StarTrek.com posted the first part of an exclusive interview with Voyager actor Ethan Phillips and here are excerpts.

Let's talk about Neelix. When you started, what were you expecting, hoping for, in terms of the character's evolution?

Phillips: He seemed to be kind of a scalawag in the pilot, a junk dealer and somebody who was an opportunist and finagled his way on board so that he could find a home. I think he'd gotten sick of scouring the Delta Quadrant for a living. Also, he wanted to protect his friend Kes. That was kind of laid out in the pilot, but I had no idea where he was going to go. I just kind of went from show to show. I had no expectations. To tell you the honest-to-God truth, the first few seasons I made some suggestions and gave some ideas, but they knew what they wanted to do and they had their agenda, and that was fine with me. My job was to show up and to bring to life the words they wrote, and that's what I did. But I was very pleased, though, with where Neelix ended up. That was a wonderful place to put him, because he was a very emotional guy and a person who really loved people and socializing. To have him find a family at the end and have a child and be back with his own race, it gave him some really sweet closure, I think. I didn't see him back down on Earth. I don't know what he'd do there, being the only Talaxian on a planet filled with humans. He'd have been a freak. So it was much better that he ended up where he ended up. I was very glad about that.



All these years later, people still debate the pros and cons of the Neelix-Kes relationship. What were your thoughts on it? Was it romantic? Should it have been?

Phillips: I was never entirely sure whether it was meant as a romantic or platonic relationship. There was a definite joy, though, in working with Jennifer Lien, an extraordinarily unedited and present actor. The bond between the two certainly merited some closure, and that was indeed filmed. (We shot) a scene shot in the ship's science lab in which Neelix and Kes acknowledge the end of their relationship and decide to always be friends. But this scene was never aired. That led me to believe the writers didn't really put a premium on that particular arc.
Who do you still see from the old days?
Phillips: I see a lot of the Voyager people, actually. When I was in L.A., all the guys, we'd go out to dinner once every five or six months. And we've all kept up on each other. So that's been good. I'll see Kate (Mulgrew) occasionally, though it's been a while. I haven't seen Roxann (Dawson) in forever. Jeri Ryan's husband had a restaurant and we all went there and saw her. I'm pretty close to Tim (Russ) and to Bob (Picardo) and to Robbie (McNeill). I see them more than I see Garrett (Wang) or (Robert) Beltran, but we all try to get together for those dinners when we can. And then there are the conventions. I still do a few of them and I'll see some of the Voyager people at those if we're there at the same time.