Posted:
09:20:50 on April 06 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Deep Space Nine
In the May 2002 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine, former DEEP SPACE NINE executive producer Ira Steven Behr talks at length about the decisions behind the development of Marc Alaimo's 'Gul Dukat', the major villain throughout the series's run.
Behr remembers how in the pilot, the character was originally played by another actor: "Let's just say we all agreed
that perhaps we had made a less than perfect choice and that the part had to
be recast. Someone said 'What about Marc Alaimo?' because he had done TNG,
and there you go... From that point on my model for Dukat was Alaimo. That's
a real compliment; He presented us with so many opportunities."
Behr explains that the character as he conceived him was to be ruthless and without sympathy, a characterization difficult to maintain through the seven seasons: "The problem I find with a lot of writers, including myself, is that
once you get involved with a character you start to get to know him and you
humanize him. Michael Piller did the rewrite of 'Defiant' where he had Dukat
talk about his children; My reaction was, 'Uh oh, we've crossed the line.' I
realized that he was going to lose all credibility as a villain; we were
going to shower him with our usual writerish empathy, and, like all good
liberals, we'd see him as neither fish or fowl."
"I really responded against that. Here was the guy who had been in charge of
Bajor, and right away we were looking for excuses for him."
Behr continues, saying there was always a tension between romanticizing 'Dukat' as a villain and paintaing him as a sort of war-criminal: "I had certainly done my bit in making Dukat a kind of swashbuckling
villain, but I always thought the Cardassians were horrific; I think anyone
who doesn't is obviously confused. They did a horrible thing, and I have
little sympathy for that."
But actor Marc Alaimo, who had become quite popular with the show's fans, had a different view of the character, seeing him as ultimately redeemable. Behr explains how this actually helped feed into creating the character the way he wanted: "What made it perfect, what made it beautiful, and that no writer
could have conceived of, was that Alaimo took it in his head that he was the
hero of the series - that Dukat was really just misunderstood; that he was
sweet and kind.
"Whenever I think of the character, I think of Renoir's line from 'The Rules
of the Game': 'The tragedy of life is that every man has his reasons.' Dukat
could logically explain away everything he did, he could find justifications
for all of it, and that's the horror; that's the thing Alaimo and I were
always in disagreement about. His attitude was, 'We all have this inside of
us, we're all many different people, and no one is truly evil.' Then I'd
say, 'OK, if you take that to its conclusion, then no one has to stand
accountable for their actions.'"
Much to the producer/writer's chagrin, many fans began to see the character and the Cardassians as "sexy" rather than horrific: "We'd sit in the writers room and laugh about it sometimes. We'd get
the Cardassian newsletter and look at it and think, 'What has gone wrong?'
of course it's science fiction; you put makeup on and suddenly it's OK. If
it's Idi Amin or Pol Pot no one's thinking of spending a romantic weekend in
his arms; but you give him a bony neck and a rubber outfit, and it's a whole
different thing."
In the latter seasons, as the writers began mapping out how the Cardassians would eventually overthrow the Dominion's yoke, Behr says he intentionally steered away from the temptation to valorize 'Dukat' and turn him into the hero that evetually became of actor Casey Biggs's 'Damar'.
"We were able to have a guy (Damar) who had been pushed too far. That
was something you could never really get from Alaimo's character, because he
would never allow himself to be subjected to that kind of treatment in the
first place. I couldn't accept that Dukat would become the savior of
Cardassia," he said. "I'm sure his fans would have adored it, and Alaimo would have
loved it, but there were too many instances where he was false. It wasn't
credible, and I know the man who had to be there at the very end to speak
for Cardassia was Garak, as the true outsider.
"If it had been Dukat, it would have been too romantic. We went that way
with Damar to an extent, which is why we killed him the way we did - fast,
and before the end of the show. I know people felt that he deserved
something better, but that was a very calculated move. Imagine if we'd done
that with Dukat? I mean, forget it."
In the end, Behr says he's mostly pleased with how the character met his end fittingly: "I think he got what he deserved, let me put it like that. I can't say
I feel sorry for him, I really don't. He and Wynn were two characters I just
could not sympathize with. Though we tried in all fairness to give them
their points of view and give them their attitudes, they were very deluded,
and they did horrible things."
For the full interview, check out the latest issue of STAR TREK: THE MAGAZINE and thanks to 'Cyrus' for providing the excerpts.
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