Resistance is futile even when you are wearing a one inch cube on your head.
Bringing the Borg Queen to life for season 2 of Star Trek Picard was the focus of this panel. Moderated by Scott Mantz, a lifelong Star Trek fan, with senior creative designer Neville Page, head of prosthetics James MacKinnon, and the actress portraying the Borg Queen herself Annie Wersching.
In the past the Borg appear to be what occurs if “you cover yourself in Elmer’s glue and roll through a hardware store” according to Neville Page. To create the Borg Queen for Star Trek Picard season 2, the makeup and prosthetic teams worked together to find a balance between the past incarnations of the character and bringing her into a new series with a new actress and new techniques including 3D printing. The series provides a refreshed look while still respecting canon. The panelists joked that the fans would be the first to notice if they strayed too far.
To create the new Borg Queen costume and the designers had to take 3D scans of actress, Annie Wersching’s head, which they remarked is incredibly symmetrical, they used these scans to create a crown headpiece which is based on historic crowns from royalty. This was finished off with creating a skin treatment to blend what’s actress and what’s prosthetic.
In addition to being a living bust for designers to create a headpiece as well as other prosthetics, actress Annie Wersching studied for the part, including watching any Star Trek episode or movie which contained the Borg.
This panel was an amazing look into what happens behind the scenes to bring characters to life, as well as update and renew without losing the fundamental idea behind one of the most iconic Star Trek villains.
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