Star Trek: Picard Season 3: Michael Dorn on Worf’s Series, Son, and Captaincy

Worf is back in a big way in Star Trek: Picard Season 3, and the Enterprise crew is going to need him. Michael Dorn is back as the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet and the character with the most repeat appearances in Star Trek history. He’s also the only member of the former Enterprise crew to have previously encountered Changelings, the leaders of the Dominion who are making a return in . Worf’s also been busy off-screen, achieving the rank of captain sometime between Star Trek: Nemesis and his return in Star Trek: Picard Season 3.

ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak to Dorn about his return. We asked him about Worf’s captaincy, his pitch for a “Captain Worf” show, and what Worf’s son, Alexander, might be up to these days. Here’s what he had to say:

As a Star Trek fan, it was pretty exciting when you delivered the line, “How long have you been away from the Great Link,” line. I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt that way. What was your reaction when you saw that Changelings were going to be involved in this show?

Michael Dorn:  I really didn’t have a reaction to it. You know what I mean? It just wasn’t a reaction. It’s sort of like as an actor, you read the script and you go, “Oh,” and you start thinking about how you’re going to make it interesting or do it, or whatever the case. Even when you’re on the set, you basically are working with the other actor and you’re trying to make the scene work somehow. It’s like a lot of other stuff going on.

If you trust the writers and producers, you just kind of go, “Okay,” and leave the rest up to the universe. I wasn’t shocked about it. I wasn’t really like, “Oh my God, is this going to … ” Not at all.

It’s a pretty different perspective when you’re an actor working on the show versus one of those fans who was always asking, “What was the Enterprise doing during the Dominion War?” or whatever else.

Yeah. Dry dock? I don’t know.

When I talked to Terry Matalas at the junket, he talked a little bit about how he spoke to all the TNG cast members to get their ideas about what their characters might be doing and to share his ideas. He mentioned talking to you about Worf being like a samurai at this point in his life. What was your perspective on that conversation, and what about it got you excited about playing this role again?

Interesting. The things I talked about earlier today, one of the things that I just didn’t realize, but somebody asked a very good question about that, is that it’s sort of like a wait-and-see attitude with me. I mean, people can talk a lot of stuff, especially in our business. “Oh, Michael, we want to do this, we want to do that.”

When I talked to Akiva and Terry, I really liked them just in our conversations, but you always wait to see what’s on the page. And that’s what I was doing. All this other stuff, the Zoom meetings and the business and the contracts, you go through all that, but you want to see what’s on the page. And once I saw what was on the page, I went, “Okay, then I’ll just let them go.”

I mean, they got it. Terry’s a big fan and he’s been around us for years, so I wasn’t really that concerned about that. I liked Akiva and I thought that all of their ideas were great, but you want to see what’s on the page, and that was it for me.

You had your own idea for a Worf follow up, your “Captain Worf” pitch that you wrote. Do you feel like you were able to bring any of what in that pitch into your performance in the show? 

I want to say this is sort of far afield from what I envisioned, and I welcomed it because I thought it was as real as it can be, his transition. But the only thing that I told him was that I wanted him to be on a journey. I wanted him to be on a quest, not for anything in particular, not a goal, but just a quest for illumination of knowledge. And so I didn’t want him to be the same Worf as we have seen, and I think that they welcomed that because they had their own ideas of what they felt Worf should be.

And also, I think that it had to fit into the thing where they wanted to give Michelle [Hurd], and this is what they were talking about, they wanted to give Michelle something solid to work with, and they felt that the two of us, the characters, would compliment each other. And they were correct. I thought that Raffi and Worf were comrades-in-arms in a way, coming from two different worlds. And so I think that was perfect. I think it worked really well.

The interrogation scene in this was episode was fun. It’s a good cop, bad cop kind of thing, but its is perhaps unexpected for people watching TNG years ago to see Worf playing the bad cop. How do you and Michelle see the relationship between your characters and how they interact? Is it a mentorship, or a more even playing field?

