INTERVIEW: Daniel Davis On His "Marvelous" Return to Star Trek

Daniel Davis as Moriarty in STAR TREK: PICARD. Image: Paramount+.

MARCH 23, 2023 - I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fan and also write for Sherlock Holmes Magazine. So when I found out that Daniel Davis would be reprising his role as Professor James Moriarty in this week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard, I was over the moon.

I had a chance to chat with Davis about the role and his return to Star Trek. If you haven’t seen this week’s PIC episode, “The Bounty,” stop reading and go watch it now. There are spoilers aplenty in this interview. You’ve been warned!

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Daily Star Trek News: In January, it was 30 years since you last played Moriarty on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Daniel Davis: [laughs, indicating his white hair]

DSTN: Did you ever think you'd be playing Moriarty on The Next Generation again?

DD: I had my fingers crossed. I have to tell you, I'm such a fan of of all of the incarnations of Star Trek. I've seen them all. I've watched them all to this day. And I think that, in the back of my mind, I held out this little hope. The moment Star Trek Picard came on the air, I watched the very first episode. And I have to tell you, that when the theme started, I started to cry. I was just so happy. And I kept thinking, “I hope I get to be back, I hope.”

And shortly, it was back in November of 2021, I got a phone call. My agent. I answered the phone. He said, “Well, we've heard from Star Trek.” I said, “YES!” And he said, “Don't you want to know what it's about?” I said, “Whatever it is, YES!” And he said, “Well, they want you to come and and and bring back Moriarty for Star Trek: Picard.”

So right away in my mind, I started creating my own little scenario about what the episode might be about. And my fantasy was that there was going to be some kind of resolution between me and Picard over the fact that he had promised to get me off the holodeck at some point, which he never did. And Picard does not break promises. So I thought, okay, that's what this is going to be.

And of course, Paramount and Star Trek, they're very, very protective of the scripts. So I never saw a full script after I agreed to do it. I never saw a script. I got pages, the pages that I was on, and I read these pages. And I thought this is not Moriarty. And even even Frakes’ character, Riker, has a line in it, “This is not the self-aware, Moriarty we knew on the Enterprise.” And I was very puzzled about who I was in the scene.

And so when I when I heard from CBS that they wanted me to do these interviews about it, I said, “I can't talk about it, because I haven't seen it.” So they sent me a screener. And I said, “I couldn't make heads or tails of it while I was shooting it. I need to see how they put it all together.” And of course, in the second scene, when they find Data, Riker has a line, “He wasn't trying to hurt us. He was trying to guide us.” So then I knew what I was. It worked out okay that I didn't know who I was, because I realized that I must be some manifestation of Data’s, whatever function his brain was functioning. He was trying to be found by these people, so he used the familiar Moriarty character, he used the Blackbird he used “Pop Goes the Weasel” and me shooting at them to get them to go to where he was and then that last moment when I echo what data said, just “Marvelous.” The word. That brought tears to my eyes watching it.

That was very interesting for me because I had so established a character through the brilliance of the writing in the scripts who was no longer menacing and no longer dangerous. So to be shooting at them, and all that was weird for me, but it's all worked out the way it was supposed to.

DSTN: Did did you end up rewatching any of the old episodes you were in?

DD: I did. I did, because there was something very specific about his manner and his look. And I wanted to remind myself of what that was. And I also wanted to remind myself about the promise that Picard made because it stuck in my mind that he didn't help me.

You know, Bob Ricardo who played the Doctor on Voyager, he was a holodeck character. And every time I see Bob, he says, “I owe you my performance. Without Moriarty, I would never have existed.” And I thought, yeah, why don't they make an armband for me?

DSTN: I’d love to see the two characters on screen together.

DD: Oh, that would be fun. Yeah, I like Bob so much. He's a wonderful actor and a great guy. And it would be fun to, you know, do stuff together. But with the end of Picard, I don't know if that means the end of Moriarity or not. One producer did say to me, “Moriarty is the kind of character who can pop up just about anywhere. So don't say goodbye completely. You know, we never know.”

DSTN: I take it that means you’d be willing to play the role again?

DD: Oh, in a heartbeat. I want Moriarty to have his own series. Star Trek: Moriarty.

What Star Trek: Lower Decks? Would you consider voicing an animated Moriarty?

DD: Oh, absolutely. This is that the one that Kate [Mulgrew] is doing?

DSTN: No, that’s Star Trek: Prodigy.

DD: I could show up with Kate. You know, she and I have done several plays together. We're old, old friends. We get Bob and Kate and me and we'll have a new cartoon.

DSTN: When you stepped on the Star Trek: Picard set, what was the feeling? Were you happy to be there? Was it similar to The Next Generation?

DD: Well, the atmosphere is always exciting on that show. And because I was working with Michael Dorn and Jonathan Frakes and Michelle Hurd (who I had admired on the show, but I've never met her before,) I felt very much at home. They were very welcoming and helpful. And I talked with them in the Green Room about “What is this? Can you help me figure this out?” And they said,” You think we know?” Yhey were teasing me, of course, but It was like being at home.

You know, it's such a cliché when people say “We're like a family.” Well, they really are like a family because I have been seeing them at conventions, they have included me. At the end of every convention, they all go out to dinner in a restaurant somewhere and they split the check between 12 or 15 people. And the last several times that I've seen them, they have taken me out with them. And so I really do feel you know, that I'm, even though I'm a guest star, I'm really part of the family.

And Michael, who's such a wonderful man, when they were at [New York] Comic Con, and showed the preview for the new series of Picard, Michael sent me a text and said, “They just showed the preview and when you came on screen, 4000 people stood up and screamed.”

DSTN: I was there, covering it for DSTN I was one of them.

DD: I thought he was just being flattering. But I've talked to people who've said, “No, it really happened.”

I'll ask you a question. How do you think fans are going to respond to this episode?

DSTN: My reaction, I think, will be similar to other fans in that when I first saw it, I thought, as you did, it was going to be a sequel to “Ship in a Bottle.” And I thought, “Why are they shoehorning Moriarty in? He deserves a full episode. But when I watched it a second time, I was thought, “Okay, I get what they're doing. They're using Moriarty in tandem with the Blackbird and the tune as sort of Data’s guardian, a facet of his personality.” And the door’s still open to wrap up Moriarty’s storyline in the future.

And that actually dovetails nicely, into my last question. What do you think it is about Moriarty’s relationship to Data do you think makes him the right person for Data to sort of use as this communication device, as opposed to Joe Piscopo, for instance, or any of the other characters who informed or were informed by Data’s personality?

DD: I think because of the strong association, that Data and Geordi and Moriarty have with each other. And that Riker would recognize it, if no one else did, because of their first meeting, with the whistling of the tune, Riker would go, “Oh, Data is here somewhere.” And I think it was because of that connection that they decided to use me. I'm just talking off the top of my head because I didn't get to discuss this with anybody. So it's just what I imagined, you know that? It was actually the perfect choice in many ways.