JM: Thinking about your connection to the Mahdi, I notice that Deep Space Nine has a strong spiritual angle to it, all about prophecies and oracles.
——–
AS: It’s a soap opera, for mass consumption. For two million dollars an episode, they’ve got to deliver mass-market product. The religious aspect was really a thinly-veiled nod toward Palestine. It was all about terrorism, which was quite prophetic. I was about as apolitical as you could be at that point. I barely read a book in a year. I watched loads of movies. I played loads of computer games. I wasn’t hedonistic. I didn’t get massively drunk. I didn’t take many drugs.