Marina Sirtis: She Was Supposed To Have Four Breasts
Marina Sirtis played Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation and has said that when her character was given cleavage, the brains were put to the side.
Probably best known as Lt. Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis cut her teeth on the classic TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. She became a part of the Star Trek family when the series premiered in 1987 and since that time has returned to that character a number of times, most recently in Paramount+‘s Star Trek: Picard.
That series has brought back almost all of the TNG regulars. So technically, there has been no “after” when it comes to Sirtis’s time on Star Trek, only “in between.”
Let’s take a look at Marina Sirtis’s career and how she’s been involved with Star Trek for decades now in a role that still continues to this day.
SHE IS BEST KNOWN FOR HER ROLE AS LT. DEANNA TROI IN STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
Star Trek: The Next Generation came at a most fortuitous time in the life of Marina Sirtis. She initially read for the role of Tasha Yar, a part that Denise Crosby would eventually take, while Crosby initially read for Deanna Troi.
In total, Sirtis had five auditions with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry as well as other executives. At the time, she was actually in debt, jobless, and ready to head home to England when she received the call saying she got the job as Deanna Troi.
While Sirtis’s acting career had started 10 years prior, she was at a point where she wasn’t finding work. She was thrilled to take the part because she was promised 26 episodes, the longest job she’d have to that point.
THE TROUBLE WITH CLEAVAGE
The Troi character had always been designed to be the sexy, attractive woman on the show. Judging by her attire for the first six seasons of the show, that was most definitely the case. The show ran for seven seasons.
Thankfully for Marina Sirtis, Season 7 introduced “brains” to her character. It didn’t stop Sirtis from telling the audience at the 2010 DragonCon about those first six years.
“There are certain rules in Hollywood. One of the rules is not written anywhere, but you just know: if you’re doing an action-adventure show, you gotta have chicks on the show for the boys to look at when they’re not blowing up other spaceships. Second rule: if the chick has a cleavage, she cannot have a brain,” she said via The Geek Twins.
“So, [after wearing a uniform in the first episode] I got a cleavage, and all my gray matter departed. Which was sad, because originally (I know this is gonna shock you), Troi was supposed to be the brains of the Enterprise. So when the cleavage came, all that left, and I became decorative, like a potted palm on the bridge.”
Season 7 saw Troi get her Starfleet uniform, and she relished the opportunity to add brains to her character. “So I started to wear my spacesuit. I was thrilled to finally be in a spacesuit. First of all, my pips – cause I had a rank, you know,” Marina Sirtis said again via The Geek Twins.
“And then, it was very flattering actually, it looked really good. Suddenly, I was smart again. My cleavage had gone. My gray matter came flooding back. I was on away teams! I was the leader of one away team! I had a medical tricorder! And unlike Beverly, I seemed to know what was wrong with people.”
Speaking of sexy …
MARINA SIRTIS WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE FOUR BREASTS IN THE SERIES
Marina Sirtis is no stranger to nudity on film; she has appeared a few times sans clothing. When her character was first being developed by Roddenberry, obviously she wouldn’t be appearing nude in the series, but he initially wanted to give Deanna Troi a couple of extra features.
Roddenberry wanted Troi with four breasts. Oh, he also wanted her to be an oversexed hermaphrodite. Not feeling Roddenberry on this, writer and producer Dorothea DC Fontana had to convince Roddenberry to dump the idea.
Fontana said in the book Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek that she had to tell Roddenberry, “I honestly believe you will offend most women, and maybe a lot of men with this character. Besides, how are you going to arrange those four provocatively shaped breasts? Four in a row? They had better be small. Two banks of two? Do you know how much trouble women have with the normal number—keeping them out of the way of things, I mean. Four straight up and down? Don’t be silly.”
Supposedly it then went from four to three. Marina Sirtis had the same reaction, telling EW, “I objected to Troi having three breasts. I felt women have enough trouble with two. And how are you going to line them up? Vertically, horizontally, or what? I was like, please, don’t go there. And they didn’t, fortunately.”
Thankfully they decided to keep Troi with the normal amount.
SHE APPEARED IN FOUR STAR TREK FILMS
Marina Sirtis’s time on the series ended in 1994, but that didn’t stop her from playing Troi. She was asked back for the subsequent feature films Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek First Contact (1996), Star Trek Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek Nemesis (2002).
The one thing she truly loved about revisiting her character came from her time on Star Trek First Contact. The actress loved the fact that she could play her character with a little more humor.
“Personally, for my character, I loved it because it opened the door to a different side of Troi we’d never seen before,” she said by way of Sci-fi and TV Talk.
“That door has stayed open, and that whole kind of wacky, zany Troi thing has continued into the next movie, which is great for me because I like to do things that are different.”
MARINA SIRTIS REPRISED HER ROLE ON STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
Through the years, other than her Star Trek feature films, Marina Sirtis has reprised her role as Deanna Troi on other shows. She returned to her character in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. Plus, she even lent her voice to Star Trek: Lower Decks.
The latter has been excellent in bringing back characters from different iterations of the franchise, reprising their roles within the animated series’ hilarious context.
SHE RETURNED IN STAR TREK: PICARD
Fans were thrilled when Troi made an appearance in one episode of Star Trek: Picard. That was in Season 1 of the series in the episode “Nepenthe.” The title is the name of the planet that Patrick Stewart’s character travels to when he is helping Soji.
It’s there that Jonathan Frakes as Riker and Sirtis as Troi are living with their daughter, Kestra. Picard needs their help and throughout the episode, there is the sense that pieces of the past are informing their current circumstances.
She then appeared in the final season of Star Trek: Picard for six episodes. It was during this timeline when she meets back up with Michael Dorn’s Worf when he helps save Troi and Riker. Worf also ends up declaring his love for her, something left over from the TNG days.
MARINA SIRTIS HAS NUMEROUS ACTING AND VOICE CREDITS OUTSIDE OF STAR TREK
Marina Sirtis has enjoyed a long and mostly successful career. Life in between her Star Trek appearances has been busy. She has been seen in many feature films as well as TV series and she has done her fair share of voice work.
Some of the features she’s been involved with include Paradise Lost, Trade Routes, The Grudge 3, Speed Demons, and A Dark Reflection. Her TV shows include Stargate SG-1, Diagnosis Murder, NCIS, Girlfriends, and Without a Trace.
Her voice work includes animated series like Gargoyles and video games. Of course, we also have to mention (getting back to her Star Trek roots) that Marina Sirtis also lent her voice to the web series Star Trek Continues. She was the voice of the computer.
