Star Trek: Picard’s Jonathan Frakes on Returning to the Enterprise-D and the Continuing Fight Against Pancreatic Cancer (Exclusive)

This year, Jonathan Frakes returned to Star Trek television as William Riker in Star Trek: Picard, and he’s returning to the fight against pancreatic cancer as well. Frakes is teaming up with fellow Star Trek stars Armin Shimerman, Kitty Swink, and John Billingsley) for “Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer” for PanCAN PurpleStride, a walk to help end pancreatic cancer. The event occurs on Saturday, April 29, 2023, in Los Angeles and in 59 other communities nationwide.to raise funds to fuel the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Network’s mission to spread awareness of pancreatic cancer while funding research into preventing and treating the disease.

ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to all four of these stars about their PanCAN mission, but given the momentous episode of Star Trek: Picard that just debuted, with Frakes’ Riker and the rest of the , we also took some extra time to speak with Frakes about Star Trek: Picard Season 3. Here’s what he had to say:

Your efforts with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network [PanCAN] is why we’re here. Why don’t we start with how you got involved and what you’re trying to do with them?

Jonathan Frakes: Well, my brother Daniel turned yellow about 25 years ago. We took him to the hospital. They opened him up with what they call the Whipple, which is what they opened people up with to do pancreatic cancer surgery. They looked at what he had, they looked at how far along it was, they closed him up, they came out and said, “He’ll be lucky if he lives for six months.”

He was 41 years old, so it was game-changing for our entire family. And then he died a week before our daughter was born. My father never really recovered. My mom and I mourned.

Someone who you’re about to meet, Kitty Swink, is a 19-year survivor of pancreatic cancer. When Daniel died, there was a 4% survival rate. Since this work has been being done — this is my third year with PanCAN, but it’s an incredible organization– the survival rate is now 12%, which is three times better than it was back in the day.

It’s still dreadful, and it’s still the second-worst death rate of all cancers. But the objective, obviously, is to raise awareness and to find people who will contribute so that there is a marker that is easier to detect pancreatic cancer with something in a blood test.

It’s turned out now that people who are genetically predisposed are people who are related to first cousins, uncles, and aunts, they need to tell their doctors that when they go to their medical checkup that my dad had it or my uncle had it. Then the doctor will have the good sense to test you for it.

But it doesn’t show up in a normal blood test. The money’s really for research and awareness and to try to tackle this dreadful root because most people get to it too late. That’s the fact.

I’m going to circle back around to that, especially once the rest of the group is on the call. However, I obviously can’t talk to you now and not discuss Star Trek: Picard, especially after that most recent episode, that ending, and the return to the Enterprise-D. What was it like for you? Obviously, on the screen, it’s like the characters are having a homecoming moment. How much did that translate for you all as actors? Did you feel sentimental?

Didn’t you feel it when the turbo lift door opened and we all wandered around and found our part of the bridge? The music I think helped.

But the most wonderful part of the morning was we were all jammed in that fucking elevator together just like we had been 35 years ago, knocking each other out of their marks and taking the piss out of each other. It was just as childish and rambunctious a group as it was when we were doing Next Gen. What we’ve all felt and how thrilled we were to be back on and all the emotion around being on that bridge, that was all very real. We felt that.

But when we got set to do the shot and we were all there waiting for action and we were packed into that little room, that’s the moment that we all remembered. Oh my God, because we’ve all been friends for 36 years. So to be packed in a room together in uniform, it was a very special place to be with those doors closed. I’ll say that.

Paramount tore down the original Enterprise-D bridge set in 1995, after Star Trek Generations. As someone who practically lived on that set for a number of years, how close was this recreation? Did anything stand out to you that was a little off, or was it pretty close?

No, no. It was Dave Blass, who’s the production designer on Star Trek: Picard Season Three, who hired Mike Okuda, who’s responsible for most of what we call “Okudagrams” on the set, and hired Doug Drexler and others who had worked on Next Gen.

It was meticulously designed to look like our Enterprise-D. It was the colors. The chair colors were a big deal to them, they found that. The color of the rug, the backlit graphics, the rake on the horseshoe, everything about it.

See, I remember I took Wil Wheaton over to see it because he did an episode of The Ready Room from there, to walk on with him, because he was a kid when he started on the show, and then they tried to capture that moment for him reacting to it on camera. But the two of us, I snuck him in at lunch. We walked around it together, and it was… It’s a little corny to say, but it changed our lives.

And you’re still living it. You’re back behind the camera and in front of the camera.

I’m very grateful.

I have to wonder, was there any temptation for you to swing a leg over a chair? Or to prop one up by Data’s station?

There was no chair. There was no chair. I went down there, and I did go over and talk to Data and Geordi and put my leg up, but I’m not sure that that made it into the cut. But there was no leg swing because those chairs are never good enough, too high for the Riker maneuver.

