Star Trek: Discovery’s Doug Jones Reveals the Secret to Flirting Through Prosthetics

Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 arrived on Blu-ray and DVD earlier this month, bringing the USS Discovery‘s mission to make peace with Species 10-C beyond the galactic barrier to home media. Amid the galaxy-saving adventure, Saru, played by Doug Jones, experienced some more intimate subplots. He reconnected with his home planet of Kaminar, joining the governing council and mentoring Su’Kal. He stood by the side of Michael Burnham, supporting her as , a position he held in the previous season. Saru also unexpectedly fell for President T’Rina of Ni’Var and entered a romantic relationship with the Vulcan politician that delighted fans.

ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak with Jones over the phone. We discussed some hilarious behind-the-scenes moments from the filming of Discovery‘s fourth season, and how he manages to flirt through all those alien prosthetics. Here’s what he had to say.

When you look back on Star Trek Discovery Season 4, what memories, experiences, parts of the story, or behind-the-scenes stuff stand out in your mind?

Doug Jones: A couple of things, of course. I think as much as I love the storyline with Michael Burnham as this brother-and-sister type of relationship, my storyline with the romance with President T’Rina was just an absolute highlight for me. I loved playing it, and the actress, Tara Rosling, is so incredibly amazing on film and in person. It was a joy to play that very dignified romance with her throughout the season, leading all the way up to a handhold at the end of the year. It was like, “Wow, that’s as innocent and wholesome as it gets, I think,” and the fans went nuts for us. It was really, really sweet to see that reaction and to play that story.

And when you ask about behind-the-scenes moments, and this is what’s good about the DVD release, is that there are things, there are exclusives on there that you’ll see, vignettes and documentary footage of behind the scenes, and a couple of exclusives are a gag reel and a commentary. But in the gag reel, it’s not on there anymore I think, but when it came around for approvals, there was a little bit on there that made me double over laughing. I don’t think it’s on there anymore, and I’m not sure why.

So a moment you will not see on the gag reel — but the gag reel’s great, it’s funny — but I had a quiet scene with Sonequa Martin-Green. So Saru and Burnham were talking in her quarters. This is when Book holograms. He sent a hologram message to her to say that he was going to be going rogue and making his own decisions and going after the 10-C on his own with more of an aggressive arm than what we were. We were trying to negotiate peacefully. He was going to go around the plan and try to be more violent with it, and he had reason to be because they had demolished his planet and he’d lost all his people. So he was dealing with a lot of emotion.

He sent a hologram message to her to say so, that, “Don’t come looking for me. I’m going to be going off rogue.” She’s showing me that message, and then she blips it out and it goes away, and then we have a quiet conversation about Book and what he’s doing and what he’s feeling and all this. And all of a sudden, [fart noise] in the middle of it, and we both look at each other and pause and I said, “That was me,” and then the entire crew doubles over laughing. It was all caught on camera. I’m sad it’s not in the gag reel after all, because it was one of the most joyous moments I’ve ever had.

Well, now people will be asking for the director’s cut of the gag reel.

Yeah, Right. No, totally. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but yes.

I wanted to ask about that romance, because Star Trek’s known for a lot of things, and while it has its love stories, that’s not exactly its signature feature. You’re playing an alien character, you’re in prosthetics. How surprised were you to see that they were taking Saru in that direction? I know you said you enjoyed that arc. Did you have any reservations at first about how it would work or were you immediately into it?

No reservations whatsoever. I was actually very hopeful and I’m going to give myself some credit for trying to help nudge it along. In season three, when we met President T’Rina for the first time, she had come aboard our ship for a diplomatic negotiation. I was showing her around the ship and we were having these private conversations, and it was like, “I like these two together.” I was thinking that, and Tara Rosling, the actress who plays her, we both had agreed, “Are the writers heading us toward a little thing?” 

Because when she said goodbye at the end of the episode to me, we were alone in the ready room before she beamed out. And her planet, Ni’Var, was not a part of the Federation yet. They had left the Federation many years ago and now we’re trying to woo them back in and they hadn’t made up their minds yet. So I said, “Well, I know that there’s a lot yet to discuss about that, but in the meantime, I would like for our personal discussions to continue.” And she said, “I would like that.” So we give a “Live long and prosper” to each other, eye to eye, and then she beams away, and he looks out the window longingly. If that’s not romance about to happen, I don’t know what is. That was basically him saying, “Can we get together for coffee?” right?

Yes, and the fans definitely, immediately picked up on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and they did, and so did we. So I would talk to Michelle Paradise and say, “I like where this is going. If that’s a romance, I’d love to see that continue.” So Season 4, she sure did. She let us discover more romance, but it was done in such a dignified and wholesome way, with such innocence. I don’t think either character has ever had a rollicking romance ever before. That’s what it felt like. Romance is new to both of them, Saru being more, he wears his emotions on his sleeves more, and T’Rina does not. She’s Vulcan all the way. So you’ve got Saru making overtures of his feelings and she’s responding with a deadpan face. There’s such a charm to that that I just absolutely adore.

What unique challenges are there to acting out a flirtation when you’re covered in prosthetics? I imagine maybe a lot of body language. But when it comes to the face, with all that stuff on it, I imagine you can’t just, you know, like cartoonishly waggle your eyebrows up and down in her direction or anything like that.