Michael Dorn: I think it’s an even playing field. It’s like two people coming from different places, totally different places, and they each bring their gifts to this relationship. And the stuff that is no good, that doesn’t work for them, they discard very quickly because they don’t need it. He doesn’t bring up her drug addiction because it’s unnecessary. She doesn’t bring up his past because it’s unnecessary. These two things don’t really enter into it. And so I think that that is sort of what the relationship is. And he says, “She’s a warrior,” and she is, I wouldn’t say his equal in fighting skills, but she will be at some point if they hang out long enough. And it’s a 

There’s a tendency sometimes to be pedestrian about relationships, but this relationship is not pedestrian. It’s different. It’s a different relationship that I’ve seen on Star Trek, and I think as the season progresses, we will see how different it is.

Given how much the season is about legacy and some of the revelations we get about Picard and Crusher and Jack Crusher, was there any conversation when you were coming back about Worf’s son, Alexander, and what he might be doing? Was that something you guys figured out, or were you happy to let that stay by the wayside?

There was, and it wasn’t a discussion that I had. I think the producers had a discussion about that, and I was always open to it. That definitely is something that could be explored.

The only problem is with all of these things, even with Next Generation, you got seven actors. You can only do so much, and if you try to introduce other characters, you’re going to sacrifice part of another storyline. It kind of ripples. Like, say that you drop something in a pond and the ripple effect is, okay, we want to talk about Alexander. Okay, that means that we can’t talk about Geordi that much, or we can’t talk about Crusher that much because they’re taking up extra time. I understood it, but I thought that at some point if they continue this Next Generation thing, I think it definitely needs to be explored.

There’s a very cool shot of Worf performing these sword stances that are almost meditative. What went into that? Were you involved in developing what that would look like? Did it require a lot of training?

It’s a very long story, and I’ll shorten it. Dan Curry, who developed all of the fighting weapons for Worf, he’s taught me a lot about martial arts and about how to use these weapons. And the interesting thing is that I didn’t even have to practice that hard because the weapons kind of lend themselves to the movements and we’ve worked together long enough, Dan and I, that I kind of learned by osmosis some of the things that he taught in the past, and I remember them. And also just because I like those movements and I like the martial arts style and I’m athletic, so I can do that stuff.

It’s just a matter of teaching the stunt people. They know how to fight and there’s martial arts guys and that type of thing, but there’s a certain kind of fluidity with all of his movements. That was something that I’ve learned over the years and it’s not difficult for me to slip back into it.

The studio released some stuff revealing bits of Worf’s backstory. We know he becomes a captain and that, before he left Starfleet proper, he was serving on the Enterprise. However, it was a little vague about whether he was captain of the Enterprise. Did you have clarity about that bit of his backstory while working on the season?

No, the only thing I had in my backstory is that he went to — and this is something that they didn’t really write, but I think it was in our heads as they were writing these things — is that Worf went back to this planet, Boreth, which is like a monastery. He went back there to study because he learns that there are other things besides trying to slice people up. And he is learning about the spirituality of the journey. And I think that was the only thing that I clued them in on, and that was it. And I think it was great because they didn’t write anything about that, but they kept that in their lexicon, I guess.

But the whole thing about him being a captain of the Enterprise, I think that was probably in their heads when they were writing it, but they didn’t really want to explore that, at least in the first three episodes.

I brought up your “Captain Worf” pitch already. Now that you’ve come back as Worf in this series, are you going to continue to pitch your Worf show? Do you think there’s still room for that, or are you ready to let that lie?

I think that it needs to be done. It really does, just because the character has been in so many episodes and he’s still a viable character. He still is a guy that is athletic and he still can go out there and run with the best of them. And so that part is not an issue, and it’s just a matter of if they have the will to do it.

I think that it would be an easy transition and I think it wouldn’t be a difficult thing. And I think writers and producers would jump on it because he is this character that they can build off of still, especially with the character as he is in Picard. So like I said, I would leap at it.

The only thing that I would be concerned about is how interesting it is. If it is pedestrian and sort of like, “Oh yeah, well, he goes out,” then I would go, “No.” But they’ve convinced me that they have the knowledge and the desire to make the character special and interesting.

I don’t think that my script lends itself now because it’s totally different than what they’ve written, but I think what they’ve written could easily be translated into a Worf show. But all of those decisions are above my pay grade, so I’ll let them do all that stuff. And if it happens, great. If it doesn’t, I think that I’ve had a great career.

How to watch Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premieres new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+. Star Trek: Picard‘s first two seasons are already streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.