunch of things that aren't really appropriate for me to talk about, is what keeps coming up. But then the most useful thing that I would use it for is to never be late for anything again, you know? If you're running late, just [snaps fingers] and then take your time.
What was it like working with all the special effects?
Bradford: It's not easy. ... It's not the same as, you know, acting with some people and some props and a set. ... You don't have as much to work with. You don't have as much sort of stimuli around you. So it becomes harder. But hopefully, you do a movie where you have to deal with that and then you take away a better understanding of how to work like that.
Were you concerned about taking on a kids' movie in terms of what roles you're offered next? What convinced you to go ahead and do it?
Bradford: Coming off of Bring It On, which made a lot of money, the phone started ringing, and people started knocking and throwing scripts my way. And ... at a time when it seemed like it was not going to be very hard for me to get a job, this was probably sort of the biggest one that I got offered. I did two other movies off of Bring It On, basically. One of them was an independent that, you know, cost a million dollars to make. And I did it because I loved the character, and I loved the script. Another one is this movie called Swimfan that's coming out in a couple of more months ... which is a little more adult-themed, but it still takes place in high school.
As far as this goes, it just seemed like ... it had all the right people behind it. [Producer] Gale Anne Hurd, Jon Frakes, Paramount, Nickelodeon. And they wanted me to be The Guy. So from a business standpoint, it was like, this would probably be a good idea, you know? In a business where, if you really want to achieve what you want to achieve, you have to get yourself out there and become sort of household in some sense of the word. This could do it.
And that is exactly what I'm afraid of. ... People won't hire me to play the villain or to play, you know, an adult, or whatever. But you know what? I still look like I'm 18. And if that's what people want to pay me to play, then that's what I will do. I also feel like there's a good chance that I'm still going to go another year or two without people hiring me to play older than 20. I would thank people if they'd hire me to play 20 now, to tell you the truth. ... That independent I did, which is called According to Spencer ... I was playing 23. I'm not even 23 yet. ... It is a concern. It's absolutely a concern. I guess the way I look at it is that, hopefully, my own sort of talent and experience and maybe my prior track record in film will outweigh all of that. ... If the movie makes $100 million, I don't think people are going to give a s--t. They're going to go, "Bradford's movie made $100 million. Let's hire him." That's what I'm hoping for.
What are the challenges of working on a big film?
Bradford: I'd say the challenges are inversely related when the film gets bigger. Because there's more money and more time and more everything. On this film, it happens that we didn't have that much time. That was the most difficult thing on this film. They had a really, really, really ambitious shooting schedule. So we were going, you know, 15 hours a day, six days a week, for two and a half months. Whereas this probably should have been maybe a 12-week shoot, it was like a nine-week shoot. ... And everybody was just exhausted. The turnarounds weren't long enough. We weren't getting enough time to ourselves. Before we knew it, we were back on set the next day.
What's it like knowing you have to carry the film?
Bradford: It's difficult when you're working, because you don't get days off or anything. I don't think I had a single day off on that for two months, except for once a week on Sunday. And when you play supporting characters, you could have weeks off at a time. ... When I did Bring It On, I'd probably work two days a week. Sometimes I'd work every day during the week, depending on what location we were at or whatever. But I'd have all kinds of time off. I'd get up in the morning. Go for a bike ride. Have a Jamba Juice and just, like, chill out all day, you know? And then on this movie, it's just bang-bang-bang every day. So that's hard. But in terms of thinking of it from that sort of perspective of like, "OK, I'm carrying this movie," if you do that, you're just going to get yourself in trouble. Just go in and do the scene. It's like, you know, the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. Just do the scene for the day, and then there's another one after that and another one after that, and then it all comes together, and you happen to be in all the scenes. ... This [talking to the press] is where it comes in more. Because if I was the supporting character, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be sipping Jamba Juice and riding my bike.
How good are you on the bike?
Bradford: That's not me. I can ride a bike. I can, like, ride with no hands and that kind of thing. But I was not the guy flipping around and jumping stuff.
Paula Garces, what do you think of the concept of freezing time?
Garces: The whole hypertime thing? I think it's amazing. I think it's something that definitely makes you think about just time itself and not taking it for granted and ... that whole time in your life when you're a kid and growing up and you feel like anything is possible So I think that's what this movie says over and over.
How did you shoot the hypertime sequences?
Garces: A lot of it is green screen. I don't really know the specifics on that, because, God, I was trying to do my own thing. ... There's one scene, which is one of my favorite ones, where I'm on top of the kitchen table. That's actually not a special effect. That's myself just freezing and not breathing or blinking. But all the other stuff is mostly green screen.
Jonathan Frakes, the director, he's wonderful. He really made it a point to communicate to us what it was that we were supposed to be reacting to or feeling at the time. And I think he did an amazing job, because I don't look like an idiot up there. The result was, again, a first-time experience for me, and when I saw the film, I didn't know exactly what was going to happen. As with sci-fi adventure films, you don't really know everything that you're looking at. So when I saw the film for the very first time, I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." My imagination didn't even come close to what these people came up with.
