INTERVIEW: Gates McFadden on her new podcast, working with David Bowie, and of course, Star Trek

Gates McFadden talks to Alison Pitt of Daily Star Trek News

MAY 12, 2021 - It’s time for another special guest on Daily Star Trek News! Today, it’s Gates McFadden, Dr. Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. She’s got a new podcast out, called Gates McFadden InvestiGates, so we’ll talk about that, plus a little about her work with David Bowie on Labyrinth, and a little game I like to call, “Marry, Kiss or Miss”.

You can watch our whole conversation now on YouTube, or keep reading for a transcript of our conversation. And of course, be sure to listen to Gates’ new podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Alison Pitt (AP): Gates McFadden! Thank you so much for joining me on Daily Star Trek News. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and talk about your new podcast. Welcome.

Gates McFadden (GM): Thank you very much, Alison. It's really a pleasure to be here.

AP: We're talking today because you have a new podcast coming out. It's called Gates McFadden InvestiGates. And it's you talking to some of your friends about various topics. I wonder if you would give me a rundown of what the podcast is going to be like, the kind of people that you're talking to, and what you're talking about.

GM: Oh, it's that kind of space family, you know! The wonderful family that I have made through all of these years of doing Star Trek and conventions. I'm starting off with Jonathan [Frakes] and then my dear space son. You know, that Wil Wheaton is just, like, my dream boat. I love him. We played games because I wanted to break the ice some way and I didn't know quite how to do it. And then we had some hilarious things and we talked about all kinds of stuff. I hope people aren't scandalized, but we'll find out!

Then Brent [Spiner] and Michael Dorn and Marina [Sirtis] and Jonathan, as I said. Nana Visitor, [Robert] Picardo, [John] de Lancie, Michael Westmore (who is one of my dear friends, I love him so much!) And Denise [Crosby], I spoke with Denise. They're all such amazing people.

Oh, I know who I've forgotten! LeVar [Burton]! Who's just amazing. And I hope he gets the [hosting role on] Jeopardy!

AP: Will you be watching his guest hosting spot?

GM: Are you kidding? Of course. He's my friend and he's so perfect for it. I'm really excited.

Actually, Alex Trebek's son was in my son's class at school. It's a wonderful family, the Trebek family. It was so sad when he died, but I do think that LeVar would carry that mantle very well.

But anyway, the podcast is me and my friends and in the beginning, I think I was a little nervous. I didn’t know what I'm going to talk about. Then I researched everyone, just like people research me. I did all the same stuff and I made way more questions than I could ever ask, but we would just start talking about things. And that was the best.

We laughed so hard on some of them. And on others, it's very serious. It really depends.

I also learned how to sound edit. I take hours and hours editing this stuff and it's been fun learning a new skill.

AP: Wait, so you edit the show yourself?

GM: Yeah, I do! Well, I send in my edited version. I spend hours and days editing it down. And I'm sure people are going to tell me what they think, but I loved making everybody who was a friend of mine sound good on the show.

I think the hardest thing was listening to myself.

AP: I find that funny actually, because you're a seasoned performer in many, many different media. Is this the first time you've done something that's purely audio?

GM: Yes! Well, not quite. But I've been acting a part when I've been on audio. I've done narration, I've done play readings, I've done things like that. But this is the first time in this new format of being the host. It's a medium that I'm just learning. I hope people enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed doing it. I was nervous in the beginning. I'm calming down, but you know, it kept me going during the pandemic, to be honest.

AP: You're somebody who has worn a number of different performance hats, but they've always been rooted in physical performance. Either you've been on the television or dancing or choreography. And then there's podcasting, which is a lot of sitting behind a microphone!

So what was it about the podcast? Why was now the right time for you to create a podcast?

GM: Well, the interesting thing is that I did not come up with the idea. It was Brian Volk-Weiss, who is the CEO of [The Nacelle Company], who is absolutely wonderful. He called me out of the blue and introduced himself and said, "I am interested in producing you doing a podcast." And I said, "Okay, hold it. There is no way I'm going to do a podcast about Star Trek episodes with my friends."

