Actor Michael Dorn Promotes Worf As A Star Ship Captain
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 15 July 2015 22:27
- Written by Brad Balfour
Dorn with Jennifer Muro & Angela Marie Volpe
Besides comic conventions and Ted 2, actor Michael Dorn is making sure the world doesn’t forget the original Star Trek universe and the character he lived in for nearly 20 year the Klingon Commander Worf.
With the original Star Trek series there was a Vulcan but no Klingons on the crew. Then on Next Generation, Worf became the Klingon who was as critical to his ST universe as was Spock to his generation.
As separate from the real world the Star Trek universe is, Worf and his Klingons were so important that they spawned a fan base determined to flesh out his culture and world. That was an amazing thing as the ever growing Star Trek canon became. Though geek cakes to appreciate how significant that was with Worf one of the ten most important Trek characters, there was debate that justice still wasn’t done.
For the last few years, Trek alumnus Dorn has been pursuing various avenues to get a new TV series centered on his beloved character Worf into production.
Worf has spent more hours on screen than any other character in the history of the franchise. Even now, after more than 13 years since his last appearance, he remains a fan favorite and a sci-fi icon. Yet, despite Dorn’s Trek pedigree and the worldwide love for his surly Klingon, CBS has not budged on green-lighting "Captain Worf.”
Back in the ’60s, an historic letter writing campaign succeeded in saving the original Star Trek series from an untimely cancellation after the first season.
With reboots of classic series at an all-time high, including the return of The X-Files to network television, and the Trek brand still going strong in the form of fan-made films and hugely attended events, it seems time for that series to have its own development opportunity.
In order to do so, a core team surrounding the 63-year-old veteran actor have come up with a campaign to press the new work to produce the series. This campaign will send the message that Star Trek is ready to return to its TV roots.
And that there is no better helmsman for the task than a man who shares Roddenberry’s hopeful vision of the future and will bring that philosophy back into 21st century storytelling.
So for him to have this bid kicked off, the campaign wants fans to send mini-muffins to the powers that be this summer. To prove the same fan-fervor exists , the goal is for an unprecedented one million muffins to be sent to the CBS offices with a note saying, “We Want Worf.”
In order to increase a-worf-ness, Dorn has been conducting a series of exclusive phone interviews with journalist-trekkers — including this one — to bring the cause to the pop culture forefront.
Q: Your character is one of the most fascinating in Star Trek’s history and that’s because Klingon culture turns on several classic human cultures, whether it’s Roman or Japanese or others. What did you think it was? What did you draw on and what did others think you drew from?
MD: Well, it started out as the Russians and that was who they were. When the show was going on, the [Berlin] Wall had come down before then, so we got an eye into the Russian culture. We got a good look at them and knew they weren’t all evil and bad.
I then brought into it, in terms of deeper things, the Samurai warrior code. [The writers] basically had nothing until the character Worf [was created] and we went into these different areas of the Klingon culture. I told them, “Look, they’re like wild people. Whenever they fight they’re screaming and yelling and all this other stuff, I think it gets a little crazy. Why don’t we do something a little more controlled, yet still aggressive; [why not] make it more like the Japanese samurai?” So we added some of the Japanese samurai [thinking], some of Chinese martial arts, and other things, and put it all into [Klingon] culture.
Q: Once there was a debate as to whether Klingons were like the Romulans. The Romulans were more Roman and the Klingons, like you said, were more like Japanese. while the Romulans were more the opposite of Vulcans, Klingons were the fighting side of cultures. Was there a discussion about how Klingons and Romulan culture distinguished the one from the other?
M
D: They never discussed that with me, or if there were discussions, I never heard them. Because the character of Worf was on the show, they had to make a distinction with a lot of things. But I don’t think they really had much discussion on how to keep things separate. They always had an idea of who the Romulans were, who the Klingons were, and “neither shall the twain meet” as they say, and that was evident. The cultures did not overlap at all.
