Dorn: The Next Generation Days
1 min readMichael Dorn shared memories of his days on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the actor revealed that at first, he didn’t like one of his co-stars on the series.
When he first joined the series, Dorn didn’t know what his new character should be and went to Gene Roddenberry for help. “I went to Gene the first week,” said Dorn, “and said, ‘Nobody’s told me anything. What do you want from this guy?’ Gene said, ‘Make the character your own.'”
So, “I took it upon myself to be as horrible as I could,” said Dorn. “It was easy with the makeup.”
At first, Dorn wasn’t keen on one of his co-stars, although later they became best friends. “I thought [Marina Sirtis] was stuck up,” he said. “She thought I was gruff and surly.”
Viewers never realized that in his scenes with Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart, Dorn had to try to keep from laughing because the actors would try to crack him up by making funny faces.
Dorn also explained the debut of the ponytail that Worf wore. In one episode, the actor’s hair was “curled under in a style that bobbed back and forth while he was trying to look tough.” That irked Dorn who “went in and said, ‘Worf wouldn’t get up in the morning and curl his hair.'”
Dorn is appearing in Antony and Cleopatra in Orlando through month-end.