Star Trek: Picard's Jane Edwina Seymour Had To Be Glued Down For Her Borg Queen Scenes
The final two episodes of "Star Trek: Picard," called "Võx" and "The Last Generation" respectively, concluded the season's strangest mystery. The young Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) had revealed on several occasions that he possessed eerie and inexplicable psychic powers. Not only could he read people's minds, but he could project his consciousness into other people's bodies and take control of them remotely. He also was inexplicably a martial arts expert and was capable of killing bad guys in ways he didn't think he was capable of.
The final explanation for his powers was perhaps a little silly. It turns out his long-lost father was Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and he inherited a Borg gene from his father. Picard, it seems, received the Borg gene from when he had been assimilated decades prior. The inherited gene gave Jack superpowers and also psychically lured him into the clutches of the insidious Borg Queen (Jane Edwina Seymour, voiced by Alice Krige), secretly hiding in the storms of Jupiter. She wanted to assimilate Picard's son and take over the Federation for reasons of villainy and perhaps revenge.
In the timeline of "Picard," the Borg seemed to be a waning presence in the galaxy, and the Borg ship, while enormous, was scantly populated. The Borg Queen, barely alive and lacking helper drones, had transformed most of her body into a mass of tubes and wiring, clearly having to take care of the ship's higher functions herself.
The Borg makeup for the scene was conceived by James McKinnon, a 13-time Emmy nominee and five-time winner. In an interview with TrekMovie, McKinnon talked about the Borg suit that Seymour had to be strapped into and its influences from Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger.
The many Queens
This Borg Queen is, of course, a new version of a character first seen in the 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact," where she was played by Alice Krige. A Borg Queen was also a major character in the second season of "Star Trek: Picard," although that character, played by the late Annie Wersching, was a different Borg Queen. Additionally, Susanna Thompson played a notable Borg Queen in "Star Trek: Voyager," although Krige returned for a "Voyager" episode as well. Trekkies will tell you these are all different Borg Queens. The Queen played by Jane Edwina Seymour is implied to be the same one from "First Contact."
When asked what his mandate was for the new Queen, James McKinnon noted that it was a constant exchange of ideas. This new Queen, he said, was inspired by H.R. Giger (which is clear from the images above):
"We all talk. We all figure out what can I achieve on set in the set aspect that [production designer] Dave Blass built? How is it going to get in there? How is she going to lay down? And because we haven't seen her in 20-some-odd years, how rotted is she? How much Giger plays into it? And again, it's not our original actress [Alice Krige]. It's a new actress. So, can she pull that off too?"
With Seymour's legs obscured by hoses and Borg tubing, the actor had to kneel within a massive appliance that was blended into her torso. She sported a mechanical, exposed ribcage as well, all in addition to wearing eye-obscuring prosthetics on her face. It couldn't have been comfortable. According to McKinnon, however, Seymour was game.
'I'm good.'
From the sound of it, Seymour knew the job when she signed up and understood that she'd be wrapped in makeup for extended periods. McKinnon said that Seymour didn't complain, even as they had to glue her down as to not jostle the appliances she had to kneel in:
"I think [Seymour] did a phenomenal job. And she's not a spring chicken and she was on her knees for 16 hours a day and didn't complain, didn't say a word. I was like, 'Do you need to go the bathroom?' and she's like 'Nope, don't worry about it. I'm good.' And we had to glue her into the set too because the foam piece flipped over the edge of the thing we had to glue that down so it didn't wiggle and flap when she moved around. So she was locked into that."
Seymour did an exemplary job acting with the physical limitations in place.
Seymour may also be recognized by "Star Wars" fans as Lakesis from the "Ahsoka" TV series. She additionally appeared in "You" as a punk rocker and as Mildred on the series "Tomorrow." Seymour began her screen acting career as recently as 2010, and has already appeared in two of the largest sci-fi franchises of all time. Some clear pictures of her wearing her Borg makeup in the well-lit makeup room can be seen on her website. Given how loyal "Star Trek" has famously been to its supporting cast members (actors can appear in multiple "Star Trek" roles as the franchise grows), it's entirely likely that Seymour will return someday.