Q: Maybe twenty people have had an opportunity to play a character that has had so much growth and been seen by so many generations of people -- and even be a Shakespearean sort of character. That cultural depth must be mind boggling at times, I can see why you don’t want to squander that.
MD: The way television is going right now, with all the formats between Netflix and Amazon, and the cable shows and all these things, there’s so much of an opportunity. If you’re going to do a show, it has to be an intense, dark show like Game of Thrones or Spartacus, all these shows that are out there. They’re dark and some are even soft porn.
The Klingon Empire is a dark empire itself. It’s about assassinations and coups to take over the government and all the things that are the mainstay of television these days.
Q: Speaking of soft porn, there have always been fans who have fantasized about that side of Trek. You hit on an important sub-text. Have there been discussion about envisioning scenes of Klingon sex life?
MD: There have been discussions, but we haven’t gone into it with any depth because I think we’re living in the moment and when it gets done we’ll see what works. The thing I don’t care about, and I don’t think it’s necessary, is that television feels it has to go way out there.
I disagree. I don’t think you have to. It’s a little for shock value. But if you got a great story, we don’t really care about that. I think it’s just that a lot of these shows are just going for shock value. “Oh my god, did you see that?” But it doesn’t really add anything to the overall story or feeling of the show.
Q: In Star Trek: Next Generation, you were never thought of as being a “black actor” because you were a Klingon. You suffered less of the sensationalist attention that Nichelle Nichols endured in the first season of the original series. But now is the time now that we need more black actors to be the lead in sci-fi or action shows. It seems like something people will accept and gravitate to like never before. Do you hope that, at this time, this show might be possible?
MD: I think you’re right, hopefully. Like you said, they don’t look at Worf as being black. They’re not going to say “oh wow, let's have some more Klingons on television” or something like that. But I do think that any time you can show that there’s money to be made with you, they’re willing to do anything. I don’t think that it’s a matter of racism or anything. It’s purely financial.
If they think they can make money and there’s a market for it… you see it more today. If you look at commercials, I did commercials when I first started, so I know this first hand: there would be one, maybe two commercials a year where you might see a black face. If you watch commercials now, they are inundated with them. I don’t think that was an altruistic decision. They realized there was an audience and money to be made with these products in the black community. So they started doing more. I think that’s what it’s going to be.
I
f this show becomes successful and it’s a highly rated show and critically acclaimed and they’re making money hand over fist, me being a black actor can’t do anything but help other black actors coming up, or at least have them say, “hey, this guy did it, let’s try it with this guy.” There won't be a hesitance to it.
Q: Do you have a wish list of actors you’d like to show up, like James Earl Jones or old actors or new actors that could make a cameo, like you made in Ted recently?
MD: What I do wish for is that I want every part to be a great part. I don’t want it to be a cameo or stunt casting. I want it to be a great part even if it’s 10 or 15 minutes onscreen. I can go down the list of people we would have on the show.
Of course, all the Star Trek alumni can do the show. There are certain characters that can’t show up because they’re dead or whatever is the case, but those actors can still do parts on the show. The wish list is too long to imagine. I hadn’t even thought about James Earl Jones, but he’s definitely… I think Laurence Fishburne is wonderful. The list goes on and on and on.
Q: There are great Star Trek actors who are typically known as “character actors”, but they play their parts -- like the guy that played The Doctor on Voyager, Robert Picardo. Before that, he was a great character actor, but after that it makes you appreciate him even more. or the guy that plays the Ferengi, Armin Shimerman, is a great Broadway actor because you see how different he is. There’s something about being in Star Trek that lends a certain quality to actors. The same goes for Rene Auber
MD: The whole point is that there’s a dearth of actors that fit that bill. Armin Shimerman, who played Quark, is a wonderful actor. He’s so identified as Quark that it would be hard to bring him back as Armin, but I don’t think he would mind coming back and doing a great role as Quark. it’s a job.
