Star Trek Picards John de Lancie Teases a Deliciously Dark Return for Season 2

Star Trek: Picard’s John de Lancie Teases a Deliciously Dark Return for Season 2

John de Lancie shares how he came back to reprise his role for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, teasing a darker turn for the omnipotent character.

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Star Trek Picards John de Lancie Teases a Deliciously Dark Return for Season 2

35 years ago, Star Trek: The Next Generation began with the omnipotent Q selecting Jean-Luc Picard to judge whether humanity was worthy to explore the cosmos. Since then, Picard and Q have crossed paths over the entire course of TNG, with Q occasionally appearing on other Star Trek series to challenge their new characters with his reality-tampering mischief. Picard and Q’s dynamic takes a darker, more menacing turn in Star Trek: Picard Season 2, with Q literally altering history. Picard and his friends have an extraordinary challenge before them, with massive implications for the Q Continuum. With John de Lancie reprising his role as fan-favorite Q, the actor relished the opportunity to reunite with Patrick Stewart’s Picard on-screen once again.

In a roundtable interview attended by CBR, de Lancie shared what personally appealed to him about Picard Season 2’s particular approach to bringing back Q. He also teased how the season’s story and stakes bring a new dimension and direction for Q and explained what he thinks keeps bringing Q back to Picard for more.

Star Trek Picards John de Lancie Teases a Deliciously Dark Return for Season 2

As the roundtable interview began, de Lancie was asked how easy it was to reprise his role as Q decades after his most recent live-action performance as the character. “It was perhaps a little too easy,” de Lancie remarked with a laugh. “It was not difficult to get back into the role mostly because it’s just fun. It’s a fun role to play.”

Picard Season 2 features the reunion between Q and Picard. De Lancie felt that there was “a genuine love” that Q has for Picard that keeps drawing him back to the long-suffering Starfleet admiral — an affection that Picard perhaps begrudgingly shares. De Lancie sees Q as “a being in need of a lot and looking for a lot,” though he admitted that Q is difficult to be in any sort of relationship with. However, Picard Season 2 has Q need much more from Picard than his usual attention and insight on humanity, something that has similarly raised the stakes for Q himself in this mission.

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“This particular time, it’s really important. I need [Picard] to get in there and do something,” de Lancie hinted. “On top of everything else, it’s connected very much to what I need personally. We are connected.”

De Lancie observed that Q’s constant judgment and prodding of Picard and humanity en masse is largely driven by a desire to see humanity do better. Q wants them to live up to their full potential by actively challenging them. Compared to previous Star Trek series featuring de Lancie as Q, the actor felt that Picard is “a darker show.” He chose to portray Q as “far less whimsical,” feeling that it wouldn’t match Picard’s overall tone. This sentiment was echoed by the series’ writers. Instead, Q’s darker turn comes with greater meaning for the character and story being told. De Lancie appreciated the more pronounced sense of gravitas.

“The best Star Trek episodes I did in the past… The best were all about big, philosophical questions. This is also the case here in Picard,” de Lancie noted. De Lancie recalled a meeting with co-showrunner and executive producer Terry Matalas to reprise his role as Q. “He really wanted me to understand that we were not going over old ground. That was particularly good for me because there are dangers in trying to recreate. I’ve been on several shows which were recreations of successful shows from the past. That’s what they sometimes tried to do, and they were always disastrous. Knowing where we were going to start today and move forward was refreshing.”

De Lancie explained that audiences shouldn’t expect this Q to be like past incarnations, forgoing the mariachi band he appeared with on the Enterprise during TNG. This version is generally more serious as “the stakes are higher,” both for the universe and Q himself, which de Lancie personally found an interesting direction to explore for his performance. CBR asked de Lancie how it was to take Q in a darker, angrier direction than he had portrayed in previous appearances.

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“There is a deliciousness about it and a desire for an actor, working for somebody else, that you are trying to fulfill,” de Lancie noted about the refreshing take with his return to Q for Picard. “You’re not trying to let it go. You’re trying to bring it. Hopefully, there’s a little bit of that sparkle still there! I am mad, bad, and dangerous to know but even I don’t have the time to screw around too much. Time is of the essence. That’s what you’re getting in this show from me, going to Picard saying ‘You have to do this and you have to do this now because you don’t have much time, old man.'”

If de Lancie’s appearance in Picard is his final appearance as Q, the actor is “happy” that he got one last chance to portray the character. Without going into specifics, de Lancie shared that he recently finished a scene that he found “very satisfying.” He added that it had “a sense of continuum” about his character’s arc and lent his energy to his performance. De Lancie felt that the role of Q became bigger than himself in the process as it connected with audiences. Without divulging what occurs in the larger context of the scene, de Lancie found that one highlight for Picard Season 2 was a moment when Q whispers into Picard’s ear as the action kicks in, heralding the stakes escalating on their next adventure together.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Picard Season 2 premieres March 3 on Paramount+.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/star-trek-picard-john-de-lancie-roundtable/

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