I wanted to ask about the previous episode too, where we finally got some scenes of you and Marina Sirtis together, which were wonderful scenes. However, something that struck me was really how different in tone they had compared to the scenes that you all had in “Nepenthe” in the first season. I’m wondering, for you as actors did, you feel that different tone? Because I love “Nepenthe,” but compared to this, it feels… I don’t know if precious is the right word, but it’s a lot more serious and dramatic. In this one, it felt like two people who had been together for a very long time having a lot of fun with each other.

Absolutely, I think the tone changed. What Michael Chabon had created in season one for the “Nepenthe” story needed to be serious because it was a very dramatic time in Picard’s life. He chose to visit us knowing that our son, Thad, had died there, I’m guessing recently.

The reason to go to that island, or planet, or whatever the fuck it was, was essential to us. It didn’t work, and our wonderful daughter, Kestra, carried on.

Now, we’re at least three or four years later. As with any marriage that suffers the loss of a child, the marriage suffers as well. In the opening few episodes of Picard [Season 3], it’s pretty clear that Riker and Troi have seen better days and that she’s grateful that he’s gone. I’m grateful.

Cleverly plotted by Terry Matalas, when Vadic kidnaps or traps me and teases me with my own wife, it’s really powerful. What came out of it was the honesty about how we needed to move on. I thought it was beautifully written stuff, and I always loved working with Marina anyway. It was not as precious. It had that wonderful spin about the judgy foyer and there were wonderful turns of phrase in there about us admitting to each other, “It really sucks for us to still be there. What the fuck are we still living there for? Let’s get out of there. Enough already.”

Then Worf shows up, which also brought some levity to them. It felt like these characters made up in the jail cell.

Oh, yeah. Michael Dorn, Worf, how he greeted Deanna Troi. That was incredible.

Oh my God, “I’ve been thinking about you for all the….” It was hysterical.

Something else that was really cool about this episode, we get the Borg Queen back. Obviously, you have some history with the Borg Queen having directed Star Trek: First Contact. I still think about the behind-the-scenes on that introductory shot of her coming down. It’s one of the few behind-the-scenes features that stick in my mind.

It’s one of the greatest visual effects shots of anything I’ve ever been involved in.

I’m wondering, Alice Krige was just credited as the voice of the Borg Queen. Did you get to work directly with her on this?

Well, Terry worked with her vocally. She wasn’t in the show. There was a body double who played the Borg and did the lines. Alice’s voice was dubbed in over the actress’ performance. I don’t know what that was particularly about, but I think everybody wanted it to be Alice because she’s fabulous. She’s one of the great secrets to why First Contact was successful. The company was great, but Alice and Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell as the guest stars on that show I think heightened this and made that movie more successful than it was already going to be because the script was bulletproof from Ron [Moore] and Brannon [Braga].

I spoke to you at the junket ahead of the premiere, but now that the season is mostly out there and you’re, presumably, a little freer to talk about it, is there anything in this season that stands out to you — a scene, a moment, a line of dialogue, or even something that happened while directing — as something that will stick with you from this on-set reunion with, as you said, your family?

I felt the scenes with Patrick where I was encouraging him to make peace with his son if we were going to die, and I came into his room and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been a dick to you,” first of all, the conflict was wonderful. But I remember specifically going into that scene and Patrick was very still. I found a place in the room to get to. It reminded me of what a master he is. He’s one of those actors who, when you’re in the scene with him, you get better.

It happens with Marina too, who’s another master. If you look into their eyes and you trust them and you trust their reactions, your performance gets better. I feel that Riker in those scenes was vulnerable, and emotionally available in a way that I have not seen him earlier, and certainly not in Next Gen.

And a lot of the credit goes to the writing and also to the relationship that I have with Patrick and that Riker has with Picard. I remember the day fondly. I remember the way I felt because talking about your dead son — and you’re not supposed to think about your own son, and you’re supposed to think about something else, it’s a very dangerous, ice-thin territory for an actor — I’m not a very method-y actor, but emotionally, just the story you’re telling would be true, and that’s enough to get you right to the edge. That takes, hopefully, the audience to the edge as well.

Circling back to why we’re here, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, we’re about to be joined by several other actors who worked on Star Trek all working for the same cause, and that feels like something that Star Trek does like no other franchise. Can you talk a bit about why you think that is? Is it something to do with Roddenberry’s philosophy, or does it have to do with filming a special effects-heavy 20-plus-episodes-a-season show that breeds a certain amount of camaraderie?

I think specifically the connection between Roddenberry’s vision of a future where there would be no suffering, there would be no hunger, and no greed, is so prescient with what we’re trying to do is raise money to cure a disease that may or may not be curable, but certainly can be treatable.

There’s a righteousness about all things Star Trek that has created a future in which Roddenberry, I think, would be smiling at the idea that we now are trying to cure diseases and all of us are gathered, raising money — even though there was no money in that world — to do just that. I think it’s not lost on us that it’s very Roddenberry-esque.

How to watch Star Trek: Picard

The final episode of Star Trek: Picard premieres on Thursday on Paramount+. All previous Star Trek: Picard episodes (as well as all episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and every other episode of Star Trek television) are streaming now on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

This interview has been edited and modified for length and clarity.