What you’re saying is something we’ve discussed and thought about. It just got overwhelming for us because there were so many actors and so many facets to bringing these characters back and how we do it? Do we bring back the character or just the actor as themselves? It goes on and on.
Q: Have you had much interaction with JJ Abrams and how his Star Trek universe connects with yours? It’s exciting how there’s a relationship.
MD: That’s why the Klingon thing is perfect because it has nothing to do with what he’s doing. I’ve never met JJ, but they’re very clear about keeping the TV and movie things separate and not getting in the way or having them cross over, or getting someone mad at us for doing something. They’re keeping it very separate.
Q: What did you think of their version of Klingon culture?
MD: There wasn’t much to it. I couldn’t say anything about it, it was just a cameo for Klingons.
Q: Are you going to produce and direct as well as act?
MD: On the pilot I’m going to be producing and directing, but that’s it. When it goes to series I’m not going to be producing. I’m trying to do as much directing and acting as I can.
Q: With regard to the Klingon cultural development, I want to see more of that shown. Re-elaborate about the idea behind your show and how showing the cultural development of the Klingons relates to the Federation.
MD: The A story is that the Klingon culture is on the verge of dying because it’s so homogenous. They don’t allow anything except for Klingons. There’s no allowance for any other culture or any other way of thinking to go in there. It’s almost like having a culture that only has one type of individual in it. At some point it’s going to die out.
They realize this, so they start allowing other cultures and species into their culture, painfully at times. It’s the growing pains of this culture that I’m interested in showing. And Worf is at the forefront of that because he’s the guy that’s supposed to bond other races and [he is] one of the unique individuals in Klingon culture that can talk about that. He says we have to look at this as learning, take the best from other cultures to make our own culture better.
The B story is that Worf is on a spiritual journey himself. He is trying to find out who he is, which he has been doing for the past thirty years.
Q: In a way, even though Worf and you were in more episodes than many other characters, it always felt like Worf was reacting to other characters and we didn’t get enough of his perspective. Not that he didn’t have moments. I can’t say I’ve seen all 167 episodes. Is it 167 episodes you were in?
MD: With Next Generation it’s 170, then I did 100 with Deep Space 9.
Q: Though I’ve seen a lot of episodes, I can’t claim to be that thorough. But it always seemed Worf was more often reacting than leading, so this seems like a great idea and that you should have this opportunity. Worf wasn’t treated as secondary, but he didn’t get as many pivotal roles as Data or Troi.
MD: I definitely have to agree with you. I was always cognizant of the fact that on Deep Space, even if it was supposed to be a Worf episode, everyone was doing more talking than I was. I don’t know why that it is. It could do with something about the edict behind the show and how they want to portray Worf. But I think you’re right, and this is an opportunity where people will finally get those episodes.
Q: When you were starting out as an actor, did you think you’d get so immersed in this character and universe? There’s no question that this role changed the course of your life. If you hadn’t played it, you might have been a great actor in a lot of different ways, but this is something that will live way beyond you.
MD: Unless they have the biggest ego in the world, I don’t think anybody thinks they’re going to be a character like what Worf is to a culture. I don’t think anybody expects that.
I just wanted to have the freedom to do a bunch of different jobs, whether it’s movies or television, just do something really interesting. I always wanted to be an interesting actor and I didn’t really think much further than that.
But I never denied myself the fact that I love science fiction, have always loved science fiction, and that I would love to do science fiction. You can’t dream about something like this. The thing that you have to realize is that even if you’re on a show like Star Trek, that doesn’t mean your character is going to be as popular as Worf is. It’s a real special thing and it’s an amazing time for me.
Q: Your cameo in Ted 2 was a sort of commentary on the comic and geek culture. Did you have any input on that or did you just throw yourself into the role?
MD: The only thing I told them was that I really wanted the makeup to be not even close to Worf. I wanted it to be so bad that it wouldn’t be an imitation of Worf. There was no beard, the uniform looked nothing like mine. I thought that would be very funny and Seth agreed.
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