Did you enjoy all that on-screen fighting?

I loved the fighting. I've often said if you could get the emotional participation of a crowd into watching a play or film or television show, the same kind of emotional participation that you have in a sporting event, then you'd be a multi billionaire. We don't know the ending, we don't know who's going to win, who's going to loose, the stakes are immense, the spectators' very worth is based on what their team does.

So that's what I attempted, [to] bring that passion, that emotional participation with me into the Klingon roles.

Martok was very much that way, and what I liked doing about him was he was both a volatile, angry, cranky Klingon but he was also extremely thoughtful. He had a perspective that most Klingons up to that point did not have. That basically came from the writers. They added and they added and they gave me the perspective which changed Martok over the five years that he was part of the show.

It's an actor's dream, and I'm sure that you've heard that from all Klingons, because you get to behave in the extremes of human behaviour.

Oh, you're my first Klingon.

Am I? Well, I'll be gentle.