I
t’s summer in New York City. Jackhammers pound outside my hotel room at 6 a.m. Rich folks are dropping $10,000 on Knicks tickets. An impatient man at the Pret A Manger bitches at a worker because they are out of Caprese sandwiches.
The city can make you feel small and expendable — much like a Stephen Root character. The remedy is finding laughter amongst the indignities. Fortunately, today we have the actor himself, giggling while watching a clip of himself as a Klingon. We’re sitting at a table at Gabriel’s off Central Park, not far from the pied-à-terre where he stays when in town. I’ve cued up several of my favorite Stephen Root scenes on my laptop. Currently we have Captain K’Vada, verbally jousting with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in a 1991 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. K’Vada (Root) is giving Picard (Patrick Stewart) a ride on his spacecraft to the planet Romulus so he can ascertain whether Spock has defected. (It’s the Star Trek world’s first ever crossover episode mixing the original and extra crispy cast).
K’Vada was an early career break for Root, although it’s hard to tell it’s him after three and a half hours in the makeup chair. Root didn’t mind the prep time, though — he grew up a sci-fi fan, his nose in books while his family moved from town to town.
