Living Long

1996606

1996607

Rene Auberjonois may be best-known to some TV watchers as the character Odo on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

But, in addition to some roles in classic American films, he also has an extensive list of voice acting roles on his resume, and it’s that experience that Auberjonois says helped him get the role on the popular "Star Trek" spinoff.

"The casting director for ‘Deep Space Nine’ said that no one had been grouchy enough for the role," says Auberjonois, who is one of many "Star Trek" actors appearing at Creation Entertainment’s Star Trek Convention this weekend at the Las Vegas Hilton. Others appearing include William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Avery Brooks, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Nana Visitor, Armin Shimerman, Kate Mulgrew and George Takei.

So Auberjonois drew on his background of doing accents for cartoons. "I just grabbed the character’s voice and made it growly," he says. "My cartoon work allowed me to do it. It’s a very hard field to break into. … As much as I’ve done, there are people who do only that and they’re awesomely talented."

Auberjonois began doing cartoon voices in the late 1970s because of his connection to theater in Los Angeles. He knew theater director Gordon Hunt, who had become director of cartoon voices at Hanna-Barbera. "Gordon drew on a lot of his connections in the theater, and he called me in."

Having a good background in theater, which also can require the use of accents, also helped, Auberjonois says.

He won a Tony Award for his role in the musical "Coco" in 1970, and he was nominated for "The Good Doctor" in 1974, "Big River" in 1985 and "City of Angels" in 1990.

Auberjonois frequents the "Star Trek" conventions partly as a way to help out his favorite cause, Doctors Without Borders. The organization provides medical help in danger zones and in parts of the world where medical care is scarce. Money he raises at the convention from autographs and photographs with fans goes to the organization.

The actor says the stories about wacky fans at the conventions are greatly exaggerated. "People tell me, ‘I hear they’re so weird,’ but they’re no more weird than any convention is. Some do dress up as characters they admire. But the ‘Star Trek’ demographics runs from Hell’s Angels to neurosurgeons and everything in between. My experience is they’re almost always pleasant and benign. There are some weird people, but there are some weird people in the supermarket."

Auberjonois says Odo was a popular character that reached a broad demographic. "Each character has a fan base. I like to think I have fans who are a smarter class of people," he says with a laugh. "My character doesn’t have sex appeal. Because ‘Deep Space Nine’ was the darkest and most neurotic of the ‘Star Trek’ shows, I don’t think there was a real breakout character."

The most frequent question he’s asked by fans is, how long did it take to get into makeup? "I used to just walk onstage (at a convention) and say, ‘Two-and-a-half hours.’ Which, by ‘Star Trek’ standards, is a walk in the park. It wasn’t a matter of how long it took, but how many hours I had to spend in the makeup each day. Fourteen hours were average, but in the pilot I wore it 21 hours straight."

He remembers shooting one scene set in a pod spaceship at 4 a.m. "It had gotten so quiet it was like everyone was moving in syrup. I looked up and saw everyone moving in slow motion."

A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, Auberjonois is the son of Fernand Auberjonois, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated Swiss journalist, and author, and Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat, and the grandson of Swiss post-impressionist painter Rene Auberjonois.

After graduating from college, Auberjonois worked in regional theater and in New York. He was rehearsing for a Broadway show that was "doomed to close in one week" when his agent sent him to audition for a role in a military comedy produced by 20th Century Fox.

The director was Robert Altman. "He said, ‘I’m considering you for this part of a priest, he doesn’t exist much in the script. If you were a priest, what would you do?’ I played him as a bumbling, shy guy and that appealed to Bob."

The role was Father Mulcahy and the movie was "M*A*S*H."

"Sometimes I wonder if it’s a curse to have such a good experience on a first film. A lot of us were first-time actors," Auberjonois says.

The stars, Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould, were not first-timers, but the Oscar-nominated movie sent their careers into high gear. While the supporting cast and extras were enjoying working with Altman, a director known for giving as much importance to the background of a scene as the foreground, Sutherland and Gould were "not enamored of the process. They attempted to have Altman replaced by another director.

"Fortunately that didn’t happen," Auberjonois says. "I had a very good relationship with Bob. He was my artistic father."

Auberjonois went on to appear in four other Altman films: "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Brewster McCloud," "Images" and "The Player."

These days, aside from appearing at conventions, Auberjonois is working in "Boston Legal" and concentrating more on photography and sculpture.

That doesn’t mean he’s giving up acting.

"As an actor, I’m going to die with my boots on," Auberjonois says.