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Mark & W Morgan Sheppard - Father & Son Q&A.
This was Morgan's first return to
the UK for 20 yrs, still working at 70 and LA neighbour of his
son Mark, he has had an illustrious career - including 12yrs at
the RSC and many character roles including those in Star Trek,
MaxHeadroom and Babylon 5. He spoke of his favourite
roles - one in the Julius Caesar production alongside Ian
Holm. When auditioning for Star Trek he met Gene
Roddenberry who asked him how he would play a genius. "Bad
Tempered" was Morgan's response which he believes was the reason
he was cast. When asked how he felt when his
son Mark wanted to be an actor he was delighted. Mark, then an
accomplished rock drummer then came to LA to live with his
father and learn the craft, but never received coaching
directly from Morgan.
Mark likes the idea
to be paid to do something you love, but it is hard to actually
get the work and there is a lot of waiting. Mark says there are
over 120,000 actors in the union and less than 20% earn
more than $7k per annum. Mark loves coming to Conventions
for the immediate fan feedback. When asked what Keifer
Sutherland is like Mark cheekily responds 'short, with funny
ears' Keifer runs a tight set on '24' and hates
noise and will shut everything down if someone talks.
He fends mild criticism of his accent in 'Bionic Woman' by
asking if the attendee had read Dale Carnegies book 'How to win
friends and influence people' . He went on to tell us how Sean
Harry struggled over the last 2 weeks to get replacement guests
- some actors currently working on two shows old & new due to
the strike.
Morgan told us how he went to the
US to make the American version of MaxHeadroom although they did
not originally want him to reprise the role they were unable to
find a suitable actor in the US. Said that the influence
of BBC America and UK programs in the US had an effect of
more actors of 'character' rather than perfect appearance
to be cast. They spoke of the similarities between Ron Moore and
Joss Whedon being 'the super smart kids' who have progressed
from writers to show runners.
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