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LOS ANGELES -- “It’s awful, it’s horrible,” laughs
actress Marina Sirtis. “Jonathan and I would be in Star Trek for
the rest of our lives if they let us. He used to say that. Now he is a big
time movie director. When the show ended we were devastated. I have
emotional crises and during this movie it was pathetic. I was walking
around the sets crying. I couldn’t’ even go on the news shows. When I went
to Voyager I hated that our bridge wasn’t there. I is like ‘get off
our stages.’ I thought they should conserve them forever. This is where
Next Generation was.
Once again the Next Generation
crew are the latest kids on the block and their latest feature Star
Trek: Nemesis gives fans something they have waited for for 16 years
-- the marriage of Riker and Troi. Hmm, isn’t a Betazoid conducted in the
nude?
“You are not getting any naked Marina,” Sirtis laughs,
explaining the trials and tribulations of her on-screen wedding. “As most
brides know you want to be as skinny as you can be. So they built this
dress on a corset and I kept telling them to make it tighter. It is fine
to be sucked into something for a half-hour. It is fine, but for two days,
my ribs begin to hurt. It was agony!”
Despite the pain, Sirtis is grateful that the John
Logan penned screenplay gave key screen time to her Commander Deanna Troi.
“This was great for me. I felt very gratified when I met this
script. I knew that Logan would do my character justice.”
As for
the financial rewards the latest adventure has brought, Sirtis notes that
she is still a supporting character.
“You don’t get paid by the
word because if you were I would be paid the most. Patrick and Brent have
always been the two most popular characters. If you don’t expect them to
be the meat of the movie than you’re kidding yourself.”
Looking
back on how she first decided to play the half-human, half-Betazoid, it
all came down to the voice.
“Troi was foreign. Then she had this
accent that she made up. Then we met my parents. My mother was from the
American sector and my dad was from Idaho, so this accent I have, it
didn’t fit at all. Being an actor, I was told that I couldn’t be British
when I went for other things. I now have a mix. This is now my natural
voice. I kind of wish it was one thing or another.”
One thing that
Trek actors of every generation have faced is typecasting,
something not unfamiliar to Sirtis, but it also can be an asset.
“If they know you from Star Trek, and they are narrow
minded about it, you don’t even get in the room with them. However, I have
started to do independent movies and they are so happy, because I do have
a fan base, and I will put bums on seats. Even if it doesn’t get a
theatrical release it was a movie of the week. There are all these
different assets to working with a Star Trek person. The fan base
is just so huge.”
Besides, with the success of My Big Fat Greek
Wedding she just might be in the hottest ethnic group in Hollywood.
“I am English/Greek. I am the hot nationality. We recognize
everybody. It is a Jewish, Italian, Greek thing. I spit on people. It is a
tradition.”
What's next for Sirtis?
“Net Games is
the next thing you will see me in. It is Fatal Attraction meets the
Internet. I cannot read a script and say if it is going to be good. When I
was first off the show I was sent two scripts, and one of them I loved, it
had a message, the other was a sci-fi movie and I didn’t like it. The
movie that I did was Paradise Lost, I think it went on Showtime.
The movie I didn’t want to go in and read for was Men In Black.
Ever since then I do everything because I just can’t tell!"
--Mark
Raddle
© 2002 PREVUE Magazine. All rights reserved. Photos: © 2002
Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved.