Michael Mack (born 6 February 1962; age 62) is a writer, actor, and lifelong fan of Star Trek: The Original Series.
A native of Washington D.C., Mack was fortunate enough to work at the K-B MacArthur Theater when it featured the world premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. On opening night, Mack met the entire lead cast.
As a budding writer, one of his dreams was to write for Star Trek: The Next Generation, in part, because they were the most writer friendly series to work for. He was fortunate enough to join the TNG writing team for a six-week internship in 1994 during the series' seventh season, working with such greats as Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, and René Echevarria. Though he was not allowed to write an episode themselves, he was allowed to contribute ideas to the episodes. His main job was to review the unsolicited scripts that were submitted to the series, where on one occasion he found an idea in one of the submitted scripts that he successfully pitched.
Because of Mack's Shakespearean background, he was approached by Taylor, who encouraged him to audition for any guest roles that might arise during his stay. Initially he was offered a role in "Parallels" to portray one of the Enterprise-D captains from another quantum reality, a role that eventually became that of Riker from the alternate Borg conquered Federation. He turned the audition for role down because he felt that it was simply too short and there was no way to play it "credibly" because all the performance required was a "freak out".
When the next episode, "The Pegasus", was being cast, he told Taylor that he wanted to audition for the role of the Romulan Commander Sirol, who was originally written as a female character with a single scene. In spite of being a black actor auditioning for a species traditionally depicted by white actors, he reminded Taylor of the black "Vulcan midwife" who appeared in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and seeing as Romulans were "cousins" to the Vulcans, he saw no reason why there couldn't also be black Romulans. Taylor gave Mack her answer the next morning by offering him an opportunity to audition, and after Mack impressed both Taylor and episode director LeVar Burton, he was given the role, becoming not only the first writing intern to act on the show, but more importantly the first actor to portray a black Romulan. Following his being cast in the role, Braga and Moore expanded the role and made the character a bit more complex on Mack's behalf.
After winning the role, he was went through the three hour makeup session, using the existing white toned Romulan headpiece, and Mack was also madeup in same tone, making him appear, as he described, "kind of Asian", which he liked. After shooting the scenes, he was called back to Taylor's office the next day, and was told him "I will not run the risk of offending the African-American community by having the first black Romulan be a black man in white face," and they would reshoot the scene. Michael Westmore then created black Romulan makeup based on Mack's skin tone. For the next shoot, Burton asked Mack if he was up for having some fun with the character, and they agreed upon making a "Sirol that was let's say larger, [...] kind of wicked in a Jack Nicholson kind of way, [..] with a wicked sense of humor. [...] Kind of satanic, really, in that way." Taylor said she found it "over the top", and his scenes were reshot for the third and final time.
One year later he appeared in the one-line role of Ensign Hayes in Star Trek Generations. During his experience, he impressed director David Carson so, by humorously improvising scenes from the script with him, he was allowed by Carson to stay all week for shooting as Worf's relief on the bridge. [1]
Years later, Mack return to the non-canon Star Trek universe when he brought his talents to Star Trek: New Voyages , portraying Joseph M'Benga, a character previously portrayed by Booker Bradshaw.
Additional work[]
Mack was a regular on the short-lived PBS series Powerhouse, playing the role of Kevin. His other roles include the villainous John Moesby in the 1987 science fiction film Outerworld, Dr. Darcy in a 1996 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (with Ann Gillespie and Julie Parrish), Sal the Janitor in the 1996 film Sunset Park also starring Carol Kane, Secret Service Agent Randy in a 2003 episode of The West Wing (also featuring Steven Culp and Billy Mayo), Special Agent Marcus Lemmel in a 2003 episode of The Wire, the "Sophisticated Man" who can't do the Electric Slide in Chris Rock's 2003 film Head of State (featuring Reg E. Cathey and Jude Ciccolella), and Dr. Johnston in HBO's Emmy Award-winning 2004 drama Something the Lord Made (featuring Gabrielle Union). He also had a recurring role on The Young & The Restless and principal roles in several national commercials.
Mack co-hosted the United Airlines travel show Three For The Road and has done voice-overs for Nelson Mandela's Peace Parks Foundation and MTV's HIV/AIDS awareness video The Quiet War which features Bill Clinton. Mack also voices the Redguard Males in The Elder Scrolls: Redguard, Morrowind, and Oblivion computer games by Bethesda Softworks.
Active in his local community, Mack brought professional theater to the Washington National Cathedral as Dr. King in Jeff Stetson's play The Meeting. In 2002, Marc Fisher of The Washington Post did three stories on Mack's work with incarcerated youth. [2](X)
Mack has also helped at-risk youth and people without homes use drama as a life tool for change through his association with nonprofit organizations including Imagination Stage, Charlie's Place and Mary's Center in the Washington metropolitan area. As an acting coach and the founder of The Fearless Acting Workshop, Mack has helped local talent – such as The Mighty Rasta, aka Reebok's "Office Linebacker Terry Tate," Hollywood actors Jim Klock and Luke Daniels of the feature My Turn, Cher tribute artist Mary Ann Mellody and Black TV Online.com news anchor Ron Lincoln – launch careers.