(Photo courtesy of John Jackson, GalactiCon)
Written by Colleen Bement, Editor
Todd Stashwick Is a Total Nerd!
The accomplished actor, writer, and producer delighted and entertained his fans at the inaugural GalactiCon in Denver, CO Nov. 24-26, 2023. Attendees spent the Thanksgiving weekend with friends, old and new, and met celebrity guests such as Stashwick. He is known for his magnetic presence and incredible talent for embodying diverse characters such as Captain Laim Shaw in “Star Trek: Picard.” Viewers also know him as Deacon from the TV series “12 Monkeys,” and he was recently in “The Last Thing He Told Me.” The Chicago-born actor who started out touring with The Second City. A vegetarian and a huge film and TV buff, he is often nerding out on video games with his son or reading comic books. His cool company called The Nerd Circus offers D&D and other pop culture fun that absolutely must be checked out. Please enjoy our chat with fellow nerd, Todd Stashwick!
Colleen Bement: Welcome to GalactiCon, and let’s start out with your T-shirt!
Todd Stashwick: It’s my company The Nerd Circus. During the lockdown of 2020… I’m a creator and I like to make things. I had a lot of bandwidth–a lot of time to make stuff, and so I shared my joy of imagined worlds and nerdy things. I’ve been fortunate to have been a part of nerdy shows, as one would say, and I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I’m a kid of the late 70s and 80s and that’s kind of when it all really coalesced, so I wanted to share my love of this stuff with that late 70s-80s vibe. This is kind of like a black light that you’d have on your wall. I sell dice, I sell glasses, I promo’d a D&D-inspired Tiki cocktail book called Mystic Libations. I sell dice boxes that look like it was back in the day when we played D&D in wood-panel basements on orange shag carpet. The dice box is a wood panel box with orange shag carpet. It is now kind of a platform for which I can launch products that I would enjoy myself as a nerdy consumer.
We’re going to kickstart something next year. There’s a thing called ProgCore that is fantasy from the late 70s early 80s like Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, and “Excallber’ and “Dragonslayer” and all that sinister stuff. I’ve already launched a T-shirt called Skullriders of the Last City and that’s available at the Nerd Circus.
Colleen Bement: Very cool and fans need to check it out. Let’s switch gears to “Star Trek: Picard.” What was it like playing sort of a “bad guy” knowing that you were right all along? Picard put the whole ship in danger.
Todd Stashwick: No respect. No respect. It was a delicious blast. It was fun. When we meet this dipshit from Chicago, he zigs when people expect him to zag. I think that is why people sat up and noticed him because he was somebody who was like you don’t talk to my heroes that way. There he was. And like you were saying, it was not easy to dismiss him because he was right. He wanted to protect his crew. His first officers disobeyed direct orders, and he should have thrown them in the brig–he didn’t! He’s merciful! I gave my life! Spoilers! I think because he was so in their faces at first, and then you sort of peel back the layers of his pain, well now you’re heart’s breaking for this guy. You can’t hate him. You’ve got to understand him. He was a kind of a big jambalaya of conflicting emotions.
Colleen Bement: Two last quick questions. Pie of cake?
Todd Stashwick: I’m going to say key lime pie, but red velvet cake is a really close second.
Colleen Bement: Dawn or dusk.
Todd Stashwick: Dawn. I like the day beginning. The house is quiet. My pets are sleeping. I’ve got my coffee. I’ve got my book. Maybe some tunes. I do a little coffee chatter on Saturday mornings on Instagram. I love mornings. A day of potential with no regrets.
Keep up with Todd on Instagram.
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