Lost in Space - Jonathan Harris at Megacon 1998 Part IV


© Robert Smithers

This continues the transcript of Jonathan Harris's talk at Orlando MegaCon on Mar. 15, 1998.

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Audience Question: In the series you and Don are going back and forth. Did you work on that, or was that improvisation...?

Jonathan: No, there's no improvisation. Everything is written down, we do the words because the words affect other queues, and what you say affects someone else's queues. The re-writing and writing I did every morning at a quarter to eight I go to the script lady. And she would put it in her master script and tell all the others. There is no such thing as improvisation in television,. The lights could be queued on a single line. the camera move is queued when I say...uh huh...and the camera moves. You cannot improvise because it affects everything else. There is no improvisation. So that everything is written down. The 'a literative' that I used for the robot, thousands of them, I wrote. And I'm told that a lot of it is used in the movie. Um hmmm. 'So he says OK. When he says 'Never fear Smith is here'. Mine. And other things, but they're not patented. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is still that there is no improvisation because everything hinges on everything else. Next question.

Audience question: Did you keep in contact with any of the cast members over the years?

Jonathan: Occasionally. We had a big reunion in Boston for the 25th anniversary. It was very nice. We had thousands of people there. And then another one for the 30th anniversary. In Boston again, and 32,000 people came. Why? Other than that I see Billy [Mumy] from time to time, we have lunch, which is very nice. And we get on very well, he's very close to my heart. He was bright and sharp and a quick study. I had to steal him away from the teacher. You know he had to go to school on the lot. Twenty minutes away from class was a long time. I had a deal worked out with the teacher. It was a totally difficult scene. And I'm glad he we did that off camera. We took that scene for three minutes. I'm glad because he was a joy to work with. And I appreciated it. I've worked with many kid actors, but I've never treated them like kid actors because I think they're just actors. And that's the way it is. And that's the secret. If you treat a kid actor like a kid actor, you're going to be in deep trouble,. And I never did that. I have worked with kids on stage, which is my background, and in films, and they're actors, and they have to bear up under the strain of being an actor. And not just a kid actor. And that's the way that is.

       

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