Marina Sirtis is an actress who is known for playing Counselor Deanna Troi on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and for other roles in the Star Trek series.
She was born in Hackney, London, on March 29, 1955. Her parents are Greek, and she grew up in Harringay, North London. Even though her parents didn’t want her to, she applied to study theory while she was still in high school and was accepted to the Royal Shakespeare Company-affiliated Guildhall of Music and Drama School. She graduated there in 1976 at the age of 21.
Marina got her start in theatre with a production of Hamlet by the Worthington Repertory Theatre Company. She went on to work with a number of European theatre companies, such as Coventry Rep, where she played Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Nic Young was in charge of both “What the Butler Saw” by Joe Orton and “Hamlet,” in which she played Ophelia.
Before she was on Star Trek, Sirtis was in a number of movies in small roles. In the 1983 movie “The Wicked Lady” with Faye Dunaway, the Charles Bronson sequel “Death Wish 3,” and the movie “Blind Date,” he played a police officer. She also had many interesting roles in British TV shows when she was younger. Among his other early jobs were many guest-starring roles on British TV shows. Sirtis was in “Raffles” (1977), “Who Pays the Ferryman” (1977), “Hazell” (1978), “Minder” (1979), “Up the Elephant and Round the Castle” (1985), and “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” (1986).
After seeing the movie Aliens with Bob Justman, which starred Sirtis, Gene Roddenberry was inspired to ask her to try out for a part in Star Trek: The Next Generation because of how different she looked. She remembers that when she got the call offering her the role of Troi, she was getting ready to go back to Britain because her six-month visa had run out.
At first, it was hard for the writers to write for Troi, so they left her out of four episodes in the first season and Sirtis thought her job was in danger. However, after the first season, she says she was thrilled when at Jonathan Frakes’ wedding Roddenberry pulled her aside and told her that “The Child,” the first episode of season two, would be about her character Troi.
The Greek artist was in all seven seasons of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Her character changed from a more passive therapist to a tougher Starfleet officer. She has said that her favorite episode is “Face of the Enemy” from season six. In that episode, she is kidnapped and has surgery to make her look like a Romulan. This plot twist changed the character she was playing, so the actress could act differently. “I was able to do things that I hadn’t been able to do in five or six years.”
Sirtis has also played Troi in the movies “Star Trek Generations” (1994), “Star Trek First Contact” (1996), “Star Trek Insurrection” (1998), and “Star Trek Nemesis” (2001). (2002). She also appeared in the last three episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager” in 1999 and 2000, as well as the last episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise” (2005).
During the break between seasons three and four of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in 1990, Sirtis went back to the UK to film a drama special for the BBC called “One Last Chance.” In 1992, she was in an episode of the short-lived show “The Fifth Corner” and had a cameo in the horror/fantasy movie “Waxwork II: Lost in Time.”
Sirtis kept regularly working after “Star Trek: The Next Generation” ended in 1994. Her first role, as an abused wife in the TV show “Heaven Help Us,” was different from what she had done before. She did the voice of Demona for two seasons of the animated Disney TV show “Gargoyles,” and she did it again for an episode of the animated show “Team Atlantis,” which was never made.
In the British TV movie Gadgetman, which came out in 1996, Sirtis played a bad police detective. When she was a guest star on “Diagnosis: Murder” in 1998, she played another bad girl. In 1999, the independent film “Paradise Lost,” in which Sirtis played the main role, came out.
Sirtis came back to science-fiction TV in 1999 with “The Outer Limits” and “Earth: Final Conflict,” which was created by Gene Roddenberry. She played a Russian scientist in the 2000s “Stargate SG-1”. In the October 2000 issue of SFX magazine in the UK, there was an interview with a famous actor. The cover said, “Marina Sirtis is Everywhere.”
In 2001, Sirtis played a politician with controversial ideas about the National Health Service in the long-running British hospital drama “Casualty.” This role got a lot of attention. In 2004, she was in the movie Spectres, and she won the best actress award at the ShockerFest International Film Festival.
In September 2011, fans got together to try to get Sirtis on Doctor Who. A few weeks later, she talked about the group and her desire to be on the show at the Montreal Comic Con. A year later, she was in the fan-made Castlevania series that was posted on YouTube. She likes to go to Star Trek conventions and meet both her own fans and fans of the show.
Marina Sirtis is a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights. She has been married to rock guitarist Michael Lamper since 1992 and speaks Greek well.
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