- Joined
- Jun 7, 2018
Wheaton gets no defense from me for his post-TNG douchebaggery, but maybe I feel a little sympathy for that fifteen year old kid who's on network TV and being given crap lines to read.
To add to this a bit, reads can be a pretty vicious cycle. That is, the process whereby all of or a portion of the cast and crew sits down and reads through the script together with the writers present. Shatner, as much as I like his constant shitlord mode, would pretty much take a dump on anyone if he thought they were getting better lines than him. He'd interrupt reads - and said as much himself - and say, "That's a really good line, Kirk should say that, not Spock" (or McCoy or Scotty or whoever), and most of the time with them in the room.
Another even worse example was William Frawley who played opposite Vivian Vance in I Love Lucy; the guy was a giant douchebag and would berate Vance in reads, stop reads and rehearsals and demand he be given her lines that he thought were funny, etc.
Granted the new Star Trek cast seem to have treated Wil Wheton a little better, but can you imagine being 15 and having actors in their 30s and 40s saying Yeah that's a really cool speech. I should give that, though, I'll get more screen time.
That doesn't excuse the fact that Wheton is a soyboy cockbag, mind you.