Marina Sirtis misses playing Deanna Troi and remains surprised that Star Trek Nemesis performed so poorly at the box office.

"I'd be happy if I was still playing her now," Sirtis told SFX in the new Star Trek 40th Anniversary special (via Sci Fi Pulse). "Being on Next Generation was the best experience of my life."

Though fans were highly critical of the presence of Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes (Riker) in the Enterprise finale, "These Are the Voyages...", Sirtis said that she was more concerned about how the cast must have felt about the controversial episode. "They really should have had a two–hour finale like we had," she said. "They were all lovely to work with on the set. Although, I did hear they weren’t at all happy with their show ending with what was essentially an episode of The Next Generation."

Despite her affection for Next Gen, the actress admitted that not every episode was a winner. She thinks "Masks" was rather nonsensical and called "Genesis" her personal low poinht for the series: "I was sitting in a cold bath, all latexed up as a lizard or something, thinking, 'They really don’t pay me enough for this!'"

One of the things she thinks may have weakened Nemesis with fans is that with the story so heavily focused on Picard rather than the ensemble, she's not certain Tom Hardy was the best casting choice for young Picard duplicate Shinzon. "I didn’t think Tom was at all convincing as a young Patrick," she admitted. "Don’t get me wrong – he's a great, great actor and a really lovely guy. But he didn’t look a bit like Patrick at all." She believes the producers should have cast Buffy the Vampire Slayer star James Marsters, who read for the role. "I think physically he was much more suitable for the part."

But more importantly, "I think the fans want to see the whole team in action, while that was very much Picard taking centre stage."

The full interview with Sirtis is in the new SFX. These excerpts are courtesy Sci Fi Pulse.

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