Did you ever wish your character was visibly alien, or was it a relief not to have to wear a load of make-up?

I had one visible alien thing, my contact lenses, which were like pools of blackness. But, of course, no one could tell, because I have dark hair, and they just assumed that I would have dark eyes. I was thrilled I didn't have any bits of rubber stuck on me.

There were episodes where I had to age or where I was taken over by some alien thing or other, and I had to wear the rubber prosthetics. I hated it - I turned into the psycho-bitch from hell. I was glad I didn't have to wear it for seven years. It has become such a thing with me that if there's ever a part that comes up and I have to wear prosthetics, I won't do it. It's horrible.

There were two specific episodes. One episode I had to turn into an amphibian, so not only did I have amphibian make-up on but I had to be wet, which was not a good combination. You see how my voice is changing even talking about it. In another episode I had to age to be 150 years old. That was unpleasant because I had the full face, neck, chest and hands - it was awful. You can't scratch anything, and it feels just like your flesh is crawling underneath. People would say 'Oh, look, it's Marina, she just can't bear the thought that she's going to get old .' But, I thought, I'll never look like this, because I'm not going to live to be 150 years old.

My hat goes off to Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn... there's a whole long list of people who did an amazing job considering what they had to wear on their heads. Funnily enough, they didn't have to get there much earlier than me. In fact, I was the first one in, in the morning - I took almost two hours to get ready. Michael Dorn took an hour and a half.