"Star
Trek Nemesis" began principal photography on November 26, 2001,
in California's Mojave Desert, not far from Edwards Air Force
Base, and wrapped on March 7, 2002, in Los Angeles. By starting
with the desert scenes-Captain Picard driving an Argo, a 24th
century off-road vehicle-Stuart Baird established the rapid pace
of the action that was to come.
Weeks
before the scenes were filmed, Stewart had practiced driving the
vehicle in a quarry. "It was extremely powerful, and I got a lot
of pleasure out of driving it," says the actor, who, when it came
time to go in front of the cameras, made full use of his training,
and did more than 90 percent of the driving required for the spectacular
chase scene.
At
the conclusion of the sequence, the production returned to Los
Angeles and Paramount Studios, where the entire cast experienced
an eerie sense of dejá vu. For Stewart, the reunion "had a slightly
unnerving feeling, in a kind of Rip Van Winkle way."
LeVar
Burton, who returns as Geordi La Forge, agrees: "It was spooky
replaying my character, but in a good way. Every time the cast
comes back together, we pick it up as if we all were doing this
the previous day, as opposed to, in this case, three years ago."
"As
we were filming in the corridors of the Enterprise," recalls Jonathan
Frakes, "I looked over and saw Patrick, Brent, Marina and LeVar.
It was as if time had stopped and the same kibitzing that we've
all cherished over the years was going on. I loved seeing my old
friends again, and it was nice to meet some new friends as well."
Those new friends included actor Tom Hardy, who was eager to join
the ranks of Star Trek's infamous villains. "Shinzon is a dynamic,
young, bitter, helpless individual who comes to battle the man
he was supposed to be . . . the man he felt he deserved to be,"
Hardy observes of his character. "He's torn between all he knows,
based on his past, and what he believes he has the potential to
be, in the form of Picard. As an actor, I found a human soul within
the character and that made him a very interesting villain."
Casting
Shinzon proved to be a demanding task for the filmmakers. Not
only did the person portraying him have to be a competent enough
actor to hold his own opposite Patrick Stewart, but he also had
to look enough like Stewart so that the audience would buy him
as both a dead-ringer of Picard and a younger version of him,
too.
"It's
not easy to find an actor who can inhabit the technical demands
of such a role, while also having to look like someone else,"
says Stewart, who had nothing but praise for Hardy's performance.
"Tom came through splendidly."
While Hardy bore a resemblance to Stewart, some adjustments had
to be made to his appearance, and that's when makeup designer
Michael Westmore worked his magic.
"Since
Tom doesn't have a cleft in his chin and because his nose is quite
different, I had to sculpt a latex nose and chin for him," says
Westmore. "And, of course, I shaved his head. When the two of
them did profile shots, or when they were in scenes together,
there was definitely a feeling of a relationship between them,
but they weren't identical."
The
process of turning Hardy into a Stewart lookalike took a couple
of hours each day before shooting, but Hardy wasn't alone during
those long makeup sessions. Veteran Star Trek cast members Brent
Spiner and Michael Dorn, who were daily transformed into their
respective characters, Data and Worf, spent hours having their
makeup done just as they had during their seven seasons on the
television series and the three previous feature films.
Also joining Hardy, Spiner and Dorn in the makeup chair was Ron
Perlman, who was no stranger to prosthetics, having spent three
seasons as the star of the popular television series "Beauty and
the Beast." His transformation into the Reman Viceroy took two-and-a-half
hours.
"My
character is the power behind the power, a little like Shakespeare's
character Iago," Perlman says. "The Reman Viceroy is shrouded
in mystery, so the particular challenge was to portray him in
a minimal, selective way, rooted in stillness. That's a cool thing
for an actor to wrap his teeth around."
Because
Perlman's character is an alien species audiences have never seen
before, the actor had the luxury of taking risks with the role,
and makeup designer Michael Westmore had unlimited possibilities
in creating the look of the evil Reman Viceroy.
"Remans
live on a planet that gets sunlight only a fraction of the time,"
Westmore notes, "so the filmmakers wanted them to have an almost
Nosferatu look about them without making them into vampires."
As
for the Reman ship, the Scimitar, which is three times as large
as the Enterprise, production designer Herman Zimmerman took his
design cue from a breastplate that costume designer Bob Ringwood
fashioned for the Remans.
"I
extrapolated that breastplate into the cross bracing I used to
build the ship," explains Zimmerman. "Then the same design motif
carried itself through everything until it eventually circled
back to the wardrobe department in the form of belt buckles for
the Reman uniforms."
Such
rippling of ideas doesn't surprise producer Rick Berman. "Over
the course of 15 years we've put together a family of people,
so we communicate in our own kind of shorthand," says Berman.
"As a result, we avoid that period when everyone has to adjust
to one another's style of work."
As
the production wrapped, director Stuart Baird was satisfied that
the arduous journey he had undertaken was well worth the trip.
"Everyone involved with the film was very generous in sharing
his or her vast experience," he says. "In the end, I feel we produced
a film that will be appreciated by loyal Star Trek fans, and I
also think we'll give those who have never experienced a Star
Trek movie an exciting introduction to a wonderful new universe."
