From: tlg4@po.CWRU.Edu (TJ Goldstein)
Date: 8 Nov 92 00:43:13 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.misc,rec.arts.tv
Subject: An interview with Gates McFadden

                              
                   GATES MCFADDEN:  SMALL TOWN
                              
                       KID MAKES GOOD
     
                       by TJ Goldstein
     
     
    At first glance, Doctor Beverly Crusher seems like a pretty
straightforward person.  But if you look deeply enough, you find "the
Dancing Doctor," a hint that there's more to that redhead than meets
the eye.  It would seem that the same goes for the actor who portrays
the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer on Star Trek: The Next
Generation, Gates McFadden -- no, it's her mother's maiden name -- who
took some time out from filming the show to talk to us by phone.
     
    Anybody who says that there's nothing to do in Ohio should talk to
Ms McFadden, who grew up in Cuyahoga Falls.  According to her bio,
while she spent the weekdays excelling at a private school, she
livened up her weekends by lying about her age, stuffing her bras for
her costumes, and dancing in a kickline.  And that was just high
school.
     
    In college, she decided to broaden her horizons by temporarily
emigrating to France to study acting under Jaques LeCoq.  "Just
learning to think in another language allows you to see your own
culture in a better viewpoint."  While she credits a great deal of
inspiration to her teacher, "the whole experience of going away, not
having much money, having to make my way in this new world that was so
beautiful and had so much history was quite profound.  Any time you
spend time in another culture, it's not just a matter of visiting the
museums, taking a quick week vacations or something.  I mean, that can
be wonderful too but to actually communicate, spend the time and all
of that, that can be quite wonderful."
     
    The company she kept also contributed to the experience.  "The
people who were in my classes were from all over the world.  There
were many, many languages and all of us spoke French in order to
communicate.  I had learned French in school, but I was dumbfounded
when I first got there.  I got off the plane and they all spoke so
fast, and it was so different!  But after two months, I was doing
great.  You just need to calm down and not panic.  I kept doing things
like asking for an undertaker, but other than that, I made it along."
     
    Since then the world has become considerably smaller, and even her
hometown is different.  "Even the physical layout of the town is
different.  The school I went to is no longer a high school, it's an
elementary school, the elementary school I went to was a private
school and it's now a city school.  Although, Silverlake Village,
where I spent a lot of time, that's every much the same.  The lake's
still there, and I'm sure they still have a strawberry festival in
August, or whenever it was.  There's all sorts of budding prepubescent
love going on, holding hands.  I remember all that sort of things.
But the town's different.  Shopping malls have changes a lot of this
country.  Everything's so generic.  You can buy the Disney stuff all
over the country instead of having to go to a place where it's
indigenous. "
     
    She feels the same way about France.  "It was really a big deal
when I came back.  People in my hometown didn't know what a croissant
was.  You just didn't hear about them.  But now as people have
traveled more, the world has become smaller that way.  I don't know,
it's good and it's bad.  There's a loss, in that you can get
everything everywhere, but I suppose there's a good side to that too."
And just as a side note, next to her parents, when she comes home for
a visit she most looks forward to Swenson's and Stoddard's frozen
custard.  "The area's just a great place to grow up."
     
    As the world changes, so does the way Ms McFadden sees her role in
it.  Her bio says that her time in France "taught her about an
artist's responsibility to herself."  These days, though, that's not
so clear cut.  "When I was young, it was very exciting to have a
thought that we can change the world if we all collaborated, but I
think it's not just an artist's responsibility as I think we all have
responsibilities to different things, whatever we choose in our lives.
I feel responsible to my family and also many other things and people
in my life.  And then how much responsibility do I have for people in
Yugoslavia, and people like that?  You start to think, how much do I
want to do as an individual?  How are you going to live your life?  I
don't have a short philosophical answer.  I just know that that
thought informs the way I live my life.  I don't know exactly how, but
it's something that I consider often.  What is my responsibility as a
citizen, as an actress, as a mother, and on and on?  I will say for
one that I don't do nearly as much as I could."
     
    But, she agrees that perhaps most people are like that.  "It's
very hard.  Life is so fast these days, and we're exposed to so much
information.  Television makes us a witness to such misery.  Also
you're a witness if you're driving in certain areas, walking in
certain areas.  It can be next door, wherever.  I think it's hard to
actually take action.  It's much easier to talk about it.  And I have
done a lot of talking about it and not much action, so I feel remiss
in that.  My responsibilities to my job and to my family take just
about all of the time available."
     
    And if she didn't have those responsibilities?  "I really don't
know, but I doubt I'd be at a loss as to having other interests and
doing other things.  I love a lot of things, and I'm pretty much
obsessive about most things I do, whether it be gardening, or
architecture, or music.  I'd be an obsessive hairdresser.  With my
experience with my wig, I certainly would be."
     
    A former faculty member at both Brandies and New York University,
she is a trained and experienced director, and would like to get back
to writing someday.  While she sees acting as a way of defining
herself, she sees writing as a way of further defining the way she
sees the world.  While reluctant to broadcast her ideas -- "There are
things I am working on, but they're not things I would discuss in an
interview." -- she did joke about wanting to write War and Peace (and
several other extremely long Russian novels).  Ms McFadden is also an
accomplished director.  Is there any truth to the rumor that she will
direct this season?  "It certainly is news to me.  I've asked to
direct for six years.  I certainly have no knowledge of that.  You
know, you guys with the computers get the rumors way before we do.  I
get asked things at conventions and I'll say, 'You're kidding, is that
true?  That's ridiculous.'  And I'll go back, and sure enough, it's
true, and I had no idea."  And for those of you who were wondering if
the actors who get to direct get to choose their scripts, the answer
is no.  "Certainly I would not be able to pick what script.  Not at
all.  I'd probably get it two days before I had to shoot it."
     
    Another thing she might get to do this season is take off her wig.
She says that her real hair is long and about the same color, but that
the hair itself is different.  "I have met few people who like me
better in the wig, let's just put it that way.  It would also be a lot
cooler."
     
    So it remains to be seen how much of the real Gates McFadden we
will see.  One thing is for certain, though.  There's more under that
wig than she's letting on.