Sirtis And Spiner: Aging In Star Trek
3 min read
A new interview with TrekCore during last weekend’s press tour for Star Trek: Picard features Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner, who will appear in the new series.
The pair has aged, and they spoke about how that was handled and what was done with their appearances.
“I love what they’re doing with the show and how it’s going to look,” said Spiner.
“No, no, no,” said Sirtis. “Stop. I don’t know, because really the man who invented that high definition camera — and it was a man, because a woman would have never fucking invented it, excuse my French. May he rot in hell for all eternity!”
Spiner teased Sirtis, saying “Right. But see, in my case: CGI…so I look fine!”
“Yeah, it’s all right for you, Mr. Android,” said Sirtis. “The rest of us look like something the cat dragged in..The thing that I was most thrilled about was that I didn’t have to wear a space suit!”
Spiner went on to explain that a compromise had to be made in his appearance, due to money.
“Well, the powers that be, when I met with them, I said, ‘How am I going to play Data again?’ And they said, well, that CGI has come a long way, and that they could make me look really good. [I ended up] in the same makeup [and wore the] same contacts…
“So, the first day on set, I put on the makeup and everything, and think, ‘Oh, this is okay!’ Then I get this phone call – ‘It’s just too expensive. We can’t do the CGI. It’s just too expensive.’ And I went, ‘Wait a minute, you know, I was told…’
“After a discussion, I said, ‘Well, you understand I don’t have to be CGI’d back to what I looked like on the series, it has to look like how I looked at the end of Nemesis.’ And they went, ‘Oh, sure, that’s right! No problem! We’re gonna do it.’
“And they did. It has changed a bit, though, from some trailers that came out early.”
For Sirtis there was no CGI. The production was fortunate though that she had taken home the black contact lenses that she had worn in Star Trek: Nemesis, as well as her Troi wig.
“I got the call, and then I didn’t hear anything [about Troi’s contact lenses]. So I called and said, ‘You do know that I wore a wig and black contact lenses?’ I told them, ‘I think I stole them [from Nemesis], so I think I have them.’ So we got the contact lenses cleaned – since they’ve been sitting in a case for like 15 years – and I have the wig, [both] that I wore in Nemesis.
“And it was really good that I did, trust me! They wouldn’t have had time to make a $10,000 wig, and I was in England doing a play anyway. I wrapped on a Saturday and was at Universal on Monday, having traveled from England on Sunday.
“So it was lucky that I did pilfer them!”
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