Star Trek Enterprise, the latest iteration of the Star Trek franchise, took a new direction by making itself a prequel taking place 100 years before the original series’ timeframe. Applauded by some Trekkers and derided by others, it has nevertheless brought a renewed sense of action and adventure to the Trek formula. Connor Trinneer, who plays the Enterprise NX-01’s chief engineer, has become a fan favorite with his portrayal of the regular-guy Trip. We asked him a few questions about his experiences in the daunting Star Trek universe.

What kind of casting process did you have to go through to land your part?

During pilot season, you’re sent out for any pilot that your “actor type” is considered right for. So I had a series of three auditions with about 25 pages of dialogue. I’m not very good unless I know my lines cold. I had prepared for two out of the three for this day, and Enterprise was the one I didn’t prepare for very well. I knew I hadn’t prepared very well, so I hoped the gods were going to be kind to me – and they weren’t. I walked in there and totally punted this audition. I was terrible. And I know when I suck.

The casting director was like, “Okay, can you come back in an hour?” And I’m thinking, “Well, it’s still going to suck because I only have an hour to fix this.” So I go back to my car and work on it for an hour and come back in – it’s a little bit better, but not by much. Well, they call me back again for a third time a week later, and at this point I’m going to dot my I’s and cross my T’s until I know what I’m doing. So I go in there and I nail it. So that was the third one, and then I had to go in studio in front of the suits and do the audition, and that went well. Then the network audition was pared down to me and this other guy – I did my audition and felt good about it. The consensus was I hadn’t shown enough awe: a – w – e. I was like, “Let me go back in! I’ll ‘awe’ all over the walls.”

My manager called the casting director and asked “What’s going on?” She was like, “You know I can’t tell you. But you’ll have a good day tomorrow.” And that’s how I knew I got it. It was three weeks to a month throughout the whole process. Some people in our cast had one audition, some had a meeting – I just happened to be on the long and winding road.

Did you feel any anxiousness over joining such a pop-culture icon as Star Trek?

In the back of my head, I knew it was a pop-culture icon, part of the pantheon of television history and all that, but not until we were well into shooting the pilot was I really able to get my head around how big it was to some people. And then having gone to a convention or two and seeing how the people react to you... that was probably the most obvious example of “Holy ---! This is something I wasn’t expecting.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it sure as heck wasn’t people calling me by my character’s name, dressed up as Klingons and the whole nine yards.

Have you since explored the Star Trek phenomenon and the different ways fans express their interest?

I don’t have to – they come right at you! If you’ve seen Trekkies, that is the group of people that are going to these conventions. I say this probably every time I attend one: “Ninety-seven percent of you people are absolutely normal, every day, run-of-the-mill fans of something. And 3 percent of you are kinda out there.” But I have to say, it truly is a family you get invited into and they couldn’t be nicer or more supportive. We have been dancing on the knife of ratings pretty much since we began, and I know of no other fan base that is as active as this one. And I appreciate that, I really do. I think that we have the greatest fans in the world.

Do you have any personal tales of fan interaction to relate?

It’s a little shocking to meet somebody who’s speaking to you only in Klingon. They know the entire language, and they speak to each other in Klingon. Or to be sitting there signing an autograph and somebody walks up as you – that’s kooky. I’m never really sure how to handle that. I try to be as gracious as possible and try to make a nice comment about their costume.

Do you ever worry about being locked into the Star Trek universe as an actor?

Now that there are so many different things you can watch on TV, I really don’t see that happening. I’m not playing an alien, I’m a good ol’ Southern boy on the show – I’m kind of the show’s everyman. Stranger things have happened, but I hope not – there are other things I want to do. This is great, this is my job, but there are other aspects to the job I’d like to explore.

I’d love to walk out of this with some directing credit under my belt. I know at this point in time, they’re not letting that happen. There’s a bit of a delicate balance going on with what they’re agreeing to have people do, like we have former cast members directing us right now but they’re not letting any new directors direct (shows). They’re a little bit nervous about anybody screwing it up, frankly. But I’ve been following around some of the editors, keenly observing how the whole process goes – not just me going from the trailer to the set and back to the trailer.

How is Enterprise different from previous Star Trek series?

It’s consciously more bare-boned, because it has to be – they didn’t have a lot of the technology seen in other incarnations of the franchise. In an historical context, the first couple of years I think they were trying to have it live on its own, and now we’re finally coming back to its role in the whole history of it.

Will this season depart from last season’s long story arc?

The season-long story arc was just for our third season. I thought it was a lot of fun to play, to be able to go with some sort of consistency in terms of how you were going to finish your season out, and where you might want to be emotionally in the middle of it. This year, it seems as though we’re focusing on re-entering the web of the franchise, the original one. Our show takes place 100 years before the original one did, so there’s a responsibility there to tie that back in and bring in some of the alien races involved in the original series. We’ve done quite a bit of that, so I expect more of that to happen.

How would you like to see your character develop?

I am continually shocked by what they throw at me. I got cloned last year; I dealt with a character who committed suicide, and with the death of my sister. They continue to add colors to this character. It’s hard to answer that question because it’s not as though I’m (playing) a cop on the beat and I’m trying to figure out how my world is working – I’m in a new environment almost every episode. I’d like to see them coming back with a little more of his humor – he’s a lot of fun to play when he’s having fun, and there’s been a bit of a dark cloud over him for some time. If I could say anything, that would be the direction I’d like it to go.