Let’s be honest, it is rare to see a character that is clad in rubber, whether it’s a monster creature, alien, or whatever, with a romance story. So it is, “How do you play that?” In my 36-year career and all the characters I’ve played that have been glued into rubber, this is only, I think, the second or third time that I’ve had a romance of any sort. So it is a rarity.

I think the good thing about Saru’s design is that he’s not so far away from human. It does cling to my face. It does respond to my facial expressions somewhat. Now, my facial expressions do get dulled by the time you see them on camera because it’s going through a little bit of silicone, but those eyes of his, which I think are just gorgeous, those big contact lenses, since I get to manipulate and control my own eyes, where I look, how I look, a tilt of the head, yes, a hint of a smile might come through those things.

And when you’re acting with Tara Rosling, she is Shakespearean trained. She is in the moment. When the cameras roll, the crew goes away and we’re living a moment in real life and that’s what it feels like. So it makes the romantic storyline so, so easy to play when she’s around.

The other major storyline for Saru in Season 4 was with Michael Burnham. They had a unique situation where there are two captains aboard this ship and people were wondering how that would resolve. What were your thoughts when you saw how they were going to handle that?

Well, the first officer position on Discovery was not assigned to him. That was his choice. He was offered the captaincy of another ship that he turned down because he would rather be a good family member and because Discovery was facing a huge mission to find out what was this humongous entity chewing up the galaxy. So it was an exploration and a negotiation that was ahead of us that Saru knew was going to be a humongous challenge. So he wanted to be there to support and be a good family member.

Saru and Burnham had been through an awful lot together. They’ve been through life and death situations, and a trust and a love were built between the two of them that is unbreakable. So when hearing that she and her crew were facing something this big, it was easy for him to say, “I’ll come aboard the ship. I will be your first officer. Who cares what my rank is?” And he was very gracious in deferring to her as captain. I don’t think they ever butted heads over, “But I’m a captain, too.” That never really came up. He respects her decisions, and her wisdom as much as he respects his own. He’s earned his own captaincy for sure, but she was captain of this ship, and he’s very respectful of that.

He also is longing for home, for Kaminar. The season starts with him having this hiatus from Starfleet as he helps build the council on his home planet of Kaminar and oversees his little protege Su’Kal, played by the brilliant Bill Irwin, getting him on his way and being a mentor there. When he comes back to join Starfleet and be the first officer on Discovery, my new uniform also now has a broach on it that no one else on the crew has a broach that signifies my place in the High Council on my home planet Kaminar.

You can tell he’s tethered to home still. His sense of family is strong, both with Kaminar and with Discovery, the starship. I loved that duality that he played throughout the season, where no matter how loyal and dutiful he was with what was happening on the ship, he would also, in a moment of pensive thought or discussion, he would gently stroke the top of his broach that signifies, “Yeah, I’m grounded as a Kelpian back home in Kaminar” at the same time. So I think he’s longing for home in both places, and that gave some interesting layers.

You’ve been playing this character for a while now, and he’s gone through some changes. There have been changes to how the show was made as well, with new technology and new showrunners. Looking back, do any of the changes stand out in your mind as either one that most altered things for you or that was particularly challenging or fun to adapt to?

I think the biggest change for me throughout the entire four seasons you’ve seen so far was in season two, which came as a surprise to me. Until I got the script for that episode, I didn’t know it was coming, and that was the episode where Saru was going through vahar’ai. He thinks he’s going to die and he ends up getting through it. And his threat ganglia fall out and now he realizes, “Oh my gosh, all these years I’ve been lied to. All of my people have been lied to. Vahar’ai is not our death, it’s our adolescence, and we have a long life ahead of us without the innate fear that we were born with as a prey species.”

That was quite a page-turning moment in Saru’s life and mine as an actor, too, because I developed and refined this character with fear as his jumping-off point, and he had to overcome that fear to get through his daily duties and his tasks, but he did it with success, and now that fear is gone. He’s living in confidence. That was the biggest change I think of all. Do I hold myself differently? Does Saru come at decision-making and missions and threats with new confidence? And yes, he does.

Me, personally, I learned a lot from playing Saru over these years, because I, myself, in my real life, have lived with a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear about tomorrow. If I can’t see all that’s happening tomorrow, I’m terrified of it. I had to deal with that all my life. So watching Saru go through this change, he was always afraid of what was around the corner if he couldn’t see it as well. He’s still facing the same challenges and the same threats and whatever’s happening out there, the ship or the galaxy is always in some kind of peril, that hasn’t changed.

What’s changed is Saru’s reaction to it. He handles it with an “I can” attitude now, which he didn’t have before. So I, in my personal life, I’m like, “You know what? Maybe I can. What would Saru do when he gets that piece of mail that he’s like, “Oh no, I have to do something. What? I have to get a piece of paper that proves I’m not guilty of something,” or whatever it is. Whether it’s a bill you didn’t know you had or whatever, it’s like, “Oh my goodness, what?” Life is just full of surprises, or something goes wrong with your car, and will it ever get fixed? All those decisions and changes in your natural, real life, and how you react to it are everything. Do you react with, “Oh, my life is over. It’s all going to end now. Why go on to tomorrow?,” or can it be with a, “I can get through this. Yeah, I’ve gotten through everything else in my 62-year life. I’m going to get through this, too?” So Saru has helped me reach that point.

Star Trek: Discovery: Season Four is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, Limited Edition Blu-Ray Steelbook, and Digital. Star Trek: Discovery streams on Paramount+ in the United States. Its fifth season is expected to debut in 2023.