Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Brent Spiner, Dahj, Data, Isa Briones, Kore Soong, paramount, Soji, star trek, Star Trek Picard, Sutra, Terry Matalas

Picard: Briones on Her Star Trek Legacy, Data-Soji Moment That Wasn't

Isa Briones (Goosebumps) discussed her legacy in Star Trek: Picard in multiple roles, that lost Data-Soji S3 opportunity, and more.

Actors with enough passion for the craft always look for new challenges, and the ultimate gamut is the one-person show where he/she/they take on all the roles. In the case of Isa Briones, she took on the similar feat of playing synths Dahj, Soji, and Sutra in season one of Star Trek: Picard and the 21st-century human female Soong ancestor Kore in season two. The Paramount+ series not only utilized her acting talents but also took advantage of her skills as a vocalist with her soulful rendition of the Frank Sinatra classic "Blue Skies." While promoting her latest Disney+ series in the TV adaptation of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps, Briones spoke to Bleeding Cool about how she differentiated the synth roles in season one, what she learned from Data actor Brent Spiner who also played multiple roles throughout the series, and if there was any discussion about Spiner wanted his Data to share a scene with her Soji in season three in a tender father-daughter moment.

Throughout season one, Briones's primary characters Dahj and Soji found themselves on the run in what turned out to be a Romulan conspiracy against synths, which also involved their infiltration of the Federation. While Dahj didn't survive the journey, Soji, along with Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) and company, fled to Dr. Alton Soong's (Spiner) synth sanctuary to make their final stand in a synth-populated planet. Among its occupants is Sutra, a synth that shares the most similar physical features as the pale-skinned, yellow-eyed android, Data. Season two found Soji as a diplomat and Briones primarily playing Kore, who discovered her father Adam (Spiner) is living a double life in science and discovers the horrible truth of her origins before getting recruited by Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) to become a traveler.

Star Trek: Picard: Isa Briones's Challenge "To Be or Not to Be" Data, That is the Question

Bleeding Cool: With 'Star Trek: Picard' as your eighth project, you're asked to do multiple roles. Was it difficult to differentiate between Soji, Dahj, and the other synths, and that includes your season two role as Kore? Was there something that little notes you gave yourself or from those showrunners?

Briones: It was up to me to create these characters and make them different. I wasn't totally coached through exactly what it should be, but one thing I do know is that for Soji, in the beginning, we made sure to add in Data-like mannerisms like his head tilt was the one thing that we had talked about beforehand. When I met Brent [Spiner], I was talking to him about it, and he was helping me. He would demonstrate what he did. I would watch all of those and try to mimic what he was doing.

Other than that, it was because they made sure they were like, "You're not supposed to be Data. You're not supposed to be copying him in any way, but more having and knowing the legacy of him and having that within you." Having that basis then allowed me to create a bunch of different characters that were all different enough that I also felt like Dahj and Soji were so different. You also don't see a lot of Dahj but assume if you're playing two characters, that makes them so wildly different, but at the end of the day, these characters. Sisters have a lot of similarities, and they also have a lot of differences; you can play the nuance of that, but Sutra was fun to play because she could feel so different from Soji and Dahj.

I read showrunner Terry Matalas wanted Brent to share a scene with you in season three as Data in a father-daughter moment with your Soji since seasons two and three were being shot back-to-back but lacked time and resources. Were you ever approached about the possibility?

I would say that's a little more of a rumor mill thing. We would have loved to do that. I would have loved to do a scene with Brent because that's one thing we and the fans are missing: Data always wanted a daughter, and there would have been a beautiful opportunity for Data and his daughter to meet. I've heard people talk about that. That was maybe something people wanted to do, but I was never told about it [making it a reality]. That would have been a beautiful scene to have.

Sony Pictures TV's Goosebumps, which also stars Zack Morris, Miles McKenna, Ana Yi Puig, Will Price, Rachael Harris, Justin Long, Leonard Roberts, Ben Cockell, Françoise Yip, and Rob Huebel, is currently streaming on Disney+.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!