Presence

Without meaning to I've somehow caught fair amounts of two episodes of Star Trek: The New Generation (looking very much not new at all) over the last two evenings. A couple of things struck me. The first being that it was all terribly corny and that this somehow worked. It sort of translated into heart.

The second was that the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Stewart were quite extraordinarily good. Oh, and the guy playing Data as well. Brent Spiner? All have a capacity for stillness, not doing very much of anything but doing it extremely well. It helps that the camera loves them, well the first two at least. Yet they're not good looking in any kind of conventional sense.

Drama type question: to what degree can you acquire presence? - or is it something you've just got to have?