It's a long way from London to Los Angeles, and the road to Hollywood is one few unknown British actresses dare to tread. Fewer still find success in Tinsel town, but Marina Sirtis is the exception.
Within a week of arriving in America, Marina had her first job. Six months later, after a succession of intense auditions, she landed a leading role in Star Trek: The Next Generation. After a phenomenal seven year run, the television series has given way to a movie, Star Trek Generations, which has gone on to prove its might at the US box office. But for the cast, there was no time to relax during this transition.
"I think I personally had three days off in between," says Marina, now finally able to gather her thoughts after seven years of playing the half human, half Betazoid empath Deanna Troi. "It just felt like a continuation, if anything."
Asked to sum up the differences between shooting Star Trek for television and the cinema, the actress points to the less frantic schedule.
"Basically, we had more time, which was a luxury," she explains. "For the series we would shoot 44 minutes every 7 days, and for the movie we had 51 days to shoot 2 hours. That's a big difference. It means that you have the luxury of doing another take if you want to, and the crew aren't all dead on their feet and wanting to go home."
"Then there is this kind of strange hierarchy in Hollywood," she adds, "where if you're doing a movie you're kind of treated better than when you're doing a TV series. I think my friend Brent Spiner [who plays Data] described it the best. He said, 'For the TV series we were hamburgers, for the movie we were fillet steak'."
Marina Sirtis found herself all at sea for her first scene in Generations - quite literally. At the beginning of the movie the Enterprise crew are larking around on a simulation of an 18th century sailing vessel, a scene that entailed a week's shooting aboard the Lady Washington, which sailed off the coast of Santa Monica.
"I remember being sea sick and having nowhere to sit down," Marina grimaces. "It was actually quite a small boat and it was supposed to have thirty people on it and there were a hundred and twenty. It was a bit cramped and the food wasn't great - we had to have packed lunches and things. I'm not a great sailor, despite being called Marina!"
For the scene the crew traded in their Starfleet uniforms for period navy gear - and Marina found herself taking to the apparel.
"I've done the period costume thing before, and that was actually a bonus. I quite liked the fact that we were all decked out in those snazzy costumes."
The simulation is interrupted when Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is informed that his brother and nephew have been killed. As ship's counsellor Deanna Troi finds herself providing emotional support for her distraught Captain, in what proves to be one of the film's strongest scenes.
"Patrick and I have worked together for seven years and so we have a really good relationship," Marina says of their work on the intense scene. "Actually when we finished the scene Patrick was really sweet. He came up and thanked me. He felt confident enough and trusted me enough to let go like that, and he felt that he couldn't have played it with any other person. I take that as a huge compliment from Patrick Stewart."
Does Marina attribute their excellent rapport to the fact that they are native Britons in a foreign land?
"Part of it is that," she acknowledges. "Part of it is that we're just very good friends. We make fun of each other quite endlessly, we tell jokes and things that other people can't understand, but basically we're just very close."
The breathtaking climactic scene in which the crew find themselves crash-diving towards the surface of an alien planet, represented a challenge for Marina.
"It was difficult," she admits. "To be honest I'd never really been involved in many of the action sequences on the series, because being the psychologist and counsellor I was usually in my office healing people. It was actually really fun for me to drive the ship, so I resent the fact it crashed while I was driving! I don't suppose I'll ever get to drive again."
"There was one moment where Riker tells Troi to take the helm; in the first take I rushed to the chair and sat down, and the chair was on fire. I started jumping up and down, and David Carson went, 'Cut! Cut! What's going on, Marina?', and I said, 'My chair is on fire!' So they had to set it all up again, which of course, was no mean feat because they had to rebuild everything and blow it all up again. When I rushed to the seat the second time I actually wiped it down before I sat down, but they cut that out of the movie, obviously. It was really exciting because those things are actually exploding around you."
For the principal actors this scene represented the culmination of seven years of hard work. The sets of the Enterprise, which had almost become their second home, were being trashed before their eyes.
"Actually we all went in to see the very last shot of Patrick and Jonathan [Frakes] beaming out of the destroyed set," she recalls. "It was very moving because there's no Enterprise any more. It was quite a momentous time."
Generations is an important landmark in the series of Star Trek movies - affirmation that The Next Generation crew can cut it at the box office. The film grossed over $70 million in the States and scored the highest opening weekend of any Trek film.
