Bruce Horak plays the role of the Aenar chief engineer Hemmer in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The fan-favorite character is depicted as blind, and actor Bruce Horak is also visually impaired in real life. He is the first regular actor in the franchise to be legally blind. Horak’s performance has largely been lauded by fans.
Much like his on-screen counterpart, Horak does not seem to consider his impairment an obstacle. Apart from acting on screen and stage, the actor is reportedly an artist, known for painting portraits. He performed a regular stage show where he would paint the audience while narrating a story of a slain Canadian artist. He has reportedly completed 600 portraits.
Bruce Horak got to paint 20 actors for two and a half weeks before he began Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
In a show filled with amazing performances and some of the most vintage Star Trek-y writing, Bruce Horak’s Hemmer still stands out in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Horak is 90% blind in his left eye, which was the result of a retinoblastoma diagnosis at 18 months old. His real impediment plays into his character on the show.
Apart from acting, Horak is also a gifted artist and a musician. The Canadian national reportedly recorded an album as a duo with Onalea Gilbertson, called The Rail Birds. The album, Intensive Care, was released in 2020. However, Bruce Horak’s most prolific work has been as an artist, particularly painting portraits.
The actor reportedly began his mission to complete 1000 portraits back in 2011. He reportedly got the idea while conversing with an actor friend. He said to Trek Movie,
I sat with 25 of my friends, all actors in the theater community in Calgary, literally just walked into the actor bar there and said, ‘Who wants to sit for a portrait?’ And 20 hands went up, so I was booked for two and a half weeks, and I sat and did like two a day.
The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor mentioned that it was an interesting task for him as he began to have deep conversations with his muses and even expanded his circle as he began to get perspectives on vision and adversity.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor Bruce Horak’s mission to complete 1000 portraits has achieved quite a big milestone
While he gained a decent amount of fame for his role in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Bruce Horak has dabbled in quite a few creative endeavors. He reportedly acted, produced, and performed in a one-man dark comedy called This is Cancer, where he played a personification of cancer.
One of the most interesting things he has done is a show where he talks about a legendary Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson, and his murder. The one-man show is a storytelling session, with an extra bit of showmanship, where Horak paints the audience. Many shows have reportedly had an audience of up to 200 people, which he has painted (via Calgary Journal).
Bruce Horak is reportedly on a mission to complete 100 portraits and has achieved a significant milestone since he began this task in 2011. He said to Entertainment Now,
I’ve done 634. I’m almost 365 away from the 1,000 portraits. I decided when I first started back on April 1, 2011, when I painted portrait number one, to do 1,000. I read somewhere that about 10,000 hours of practice will make you a master of something. I thought if I did 1,000 portraits, that would be roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Although initially, I misheard it and only heard 1,000 hours.
He also mentioned that he will keep going after a thousand portraits, and the number was quite arbitrary. However, he still seemed to be curious about his evolution as an artist and was looking forward to seeing what the 1000th portrait would look like.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is available to stream on Paramount+.
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