There's a lot of technical things [to know], like eye lines and lighting things. And against the green screen, anything that's on your body, like your hair, has to be pretty tight to you, because if not, it will blend with the background, and it'll look stupid. Obviously, you can't wear green. Just things like that that I didn't even think about. I didn't even know those things. Just trying to be natural, trying to experience whatever it is that you're trying to experience. And some of the things that you're supposedly experiencing don't exist. So you have to make it up. And that's a challenge, I think. And really trusting your director and trusting your co-star and trusting the people who are doing these special effects. Because sometimes special effects can look cheesy. But these people, I mean, I think they did X-Men, and the list goes on and on. And they're amazing.
Jonathan Frakes. ... He is an amazing person. He's like [6-foot-4], this Star Trek guy, and you would think, like, he's sort of this Number One persona? And he's not. He's a total clown. He's not afraid of, like, physical humor. Like he'll fall down and trip and make you trip. And I think he does it on purpose. He has a very tight crew. And whatever he says is law, and it's done very quickly. But everyone likes to do it, because his sets are so much fun. In between takes, we're just joking around and fun or whatever. And then he says "Action," and we're like, OK, you know, stuck in the middle of this joke. But it works. Even when I saw the film, I could see and remember, "Wow, we were having a lot of fun doing that." And I think people could see it.
What was it like shooting the water sequence, in which spray from a lawn sprinkler is frozen in mid-air for you to play with?
Garces: It was a lot of fun. I really love that scene where I'm experiencing the crystallized water. Because that whole day, I was really nervous, and I kept asking, "Oh my god, I must look like an idiot. I don't know what I'm doing. What am I supposed to be feeling?" And Jonathan just pulled me over to the side, and he's like, "Just remember when you were 16. Remember how cool it was to experience things for the first time." When you're 16, you imagine yourself dreaming and fulfilling all your dreams. And you think anything is possible. You don't have those pessimistic views as you grow older. You're not affected yet by the world. So, yeah, I got to be 16 the whole day. And it was great.
In doing this film, since I'm much older than 16, that was one of my worries. I was like, "Oh God, I hope that I'm convincing as a 16-year-old." And for me, it was very beautiful to watch it, because I believed myself. There's moments in the film where you go, "Oh, I could have done that better," or whatever. But for the most part, I was like, "Wow, she's 16. That's not me at all. Francesca's beautiful. I hope I'm like her."
This was also a very physical role for you.
Garces: For me, it was, because me in my personal life, I'm not athletic at all. I didn't play any sports growing up as a young girl. And that's too bad. And that's what really attracted me to this role. The fact that it was such a positive role model for young girls, especially for young Latina girls, since this role was written so specifically as South American. And for me, I think sports in a young girl's life is very important. And I really wanted to make her believable as a rock climber [and] as someone who was a dancer, because she has a couple of jokes about that. So I had to work out a little bit and do some training on rock climbing and stuff like that, which was a lot of fun, and I still do kickboxing because of it.
Where are you from?
Garces: I'm from South America. I'm Colombian. I was born in New York City and grew up in Spanish Harlem. But I lived in South America for five years.
Was the character tailored to you?
Garces: No, I was very lucky. The writers, they're amazing. The writers made her very specific. They made her Francesca from Venezuela. They wanted her to be, like, the regular girl next door. It just so happened that she was from Venezuela. And for me, that's a dream come true, especially for a Latina artist. There's a lot of films out there that have really dumb stereotypes about what Latinos are supposed to be like, and this movie just shattered all of them. And we even make fun of some of them in the beginning of the film, which I loved.
Were there funny moments on the set?
Garces: Oh my God, my favorite funny person is [co-star] French Stewart. He is just the clown. He's classic. He's funny all the time, on and off screen. And his energy is always up. That guy, he must shoot up caffeine or something, because he's always up. And it was needed in a lot of the scenes that I had to shoot with him. Because I had to kick him in the face. And it was just a challenge, because he's such a comedian, and I wanted to be just as funny as he was, so you have to keep up with him.
Was that really you rolling around in a garbage truck?
Garces: Yes [laughs]! That was us. Thank God the garbage wasn't real or stinky or anything like that. But that was a long scene, and it was a long day for us. But it was a lot of fun. Again, I have to thank French Stewart for that, because he was just funny.
Are you a Star Trek fan?
Garces: Oh, I love Star Trek. ... And I was a fan of Jonathan Frakes even before this.
You have the line "Make it so."
Garces: Yes, I loved that line. And actually, the writers had it there before we even got a chance to make fun of [Frakes] for it [laughs]. And I think they did that on purpose. And I'm glad I got to make fun of him forever [laughs].
Also in this issue: Charles de Lint.
