BEHIND-THE-SCENES : [#146 & 147 UNIMATRIX ZERO]

TIM RUSS SPEAKS ABOUT BORG MAKE-UP

a Borg drone's assimilation tubules penetrate Tuvok's skin....	....and Tuvok is assimilated
[Unimatrix Zero, Part One]

I wasn't looking forward to it. It's great fun once you get it [the make-up] on and you're actually rolling with it, then it's fun. But then you're easily motivated to play this Borg character: you can't move that much in that outfit, it's on you and it's claustrophobic almost, so many inches of neoprene and rubber and lights and all kinds of stuff going on, and if you don't look and feel like one of those creatures after that then you're never going to feel like it.

[#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero]

So it's a very different feeling, once you've got the make-up on and the costume and everything, and you're on the set and all the gadgets and attachments and things, it's very easy to slip into that Borg thing. And it's also interesting again, because you're not playing yourself. You're now playing something that's totally alien from what you've been playing.

Tuvok as a Borg drone Torres and Tuvok as Borg drones [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero]

And I thought that was kind of cool. But the process of getting into it and inbetween shots and sitting around in it for a good portion of the day, that was no picnic. My sympathies and heart go out the myriad of guest stars we had who sometimes had to wear full-on body prosthetics, costumes, full-head prosthetics, for hours and hours at a time, with reams of dialogue. My heart goes out to them - the Hirogen characters, all those guys. I don't know how they did it. That is really yow! unpleasant. To be half asleep, because you haven't slept, by the time you get in that stuff and get out of it at the end of a fifteen hour day you only have a certain number of hours to get home and get to sleep and then come back and do it again. So you're exhausted for five or six days, and miserably uncomfortable on top of all that. So that is no easy task. It's not merely going to get some powder and whatever, eye liner, to do it - it's pretty intense. I have a profound understanding of what it takes.

Tim Russ in interview, talking about the Borg make-up he wore in [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero]