James Marsters

Sirtis Felt Tom Hardy Was Wrong For Praetor Shinzon Role

Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably best remembered as the series, which re-launched Star Trek for television and went on to take over the movie franchise from the original series cast. One person who is and forever will be proud of their association with Star Trek is British Actress Marina Sirtis who would jump at the chance to put her space suit back on at a moments notice if the opportunity ever arose. In a new interview for SFX Magazine the actress who crashed ships and broke many alien hearts took a trip down memory lane and waxed nostalgic about her tour of duty aboard 2 Starships known as Enterprise.

There is absolutely no doubt that Sirtis would be happy to come back for a new Trek movie or guest on a new show as her following comment indicates. “I’d be happy if I was still playing her [Troi] now. No really. Being on Next Generation was the best experience of my life.”

The last time we saw Marina Sirtis in the role of Counselor Troi was in the Enterprise Finale ‘These Are The Voyages’ which was criticized by both cast of Enterprise and the fan base for being more of a Next Generation episode.

“It wasn’t so much the fans as the cast.” Revealed the actress. “They were all lovely to work with on the set. Although, I did hear they weren’t at all happy with their show ending with what was essentially an episode of The Next Generation.”

In regards to the dissatisfied element of the fan base about ‘These Are The Voyages’ Sirtis is nothing but sympathetic to them. “They really should have had a two - hour finale like we had.”

Although the actress feels that Star Trek: The Next Generation represents the best of times. There were still a few low points to the series. The actress talked at some length about various scripts not making sense and some story lines being down right nonsensical. She cites the season 7 episode ‘Masks’ as one such episode. As a person low she cites the episode Genesis as one of the few times that she wanted to walk. “I was sitting in a cold bath, all latexed up as a lizard or something, thinking, ‘They really don’t pay me enough for this!’”

When asked for comments on Star Trek Nemesis the last movie to feature the Next Generation Cast the actress reveals that to this day it still surprises her and her fellow cast members that the movie tanked so badly. She also provided the following reasons as to way she thinks it may not have done as well as it should or perhaps could have.

“I think the fans want to see the whole team in action, while that was very much Picard taking centre stage. Also...” She added tentatively, “I didn’t think Tom [Hardy] was at all convincing as a young Patrick. Don’t get me wrong - he’s a great, great actor and a really lovely guy. But he didn’t look a bit like Patrick At all. They should have cast James Marsters. They auditioned him, you know. I think physically he was much more suitable for the part.”

You can read the full interview with Marina Sirtis in the new SFX Star Trek 40th Anniversary special which is out now in all good news agencies priced £5.99 complete with a Free copy of the Peter David Novel Star Trek: New Frontier Stone and Anvil.