"Yeah, and it grossed that in six weeks. They pulled it out of the theatres after that," enthuses an obviously delighted Marina. "I think it's probably so they make a lot of money on video sales. It was very exciting to be the number one movie and beat Interview with the Vampire when we came out. I'd never been in that position before and so the whole thing was new."
Despite the dollar count, reviews have been mixed. Some critics have accused Generations of being too much like a TV episode, others have said it is overloaded with characters, while some people feel the plot actually does not hold together.
"On the whole I thought it was a very good movie," says Marina in the film's defence. "I know the Trekkies that have seen it have said 'Why did you do this' and 'This does not make sense' and stuff like that. I personally feel it's a movie, it's entertainment and if some things aren't totally explained that's fine. No movie makes one hundred percent sense. It's artistic license and I think sometimes the Trekkies forget that it's entertainment."
But surely as a performer she was disappointed with her character's share of the action? Generations focuses predominantly on Captain Picard and the android Data, with a scene-stealing finale for Captain Kirk, leaving many of the remaining crew in subsidiary roles.
"My feeling about that is of course I'd like to have more in the movie," the actress comments rationally. "Every actor wants to see their own face up on the screen more than anyone else's, but I think one has to be realistic about the whole formula of the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Patrick Stewart was the Captain, and he basically had the majority of the work, and Data, being the most popular character, would also get a nice chunk and that is a formula which I'm sure is not going to change however many movies we do. But it would be nice to have a bit more."
Better luck next time, as they say - and there will undoubtedly be a next time.
"My contract specifies three movies," Marina divulges. "Of course that doesn't mean to say they're gonna make three movies, but if they do they've got me. I really don't see they will not make another movie, everyone is thrilled by the success of this."
Marina Sirtis was born in East London to strict Greek parents. Her father was a tailor, her mother a dressmaker, and both objected to her teenage desire to become an actress.
Now she has found fame and fortune, Marina insists that she has not allowed it to redefine her life. She has a healthy home life with her husband, does her own shopping, enjoys cooking, visits the dry cleaners and keeps in touch with all the trappings of a normal lifestyle.
"The only thing that's any different to how my life was before is that I have more stuff," Marina reasons. "I have a house now, and I have a nice car, and I can buy more expensive clothes than I used to, but I really don't live the Hollywood lifestyle. I tend to spend most of the time with my husband at home. We don't go to the parties, to the openings and stuff like that. To me, your work is important and the quality of your work, and having a normal life. If you start believing all the publicity and things people say about you, you're in dead trouble."
Now settled in America, Marina confesses that she loves living in Los Angeles.
"I've yet to talk to a working class person who doesn't like America because there is no class here," she states. "It doesn't really matter in England how successful you become or how much money you make, there's still that - I don't want to use the word stigma - but there is that kind of feeling that we do still have a class system in England. There are certain circles in which you're not accepted if you don't come from the right breeding or went to the right schools."
Marina confesses that she has succumbed to some of the demands of Hollywood. She does make the effort to look good; regular work-outs, facials, visits to the hairdressers.
Unlike many of her colleagues on Star Trek, Marina has found that she can have her cake and eat it. Despite daily exposure on television through the series, she can step out onto the streets of LA and not be recognised, because she actually looks very different to Deanna Troi.
"The first thing people notice when they meet me is that I don't have Troi's hair," says Marina, gesturing to the shorter style she has adopted since finishing the movie. The only time I really get recognised is if I speak, and then people recognise my voice and do a double take. But I can basically be anonymous, which is great. To be on one of the top TV shows in the country and be able to go around and not have people ask me for my autograph all the time. I know Patrick can't step out of the front door."
Marina Sirtis is currently making her mark on other projects, including Disney's animated series Gargoyles. A return to England is seems unlikely, as the actress is pursuing more movies, and has two favourite actors she aspires to work with.
"My number one would be Robert DeNiro," she beams. "My number two would be an actor who was on NYPD Blue, David Caruso. I think he's brilliant, and I've told my agent he has to put me up for anything he's doing.I think he's a really wonderful actor."
Given that Los Angeles offers better opportunities for Marina, is there anything that she misses about her home country?
"Well, I really miss my friends," she sighs. "Los Angeles is such a showbiz town that that tends to be the focus of everybody's attention and everyone's conversation. Some of my friends in England I've known since I was eleven, at grammar school, and that's hard. The other thing I miss a lot is football. I haven't gotten into American football. I'm a huge Spurs fan and so I miss not being able to go to the games!"
Film Revue magazine 1995 Star Trek Special.