They would not ever do it with me, because we talk about it so much with other people. And so I said, "No, no, I can't do it." And then he came back, and he came back a couple of times. And I thought, okay. I was getting a little jinxed because the only other time someone had come back to me, when I turned something down twice was for the original Star Trek. And that changed my life.

So I went over to my friends’ house, we were on the porch, socially distanced with our masks on, and they had this adorable dog Luna. And I finally said, "Okay, let's have Luna decide!" And I took two dog biscuits and I put one in my left hand and one in my right hand. And I said, "If it's the left hand, I'm doing the podcast. If it's the right hand, I'm not." And that dog took about 10 minutes to decide! She finally took it from the left. And I went, "Well, Luna dared me to do it. I got to do this podcast." And that's the true story.

I called Brian that night and said, “Okay, I'm doing it.” It was perfect timing because I was alone and I had had COVID for three weeks. I was really sick. And I just thought, this will keep me with a new project. I'll learn something new, which I love doing, and I'll let it evolve. I can't control it. Let's go for it and see what happens. And it'll either work or it won't. So that's where I am.

AP: That's a wonderful story! I love that you said yes.

So, I mentioned that you have done a lot of different types of performance over the years. I remember when I found out that you choreographed Labyrinth, my head practically exploded! I grew up on Labyrinth. I literally have a statue of David Bowie on my desk.

GM: He was amazing in [Labyrinth]. I mean, truly amazing. He wrote all that music and there's no one else who could have walked on stage with all of the hair and makeup and those heels that he had on. And he was like, totally chill. He was a very impressive human being and obviously an extraordinary artist. His last album was just extraordinary.

AP: I was just looking at an old, behind the scenes video of you choreographing the ballroom scene. Watching you make that happen was magical.

GM: There were so many people involved in something like that! That was one of the later scenes. I had been working with Hoggle and Ludo and the goblins, all of that. But when we finally got to that, it was sort of like, "Oh, I know how to do this. This is, this is what I'm used to."

I was working with people who are dancers and it was so wonderful. [Jim Henson] let me cast the people who were going to be my dancers, and I knew they were going to wear masks, and I had trained with masks. It was really cool, the whole thing.

AP: And you were asking David Bowie to move in the way that you wanted him to move!

GM: Yeah, sadly I was the one who had to take his arms and show him some of the waltz moves. It was tough!

I would stand in for Jennifer [Connelly]. And I'd be like, "No! I want to do it again! Jennifer, you just stand back." And she was this amazing 14 year old. I had actually taken that movie because I was supposed to play her mother.

AP: Oh, really? But you did not play her mother.

GM: British Equity wouldn't let me play her mother! They tried and tried and tried and they were turned down.

I took the job because I had had a skiing accident, and I had lost a Woody Allen movie, I lost two other things and it was a really tough time. So Labyrinth came along and I thought, “Okay, well I can play the part and then I'll do the other stuff.”

I was learning on the fly. I had done masks, I knew a little bit about puppets, and I had worked with little people before. [I worked on] Dream Child, a beautiful movie directed by Gavin Miller with Ian Holm and Jane Asher about an 80-year-old Alice in Wonderland. The creatures [in the film] were extraordinary, but it was really state-of-the-art at the time. There would be seven people working the Mad Hatter's face. And I think that was my trial by fire! But Jim [Henson] just left me, he said, "This is what I want you to do." And I guess I proved myself on that. And then Labyrinth happened right after that.

AP: I want to take you back to the podcast for a minute. I listened to the segment that your team sent me that you did with Wil Wheaton. You guys did "Never Have I Ever", which sounds wonderful. If you're game, I would like to play a little podcast game with you! Have you heard of the game "Marry, Kiss or Miss"?

GM: No.

AP: The concept of the game is that you're given three people and you have to choose one to marry (so, long-term), one to kiss (which is just like a brief dalliance), and then one to miss entirely. I would like to have you choose. Marry, kiss or miss: three of your crew mates. It's going to be tough!

