Well, I was wondering who'd come...

 Posted on 8/9/1992 by STRACZYNSKI [Joe] to GENIE


Well, I was wondering who'd come close to picking up on this, and Tal
comes closest. Yes, if you look at the message in which I introduce the actor
playing Delenn, there are no pronouns used except as they describe the
character.

Ideally, what you want to do when you create an alien character is to go
for a look that's, well, *alien*, something that's not quite right about it.
You can do this from the outside in, with really weird makeup, or from the
inside out. We have some of the former, and Delenn is one of the latter.

What we have, basically, is a female actor playing a male character.
Women simply *move* differently than men do; the gestures, the tilt of the
head, the smile, it's just a shade different. So you now take that, and wrap
it inside a male character, aided by prosthetics to make the face and body
more masculine. Now, when you look at the finished product, you are looking
at a male, but there's something wrong about it somewhere, and it makes you a
little uncertain. The first time I saw Mira in full makeup, it looked great.
And there was something very unusual about it, that sense that your eyes and
your brain are in conflict somewhere about what you're seeing.

That was a decision made early on, and that's what's different about
Delenn (to respond to Tal's comment).

jms