INTERVIEW: Daniel Davis on Landing the Role of Moriarty in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and Returning to it in PICARD

Daniel Davis as Moriarty in STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION (L) and STAR TREK: PICARD (R) and as himself (M). Images: Paramount / courtesy of Daniel Davis.

In October 2022, I was covering New York Comic-Con (NYCC) for DSTN. There I sat facing the Empire Stage at the Javits Center with 3,500 of my closest friends, waiting for the Star Trek Universe panel to begin. One of the features was to be the premiere of the first Star Trek: Picard season 3 trailer. The trailer began, reintroducing us to old characters like Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), new characters like Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer), starship flybys and explosions.

“Fire everything we’ve got!” Captain Willaim Riker (Jonathan Frakes) cried out, and we were treated to photon torpedoes winging their way to an unknown target. A quick shot of Vadic slamming her fist down in anger and then everything went black and almost eerily quiet.

When the darkness faded, a figure wearing a top hat was revealed and the crowd leapt to their feet cheering enthusiastically. The gentleman was older than when last we’d seen him, but it was impossible not to recognize him, and understand what it meant.

Professor James Moriarty was back.

The character had first appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem,” the story in which he killed off his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes. Of course, like Spock (Leonard Nimoy), the detective could not stay dead and, though Moriarty never appeared in another canonical Holmes story, he was name-checked in no less than six other stories. It’s no wonder that when the Star Trek: The Next Generation scribes decided to write a Holmesian holodeck adventure for Data (Brent Spiner) they chose Moriarty as the one foeman worthy of Data’s steel.

Before the general public knew that the villain, who had appeared in TNG’s “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship In a Bottle,” had been tapped for a return appearance, there was someone else who was jumping for joy: Daniel Davis, the man who had played the role so many years ago.

“The moment Star Trek: Picard came on the air I watched the very first episode,” Davis told me in a recent interview. “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. 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!’”

Davis is a long-time Trek fan, telling me, “I go all the way back to Shatner and the original gang. And I was a huge fan of Next Generation when it came on, because Patrick Stewart (jean-Luc Picard) is a phenomenal actor. I’ve seen him onstage and I’ve seen him in so many things. I thought he was an absolutely brilliant choice to play Picard because of his Shakespearean background in particular.

“So I became a huge fan of the show and I was working at that period, as well, so I would always record episodes and sometimes on my days off or on a weekend I would sit down and watch, you know, seven or eight in a row. So yeah, I guess you could call me a hard-core fan.”

With his enthusiasm for the franchise, which at the time consisted of three series (if you count The Animated Series) and a small handful of films, Davis was ecstatic when he was brought on board the USS Enterprise for an episode.

“When I got the call to come and audition for it, I was really very excited. Because I thought Patrick and I would get on well, which we did.

“I was still fairly young in LA at that point,” Davis continues. “Star Trek was a very early job in my transition from New York to LA. I’d been playing the ‘Nazi of the week’ on every Stephen Cannell show that there was.”

The typecasting was largely a result of the way Davis speaks, which he describes as “not exactly British, but not exactly American, either.” “Even though I was born and raised in Arkansas, I still have this classical tendency towards speech because of my classical training.”

Despite being somewhat intimidated by his competition, Davis landed the role of Moriarty, receiving a call from his agent when he arrived home. “I just got so relaxed about it,” Davis recalls about his audition, “that it had an ease to it and it also had some authority to it, which is what Mr. Roddenberry was looking for.”

Davis auditioned with sides (brief scenes) from the actual script, but he couldn’t see the big picture at the time. “The genius about that episode and subsequent episodes was that you had the Star Trek mythology mixed with the Conan Doyle mythology and it was a feast for fans of both things.”

The best Star Trek generally has something to say about the “human condition,” and once Davis had received and read the full script, he realized, “This is a take on Moriarty, but it’s not about Moriarty being this mustache-twirling villain. It’s about an entire other concept that they have in mind about what it means to be human; what it means for a sentient hologram to figure out things that they don’t expect him to figure out and understand.”

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You can read my full interview with Star Trek: The Next Generations Moriarty, Daniel Davis, in the latest issue of Sherlock Holmes Magazine, on sale now. In it, Davis tells me about the process of filming “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship In a Bottle,” the experience of working on the incredible London street set, his co-guest star Stephanie Beacham’s dissatisfaction with the show, and his experience preparing for and ultimately filming Star Trek: Picard’s “The Bounty,” among other things,

The issue includes two other Star Trekkian treats, as well. You can order your copy by clicking the link below.