Creation's 12th annual Grand Slam "Sci-Fi Summit" got off to a grand start in Pasadena today.

The crowd was excited to welcome Louise Fletcher for her first Grand Slam appearance in four years, not just for her role as Kai Winn in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but also for her impressive body of work in film as well. The first fan who approached with a question enthused, "I think this is the first time I've talked to an Oscar winner!" Asked what life is like after winning an Academy Award — in her case, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest — Fletcher responded, "The thing with the Oscar is, it's a tremendous plus in your life, it's such an honor, but it's not a guarantee for anything. You're still very much in competition, I don't care who you are. We tend to think that Oscars bring everything — fame, money, work for the rest of your life — but it's not true." She revealed that her award, which she used to keep in her window near her father's photographs, got very corroded over the years from the Los Angeles air. But last year when the Academy asked to borrow it for a 75th anniversary exhibition, they sent it to the "Oscar hospital" to be refinished, and now it looks like new.

Asked if she thought her DS9 character redeemed herself in the final episode, Fletcher replied, "I don't think she's redeemable. I really don't, I think she was crooked to the end. But I loved my character, I loved playing her. It was operatic almost. She was so misguided. I wouldn't say that she was such an evil person, but I think that she was just so prideful and so convinced of her own importance that it was impossible for her to see the truth, even what was right and wrong. There are parallels one can make in life of leaders, whether they be political leaders or religious leaders, who very often prop themselves up in such a way that they become more the issue than the issue, you know, where being right is more important than anything else."

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