How Long Did It Take To Do Worf's Makeup

As function of our coverage of Star Expedition'southward 50th anniversary, I talked to a dozen cast members from across the franchise about everything from Star Trek's inclusive message to whether they actually could speak Klingon.

When Michael Dorn was getting prepare for his function every bit Worf on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the showrunners barely told him annihilation about his character.

Well, that's not entirely true. He did get one hint from Gene Roddenberry, the erstwhile airline pilot who dreamed up Star Trek. "Gene just said, 'Brand the character your ain,'" Dorn said.

Worf was born to a warrior race of aliens called Klingons. They routinely went to war with the United Federation of Planets, the organisation upon whose Enterprise starship the show took place. Now, Worf was going to be a fellow member of the crew.

Dorn every bit Worf. It may look uncomplicated, just that brow took hours to put on.

CBS

Dorn though it would make sense a Klingon would observe it hard to be accepted.

So, while watching his colleagues human action out scenes without him, Dorn noticed the camaraderie developing amongst the characters. He decided to practise something different -- brand Worf an outcast.

Dorn took many subtle actions to make Worf feel out of place. For the character'due south voice, he spoke in lower tones and in a more than deliberate way. He also made Worf seem more anxious to go to battle than the rest of the crew, always the first to warn that an alien wasn't trustworthy or that they should be ready to fire on a likely antagonist.

The event was that Worf was a commanding presence. But Dorn was worried information technology wouldn't last. The security officeholder he played was routinely beat up past aliens invading the ship. Soon, he believed, the audience wouldn't trust that Worf was a capable warrior.

Roddenberry reassured him the scenes weren't meant to make Worf look weak, merely rather to make the invading aliens look stiff. Still, Dorn protested. Then they found a compromise. Worf would use sword-like weapons in boxing, making him seem more than capable and harder to defeat.

Later some research, Dorn and the show'south visual-effects producer, Dan Curry, invented the bat'leth, a double-sided scimitar-like weapon. They also created a form of Klingon martial arts with which to employ this new weapon in battle.

The bat'leth has since get one of the most iconic pieces of Star Trek lore.

Skipping the scary stunts

Afterward Dorn and Back-scratch came up with an idea about how a boxing should unfold, they'd bring it to the stunt choreographers. Worf may have e'er been a man of activeness, merely Dorn, the actor, wasn't always willing to do the stunts.

In one episode, "Ideals," some cargo fell and landed on Worf, paralyzing him. Dorn remembers that for the scene, the camera crew wanted to show the viewpoint of the butt as it fell. "This 500-pound camera is coming downwardly," he remembers, "and they said, 'Don't worry, nosotros know what we're doing.'" Dorn opted to use a double.

Dorn, now 63, went on to become 1 of the most prolific actors in the Star Expedition universe. He signed on as a regular on "The Next Generation," which ran from 1987-1994 and then "Deep Infinite Nine," which ran from 1993-1999. He ultimately appeared in 277 episodes by 1 count. He's also appeared in 5 movies: "The Undiscovered Country," "Generations," "Showtime Contact," "Insurrection" and "Nemesis."

Getting into makeup for the character helped Dorn get one of the most well-informed actors on the set. It took two and a one-half hours in the makeup chair for a prosthetic forehead to be painstakingly attached to his own, giving him plenty of time to read the Los Angeles Times encompass to comprehend and stop the crossword puzzle.

What made Worf popular, Dorn thinks, wasn't how he was different from his shipmates, but how similar he was. The Sting song in which he sings, "I hope the Russians honey their children besides," is how Dorn said he thought of Worf's grapheme. "I keep that with me -- of grade they do, everybody loves their children." Even the Klingons.

Dorn yet acts, though he spends more than time these days in phase plays. He's currently preparing for a production of "Antony and Cleopatra" in Orlando, Florida.

Here are edited excerpts of Dorn's answers to our warp-speed (brand that Worf speed) round of questions.

What piece of Star trek tech do you wish we had today?
I'd like a warp drive. I'thousand a speed freak (he's also a pilot). I love jets, and the faster the improve. To have off from where I live and become around the moon in 10 minutes or so, that'd be pretty cool.

What's your favorite slice of existent-earth tech you have today?
The smartphone is the nigh amazing thing I've ever seen. I was dating this lady in Seattle. I was in Germany at a convention and we were Skyping. Then I said, "I've got to go downstairs considering they take this party that they accept for the actors, and I have to go make an appearance." She goes, "Have me down with you." So I leave the room, go downwardly in the elevator, I'one thousand talking to her the whole time, go into the political party, and I'm showing her the party on the telephone. And that to me is insane.

Worf in activeness with his bat'leth.

CBS/TrekCore

But I gotta tell yous, I just got a Tesla South. And that is an amazing slice of machinery. Information technology's a picayune egotistical because I'k driving on the freeway and I'm looking around going, 'I can smoke everybody on this freeway.' If at that place'southward a Bugatti or something like that, OK perhaps not. Just everybody else, I tin just smoke them.

Who'due south your favorite captain?
I honey Kirk for the time, but I think Patrick (Stewart, who played Jean-Luc Picard on "The Next Generation") is probably the archetypal helm I recall in that location would be if Star Trek was real. That's the kind of guy that you would have.

He became more like a hero blazon afterward on in the movies and the latter stages of the Goggle box show. But at the very beginning, he was a guy that sabbatum and he asked for opinion. He got something from everybody and and then he made upwards his determination from there. He was very cerebral, I think that's what it would be.

I too liked him because he wasn't a big guy. But his existence, who he is, his outer-ness, made him seem a lot taller. You actually didn't see him equally shorter than yous. And that to me is function of it. That you don't have to have a total head of hair. Or you don't have to be 6'one" or vi'2" to be in control. I remember he epitomized that whole thing.

Did you ever have to learn Klingon?
No, no. There's a dictionary -- a Klingon-to-English language, English-to-Klingon dictionary. So, you never had to speak information technology. And they don't do a lot of Klingon talk on the show. You know, at that place'southward not paragraphs of dialogue or soliloquies and things like that in Klingon.

Except for when they translated Hamlet.
Simply we didn't have to say information technology on the bear witness. You lot had a line here and a line there, so that was kind of information technology. You didn't take a chance to really learn.

Star Wars or Star Expedition?
I was a big fan of both simply...they couldn't exist more than different. Star Wars was just a dissimilar experience altogether. Information technology was then smart. That exciting and epic moment when Vader comes on the scene -- I mean, have you lot e'er seen anybody more evil? You know? Information technology was just great.

Later the 2nd one, he says, "Luke, I am your begetter." I'll be honest, I think the whole audience was like, "My God!" I didn't see information technology coming.

At that place'due south definitely room for both. Star Trek and Star Wars are 2 different things.

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