GM: This is going to be wild. So I'm Dr. Crusher? I'm not Gates McFadden.

AP: You can be either one, but just to avoid any any awkwardness you should do it as Dr. Crusher.

GM: They're both going to be awkward!

AP: There's a possibility!

So, marry, kiss or miss. You've got Captain Picard, who obviously you had some history with. Commander Riker, who you also had some history with when he was hosting a Trill. And to throw it in there and to make it equal, Counselor Troi, who I believe you never had a relationship with onscreen, but you guys had a very close personal friendship.

GM: And we can include Spot in this.

AP: No, I think that they could have, like, an ancillary role to the story, but you have to choose.

GM: For Dr. Crusher, I would say absolutely: “marry” would be Picard, “dalliance” would be Riker. And, I'll just be on phone calls with Troi.

Obviously I have more similarities in life to Jonathan, but I think Patrick, in terms of chemistry for Dr. Crusher, I think there was definitely a good chemistry between Crusher and Picard.

Who would you do? You're going for Troi, right?

AP: I think I would marry Troi. Yeah.

GM: You would have no privacy. You understand that?

AP: If we went into that with that understanding, I think that would be kind of wonderful, actually! I would definitely have a fling with Riker and...

GM: Miss Picard.

AP: Yeah. I like him and I respect him a lot. But he's a very, very serious man.

GM: Well, I guess it's hard because I also know Patrick, who is one of the silliest people!

AP: So...This is a Star Trek podcast. I have to ask you the Star Trek question. Are we going to see Dr. Crusher on Star Trek: Lower Decks?

GM: [Surprised] Oh you know...I don't know.

AP: That was a trick question! Obviously I know you can't say, and I know that you're constantly being asked the question of, "Are you going to be on Picard?"

GM: That, you've got to ask Patrick, he's the one who's going to decide. It would be great. It would be fun, but who knows.

AP: Are you aware of the hashtag #PicardNeedsBev? There's a whole huge movement of women on the internet trying to get a campaign to get the two characters back together.

GM: Well, I have definitely seen some of the stuff. It is wonderful.

Listen. We have the greatest fans. I'm just so grateful for the humor and the caring of our fans. They really are smart and care about the future, and life on this planet. It's a great group of people.

AP: Back to the podcast. I don't want you to spoil it, but what's a moment that's coming up that you're really, really excited for people to hear?

GM: Well, I am excited to hear Wil Wheaton talk about his relationship with his wife and his family. He's so honest and loving.

Michael Dorn has some incredible stories from his youth that are both funny, and then some of them are about his encounters with police. LeVar was so much fun to have on. He's so articulate! And Brent and I...I was laughing so hard at this moment that happened with Brent, that I kept laughing for the whole next day. And Marina...we didn't have a great connection to the internet, but it was really fun. She's extremely funny!

I kept learning about these people...And these are people I talk to all the time! They have very interesting lives. I would get very immersed in the person I was editing. It's quite an amazing group of actors actually, and human beings. They're not just performers. They're really wonderful friends. So I'm privileged in that way. And I hope that people can feel the friendship between us.

AP: So the podcast is called Gates McFadden InvestiGates: Who Do You Think You Are? And that's going to be available weekly on all the major platforms?

GM: I believe that's how they're doing it. That's not what I got involved in. That's the production company!

But it's really fun because I had my son write the theme music. Well, he didn't write it deliberately! I had asked him to write something and he did this thing. That was very, very good. And I was going to use that. And then he was doing this project for schools in Kentucky. He's a violinist and a composer, and he's in the Louisville Orchestra. So he was doing this little project for the community and I heard it and I went, "Oh, no, oh no, no, that's what my podcast [needs]...That's perfect!" And so I love this silly theme. It's perfect. He was kind enough to write something else for the educational department in Louisville. It's something simple, but on handmade instruments and stuff. It really was the way I felt about my podcast. So let me know what you think.

AP: It sounds like it's really got your personality stamped all over it!!

Gates, thank you so much for joining me on Daily Star Trek News. It was a really wonderful conversation.

GM: My pleasure Alison.