Dominic Keating talks about the dangers inherent in fighting around the universe as Lt. Malcolm Reed, the Enterprise's top security officer.

In the late 1980s, he shampooed and conditioned his way into millions of peoples’ living rooms playing a hairstylist in TV adverts for Vidal Sassoon hair care products. He then went on to tickle their funny bones as Tony on the popular British sitcom Desmonds. These days, Dominic Keating is out in the 23rd Century, playing Lt. Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise. During the show’s first two years, viewers met Reed’s parents, learnt of his love for pineapple, and found that as ship’s tactical officer he’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to security aboard the Enterprise. Season three saw a further fleshing out of the character, much to Keating’s delight.

"Reed’s job description as tactical officer became much more defined last year with the Enterprise under constant threat [from the Xindi] and its crew being on a mission to save Earth," notes the actor. "As a result, my character turned into quite the action man. Although he didn’t actually get an entire story devoted to him, there were a good handful of episodes in which Reed was the B-story. In those, you usually saw him fighting to save Captain Archer [Scott Bakula] or Trip [Connor Trinneer]. I actually ended up getting black-and-blue a couple of times doing some of the stunts, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process.

"I must say I got fit from working on Enterprise’s third season," continues Keating. "I’ve always tried to keep myself in fairly good shape but I made a point of sticking to a steady [workout] regimen last year. Thank God because all of us were constantly on the move during season three. For example, we were forever running around the ship and up and down its metal stairs. Now that looks like fun and it is. But I swear, after you’ve shot sixteen takes in a row of doing that it ain’t fun any more. Of course, you can’t be seen sweating on-screen and your hair has to stay in place, even though it’s 100 degrees inside the studio. Now that’s a real challenge," he chuckles.

In Enterprise’s second season finale The Expanse, Earth suddenly found itself at war with a mysterious race called the Xindi. It wasn’t long before Captain Archer and his crew were dispatched to find these aliens and stop them from wiping out the human race." Our writers did an incredible job of unfolding the Xindi story arc over an entire year,"notes Keating. "They probably looked at what was working on other shows like Alias and 24, which were doing ongoing story lines that kept viewers wanting to tune in. That same strategy worked with Enterprise.

That said, we’re not about to do it all over again this [fourth] season. There will be three and four-episode arcs and I’m sure the odd standalone story. If, God willing, we have the good fortune to go a full seven years, it would then make sense for the writers to create another complete arc for our final season. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. We’ll have to wait and see what happens this year."

To help Archer and his crew handle the Xindi threat, Starfleet Command assigned a Military Assault Command Operation (MACO) unit to the Enterprise. Under the command of Major Hayes (Steven Culp), they were to provide support for Reed and his security personnel. Not 
surprisingly, there was some initial resentment to their presence onboard, especially by the lieutenant. The friction between him and Hayes came to a head in the episode Harbinger.

"That was a great story for Malcolm," says Keating. "I relished what I had to do in it. It had a solid arc for my character right from the opening scene where he’s in the captain’s ready room and being told by Archer that he and his people are going to receive further training by Major Hayes and the MACOs. From then on, we see Reed’s defiance and obstruction in the face of it. Then, of course, you have the big fight between him and Hayes.

"It took us a day-and-a-half to shoot that scene, and the day before filming we spent three or four hours in the gym choreographing most of the fight. I’d done some bar-room brawling and stuff before in front of the camera, but never anything like this. We did a lot of work in a short period of time. It wasn’t easy but the end result looked good and was well worth it. The big flip kicks and more complicated moves were done by our stunt doubles, but Steven Culp and I did a great deal of the fighting ourselves. Apparently, our stunt coordinator, Vince Deadrick, submitted the scene for some type of stunt fight award. I’m not entirely clear on the details or if we won or not, but with something like this it’s just an honour to be 
recognized."

In Enterprise’s penultimate season three story Countdown, Hayes leads an Away Mission to rescue Ensign Hoshi (Linda Park), who is being held captive by the Insectoid Xindi. The major is critically wounded in the process and dies in front of Lt. Reed shortly after being transported back to Enterprise.

"I was out of the country when the final four episodes from this past season were shown. So I haven’t actually seen Major Hayes’s death scene yet," says Keating, "but I did enjoy playing it. As an actor I remember feeling really in the moment when we shot the scene with Robbie Duncan McNeill [Lt. Tom Paris from Star Trek: Voyager] as our director. I walked away from it thinking, ‘You’re not a bad actor, mate.’ Hopefully, my performance translated to the screen."

Despite months of hard work by the Enterprise cast and crew, which culminated in an edge-of-your-seat third season cliffhanger (Zero Hour), there were serious doubts whether or not the show would return for a fourth season. After a round of financial and creative discussions, The Powers That Be finally gave the series the green light for another year. Along with shifting the night the series airs - from Wednesdays to Fridays - viewers can expect one or two other changes to Enterprise, as Keating points out.

"This season we’re shooting on high definition video as opposed to film, the latter of which is quite time-consuming and expensive," explains the actor. "That’s going to cut costs considerably. I haven’t actually watched any rushes, but I have seen some of the high definition footage on the monitors that the directors are now using and it looks marvelous.

"There’s also a new showrunner this year, [co-executive producer] Manny Coto. Although Brannon Braga [series co-creator and executive producer] will still be very much in the creative mix, I don’t think he’ll be bogged down with the day-to-day running of Enterprise, which he’s done for so long now. Manny is great. He came in last year and wrote four or five of the best episodes we’ve ever done including Similitude, which is just an extraordinary Star Trek story. Manny not only understands the Sci-Fi genre but he also loves Trek and knows its history backwards and forwards. That will be a huge asset to us."

In mid-July, Keating and the rest of the show’s cast and crew were back on the Paramount Studios lot to start work on Enterprise’s two-part season four opener Storm Front. "To be honest, my character isn’t featured all that heavily in the first three stories," he says. "Most of my scenes have been on the bridge with Reed at his station. I did have a scene the other day with Scott and Jolene Blalock [Sub Commander T’Pol] where our three characters are trying to piece together the puzzle that is their current situation.

"In Storm Front, Manny is basically trying to tie up the story arc from last year. In the third episode, which we start filming tomorrow, the Enterprise returns to Earth. Our heroes find that their world has changed after the Xindi annihilation of Florida at the end of the second year. I can’t wait to see what the writers have up their sleeves. They already have several things mapped out and by now [early August] are likely in the process of breaking episode seven. It’s going to be an interesting and enjoyable season, that’s for sure."

During the recent Enterprise hiatus, the actor became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, actress Jilana Stewart. He also did some traveling, beginning in London where he joined fellow cast member Connor Trinneer to meet fans at a Star Trek convention. Keating then spent time visiting with relatives. "My father’s family all live in Ireland, and I got reconnected with several of my mother’s family, who also live in Kerry. My dad grew up on Valencia Island, which is off the Kerry coast. My grandfather was a lighthouse keeper there, so I made a pilgrimage to the island with my dad’s youngest sister and her younger half-brother, who’s my uncle.

"Before going to Ireland I was in Belgium visiting my uncle on my mother’s side. He put me in touch with the Keatings, who, believe it or not, literally live across the water from Valencia Island. I mean, you can throw a pint of Guinness across the causeway and hit the corner bar," jokes the actor. "That was all amazing, and to finish things off, my fiancée Jilana and I went to Paris and spent some time there together. So I came home with lots of happy memories, and now I’m back at work. Life couldn’t be better."

Steven Eramo

Transcribed by Jo (Dodo) Healy