In Unbelievable!!!!!, Dominic Keating plays Hacky – a name that seems very appropriate when you see his character in action. The sci-fi parody stars Snoop Dog alongside a host of familiar Star Trek faces from across the franchise. The movie gets its online premiere on 1 August, and Paul Simpson chatted with the former Star Trek Enterprise actor during lockdown…

 

How did you get to hear of Unbelievable!!!!!?

I think BarBara Luna [who played Lt. Marleau in the classic Trek episode Mirror Mirror] contacted me first.

I watched BarBara as a tender 9 year old. I nagged my dad rotten to get one of the first colour TVs in our street in Leicester to watch Star Trek in colour. It was one of those multi-broadcast TVs, it had a louvred door, looked like an aircraft hangar. It was the size of a coffin almost. These chiffon clad ladies were my first foray into erotica! BarBara and I had known each other from early on in the convention days – she reached out first. I think I was busy the first time they wanted to use me for something and then everybody else I knew did it and I felt a bit left out, so that’s when I reached out and got to meet Angelique [Fawcette] and realised it was her producing and her husband [Steven L. Fawcette] directing. They found a nice little cameo for me and happy to join. I’m going to be in a movie with Snoop Dog. Word! What a feat to get Snoop Dog to do this!

And you’re working with Captain Kirk Stillwood – the puppet…

I’ve done some things – I’ve worked with chimps and I’ve worked with puppets. I did a campaign where I got to work with a chimp; I was the Hollywood manager of a chimp!

Yes, I worked with the mannequin – it was a lot of fun actually. I only had a day’s work on it, literally a spit and a cough. It was lovely to be there. We all know each other from the conventions. I’ve been doing them for 20 years – I was the first out of the gate on our cast. The rest of my cast were all a bit sniffy about it to begin with until I drove my Porsche 911 onto the lot, paid for by conventions that first year. God bless those fans, man! I never stopped thanking them. We’ve all known each other for many a year – and to actually be on set with each other as actors was a lot of fun and a real treat.

So it was nice to work with everyone again – Casey [Biggs] particularly. I’ve known him, he’s a dear lovey love, and Max [Grodenchik] too, a great scene partner.

Have you kept up with the latest Star Treks?

Discovery and Picard? I haven’t. I don’t have [CBS All Access]. I was meant to go to the premiere of Discovery here at the Cinerama Dome, but sadly one of my cats died that very day, and frankly the idea of putting on a happy face wasn’t in my wheelhouse that night. Jason Isaacs and I go way back – we started out with the same agent in London 35 years ago. I know it’s gone down well.

I know originally it was going to be Bryan Fuller, and I know him of old. I thought I might get a good guest star or recurring role; he loved me, but then he and his writing partner parted ways, and he went on to do another show.

My first memory of Enterprise is going on set very early September 2001, and everyone talking about the plans – and then 9/11 happened.

It changed the show entirely. What is our relevance? I’d been here quite a while at that stage. I wasn’t a citizen, still a Green Card holder, but just to be immersed and to be in an American working environment, I never felt more American.

Very happy days at Paramount on the show. Scott [Bakula] was an amazing family leader – we couldn’t have hoped for a nicer man at the helm. He made those years joyous, frankly. I miss it.

It was a terrible shame we didn’t get to do our full stint, which I think we were well worthy of, certainly by the time Manny took over running the show in Season 4. No disrespect to Brannon, but he’d done this for sixteen years – he was tired out. I remember reading Manny’s first script in the Xindi arc, which was our riposte to 9/11, and thinking, “That’s good, who wrote this?” I phoned up the writers and asked to speak to Manny Coto! He’s gone on to bigger and bigger things. We were certainly worthy of another couple if not the whole seven years, but unfortunately the network was tanking and there were bigger things afoot than the success of our show. There was talk of going to Vancouver to shoot but Scott had two small children.

Marina came and did our last episode with Jonathan Frakes to a lot of people’s consternation – I had no idea that Scott was so affronted by that last episode until we all did the 10 year reunion at CBS for the release of the Blu-rays and we all had a big interview. It all came out in that that it really ticked him off. By that stage we’d known we were cancelled for about six, seven weeks if not longer, and I was over the shock of it. I won’t say that I think that the device to get those two into our episode was a bit clunky, but that said one of my favourite days’ shooting was doing the galley scene with Jonathan Frakes. He’s hilarious.

I’d always known he was funny – there’s a story I often tell. We’d gone over to Birmingham to do a big British convention. I went into the green room and there were all these young hotshots, cheeked and ab-ed actors, all flown in from their hot shot shows in Toronto and Vancouver and all were waxing on about how great things were… I was remembering how it used to be when it was me. They petered out and went back to their signing tables so there just me sitting alone there finishing my sandwich. There was this rustling underneath the trestle table on the other side of the room, and Jonathan Frakes popped his head up from where he’d obviously been having a nap, or trying to, and he saw me and went, “Hey, Dom, how are you? Are all those *********s gone now?” He’s a real actor’s actor. I had a great time working with him.

What else are you up to at the moment, apart from staying in for lockdown?

I’ve got a film I’ve been promoting, The Host, which sort of got a release virtually. It’s a psychological horror movie set in London and Amsterdam. I’ve been doing some voiceover work for Blizzard, God bless – I did quite a lot of voices for them for World of Warcraft. I have another voiceover on Tom Hanks’ new movie, Greyhound – I play the captain of the English battleship in this flotilla chasing U-boats. You never see me unfortunately but it’s my voice, but a mate of mine told me I’m in it quite a lot, and referred to quite a lot too! I got to work with Tom – he was in the room when we recorded, and what a lovely chap he is. Shortly after that he got COVID!

The worldwide online premiere of Unbelievable!!!!!! is 1 August – tickets for the all-day event can be purchased today (31 July) here

Thanks to David Roberson & Ian Spelling for their assistance in arranging this interview