70thousandlightyearsfromhome:

Waking Moments

The scene from “Waking Moments” when Tuvok dreams he’s on the bridge naked.

Tim Russ (Tuvok) was supposed to come out of the turbolift wearing a pair of shorts. The camera would only shoot his upper body, so he’d look naked. Well, when he came out, he was wearing a “prop” under the shorts…one
that was so long it dangled out underneath them. The rest of the cast cracked up, of course. And they ended up using that reaction shot in the actual episode.

Tim was a notorious prankster. Easily the biggest practical joker on the Voyager set…and there was a lot of competition.

In a scene from “Fair Haven,” Tuvok was supposed to be suffering nausea on the bridge. Tim secretly took a mouthful of yogurt, and when they starting filming the scene, he spit it out, as if he was throwing up. It got all over his console and costume. The costume people were not amused.

Another time, he was supposed to come striding out of the turbolift, leading a security team, and get shot by an alien. Instead, he pushed one of the other security guards out ahead of him, cowering behind her. She got shot by the alien, and he ran back into the turbolift in terror.

In “Tinker Tenor,” during the “ponfaria” scene, he grabbed Neelix, bent him
over the counter, and pretended to have his way with him.

Tim wasn’t the only one. All the men in the cast were jokesters. Jeri
Ryan said she was careful never to look any of them in the eye while filming, because if she did, they’d make her laugh so hard her makeup ran.

Robbie McNeill was infamous for cracking up his colleagues by making funny faces at them. (Since he was at the front of the set, he was often out of range of the camera when the others were being filmed in closeup.) Robert Beltran’s trailer was next to Garrett Wang’s, and he used to entertain himself by pitching Voyager merchandise (books, etc.) into Garrett’s trailer when Garrett had his door open. He also used to try to annoy Garrett by doing evil things to Harry Kim action figures.

And Garrett…he was the most computer-literate of the cast. He used to download smutty fanfic from the net (yes, including slash) and read
it aloud during set breaks in order to tease his co-stars.

Leave a Reply