Posted in: Movies, Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: discovery, star trek, Starfleet Academy

Star Trek: Doug Jones Talks Saru Return/Starfleet Academy & More

Doug Jones (Operation Taco Gary's) on his run as Saru on Star Trek: Discovery, his interest in returning for Starfleet Academy, and more.

For the better part of 40 years, Doug Jones has been one of the most invaluable character actors of our generation, largely playing a variety of aliens, creatures, heroes, monsters, and villains in largely supporting roles, but also embracing the occasional leading roles, even throwing a change of pace playing humans. One of those said leading roles you can argue was as the Kelpian, Saru, in Star Trek: Discovery. Not only did he share much of the limelight with star Sonequa Martin-Green, who played Michael Burnham, but he also took charge of the USS Discovery as she was working her way back up into Starfleet's good graces into her original rank and beyond. Saru also grew into an unexpected leader, surpassing his evolutionary design, taking the initiative, going above and beyond, becoming a captain, finding love with Ni'Var president and Vulcan T'Rina (Tara Rosling), and becoming an admiral and ambassador in the 32nd century. While promoting his latest sci-fi comedy Operation Taco Gary's, Jones spoke to Bleeding Cool about how perplexing it was how Paramount never approached him about the franchise until Discovery emerged as the flagship series for their streaming service Paramount+, what other Star Trek race he would like to play, his love for Leonard Nimoy's Spock, and the roles that garnered him the most reaction, which includes his one-off on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Star Trek: Discovery Star Doug Jones on the Likelihood We'll See Saru for Starfleet Academy Season Two, Franchise Future, and His Most Memorable Roles

BC: I loved your work on Star Trek: Discovery, and I'm wondering if an opportunity like this ever approached your way before you became Saru in the show.

The opportunity to be in a Star Trek show?

Yeah, in a Star Trek show, because when I think of another chameleon who was in multiple roles and had so many different faces, it would be Jeffrey Combs. I mean, after all the stuff you've done, I had to wonder if Paramount ever came your way before Discovery?

Yeah, that would have made sense to have done. I made it all the way to 56 years old before I got a call from any Star Trek show ever, and by that time, I was like, "Well, that ship sailed. It's never going to happen for me," but I was asked for decades before, "Have you ever done anything in the Star Trek world?" I'm like, "No, I haven't," and that's kind of odd that those offers never came, because I was known in the creature effects prosthetic, alien makeup world as the guy who does that. So, for a Star Trek show to have not reached out before it was kind of like, "Huh, I wonder what's missing here," so when Discovery came along, it had been quite a while since a Star Trek show had been on. I think…Well, golly, Star Trek, the one with Scott Bakula.

Enterprise.

When Star Trek: Enterprise left the air, it had maybe been 15 years, and then all of a sudden, you get this offer for Discovery, which was on the new streaming platform (of Paramount+), and it's a new wave of Star Trek. When that offer came, I was like…well, my first reaction was, "It's about time!" [laughs]. But it was a good fit. I'm glad we waited until I was 56, because Saru was a character that I can't imagine not playing. Saru and I took to each other immediately. I really understood him right off the bat, and I love him dearly to this day.

Can we consider the chapter on Saru's life closed? Or is there a window for Starfleet Academy's second season? Have there been any calls? Perhaps a different role in your franchise future?

I'll never say never if offered to reprise Saru again. The only place that I could reprise him at the moment would be Starfleet Academy, because it's in the same timeline and I lived in that time.

Was there another Trek race you would love to have played?

Well, I would have loved to have been a Vulcan, because Spock was my guy. When I was a kid watching The Original Series, it aired on the networks back then, and I was like, "Oh, I like him. He's tall, lanky, and looks different than everybody else, not to mention very smart and dependable. I want to be him when I grow up." I think being a Vulcan would be great, but the problem now is that in Discovery, there was a two-episode arc (in season three) where I looked like myself as Saru. I went into a hologram program and became a human. This face has already been established as Saru, so I can't really. I'm not sure why.

I mean, Combs appeared in multiple Star Trek shows like Deep Space Nine as an alien and a human in multiple roles. Other actors also played humans and aliens in the franchise. I believe if anyone can do it, you can.

Now, again, I'll never say never, but…in this phase, now that I'm 65 years old, I'm playing more humans now. Again, that's why Operation Taco Gary's, the Elder alien in this movie, was a great transition piece, a great buffer piece for me.

Final question. I know it's like picking your favorite child, but what role has garnered you the most reaction across the board?

Oh, that's a great question. That's a good way to put it, too, because you're right. I can't pick a favorite. I would make all my other children jealous if I picked my favorite one. As far as the most reaction I've gotten, it's going to be a toss-up a little bit, and for different reasons, too, people connect with the intelligence of Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies, and his calming effect on the BPRD team. People have been very affected by my Gentleman (from season four's "Hush") character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A one-episode guest star that lives on to this day. People still say, "Oh my God! It's the scariest thing I've ever seen," right? So, I get that.

Pan's Labyrinth, my Fauno character was what I put most of my effort into, but the Pale Man character I played in that is Nightmare Fuel, and I get a lot of reactions to him still to this day. I would say the character that people react to still with much emotion that I really love hearing about is the romantic The Shape of Water's Amphibian Man. That romance was one of my favorite things to ever play in a movie, and when a movie goes all the way to the Oscars and wins Best Picture, and it has a monster on the cover, that's just not done. To be the monster on the cover of that Oscar-winning movie is like, "Okay, that has a very special place in my heart, and the romance I got to play in that movie, the monster and the human end up happily ever after together." That's also not done much.

Operation Taco Gary's, which also stars Simon Rex, Dustin Milligan, Brenda Song, Jason Biggs, Tony Cavalero, and Arturo Castro, is in theaters on February 27th. All five seasons of Star Trek: Discovery are available on Paramount+.

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