Craig Wasson, an actor best-known for his starring role opposite Melanie Griffith in the film “Body Double,” won a role on “Deep Space Nine” the old-fashioned way. He earned it, by delivering a solid performance at an audition.
“My agent gave me a call and said, `There’s an audition for `DS9.’ Be there at this time, on this date,”‘ Wasson says during a telephone call from his home in the mountains of Topanga, Calif. He aced the audition, landing the part of Ee’char in the “DS9” outing “Hard Time.”
In the episode, which will air the week of April 15, O’Brien (Colm Meaney) returns to DS9 a shattered man, believing that he has just spent 20 years in prison after having been convicted of espionage by humanoid aliens called the Argrathi.
“The prison experience has been technologically implanted in O’Brien’s brain as part of his punishment,” Wasson says. “Those 20 years happened only in his mind, and no one else would ever or could ever know or understand what he went through.”
“In the prison he had a cell mate, Ee’char, who is the Argrathi I play. He becomes O’Brien’s best friend and conscience, and you see us both age as the time passes,” Wasson adds.
Even after O’Brien returns to the station and to his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao) and their daughter Molly (Hana Hatae), he can’t readjust. Harsh and tragic memories of prison life and Ee’char come back to haunt him.
Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) does everything he can to help, but it’s to no avail, and O’Brien contemplates suicide.
“The thing I always loved about `Star Trek’ and what I loved about `Hard Time’ is that each story is a parable,” Wasson says. “I guess the parable in `Hard Time’ is that you can’t hide from your conscience.”
“Colm’s fantastic, a good guy and a terrific actor,” he says. “I couldn’t ask for a better cell mate or a better acting partner.”
Born in Ontario, Ore. and reared in Idaho, Wasson recalls watching the original “Star Trek” with a girlfriend when he was just a teen-ager, joking that it was a “great date show.”
More than 25 years later, Wasson was directed by William Shatner in an episode of the TV series “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.”
“It was great to be directed by Capt. Kirk,” says Wasson, the 42-year-old divorced father of a young daughter.
He’ll next be seen in a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie entitled “Harvest of Fire,” which will air on CBS April 21.
“It’s a drama with Patty Duke and Lolita Davidovich,” Wasson says. “I play a real-estate agent who’s accused of burning down barns that belong to the Amish in Iowa, in order to buy up their land cheap.
“I’m a real prince in that one.”
Returning to the subject of “DS9,” it’s pointed out to Wasson that since Ee’char will forever remain, quite literally, on O’Brien’s mind, it’s conceivable that he could be invited back for an encore performance.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Wasson responds, laughing.
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