Thanks to Melissa J Perenson/Cult Times Magazine, September 1998 Issue.
 | Why? “I felt like I couldn't
make any decisions out of fear. And if I was afraid, then I would stay for one more year
of security. I thought I just can't do that...After six years, I didn't flat leave the
show. I didn't screw anybody over. It's the end of my contract. Time to move on.”
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| True to yourself : “You can't expect the writers to flesh out
every character when you've got nine regulars and then you've got recurring characters
that are really like regulars. They're doing the best they can. One more year, it was just
going to be the same stuff. I didn't have someone calling me and saying we've got this
great idea for Dax....when it comes down to it, it's a job to you and it's a job to
entertain people. And if you aren't feeling like you can come up with new stuff, it's time
to do something different, so you're not playing it into the ground. It's like to be true
to your audience is to be true to yourself, too.”
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| Goodbye : “You don't think of your character affecting
everybody. It's always everybody else's character. You know what I mean I didn't realise
how emotional it was going to be for me, saying goodbye to the fans. And certainly, not
how emotional it was for them.”
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| "Emissary" : “The first day that I read was the
Friday before the Tuesday they were starting. And I think it was a couple of weeks after
that I got hired, I felt from the description of Dax and all of her past lifetimes that it
would be an incredible challenge, and I really needed that kind of challenge. I needed to
grow as an actress and I felt like Dax would really help me to do so.”
“The most difficult thing was that once I was hired, is that I had a lot of testing
for my make-up. The original make-up didn't work out. We'd already shot a couple days with
it and they decided it just made me look ugly. It was a forehead. Then we had to test
another week or so and I was really exhausted. I couldn't sleep. I was so excited about
all of this and really nervous about being able to do it right. By the time we shot my
stuff, it was the last week of the pilot and I had bronchitis. What you see of me in the
pilot, I was sick and nervous. I remember people rolling their eyes when I didn't get a
line right, and it was very discouraging. I had a lot to get over. I felt like I was in
school and it was like, ugh, the new kid. The one without the theatre experience.”
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| In the Beginning : “It was just so huge and everything was so
solid. It was trippy. I remember sitting at my station thinking ‘I wonder what it's
going to feel like six years from now sitting here?’ The ironic thing is, I think I
was hardly at Ops after the first three seasons. After we got the Defiant it was like we
were never in Ops. My science office got blown up!”
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| Playing Jadzia Dax : “Having to play her actually reflected
on who I have become after six years, really a lot more than what I did for her. If I did
something for her, I think it would be my energy, I made Dax up partly of me and partly of
them writing it in. It's very hard for me to sit still. Not using my hands when I talked,
that was difficult. So I would hold onto them behind my back. Every time I would do that I
was holding onto my hands, trying to remember my technobabble." Terry was also
responsible for injecting much of the sarcastic humour that Dax became noted for. The
producers originally wanted her to play the role straight, but eventually, they took her
cue on this and began writing the character that way.
“I didn't know what it was like to learn monologues of technobabble at the last
minute. And that really was quite stressful in the very beginning. No one really warned me
about the technobabble and the grandness of it. Then they stopped writing so much for me.
The first season everything was brand new. After a couple of years, it becomes second
nature. So maybe the pronunciation of a new word or a new alien wouldn't be the most
difficult thing. It's just amazing how once you get immersed in this world, those kind of
things aren't as difficult as they seemed.”
“It's just amazing how much you can learn and you don't even realise you're doing it.
You get re ally good at winging it, because you don't have a lot of rehearsal time. Six
years later, I certainly learned to do my best and if somebody threw a scene a me the
morning before I had to do it, I could do it. I couldn't have done that in the first
season.”
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| Working with the same people for six years : “It's an
extraordinary thing in this business. You don't usually get to have that opportunity to
work for the same people. I am grateful for every moment with the crew and the actors.
Everyone on that show who helped shape who I am today, helped make me a better person and
inspired me to continue to want to be the best I can be.”
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| The pace of working on DS9 : “It never changed. There's only
so much time. The first couple of years it was even rougher because then I'd be there at
four, four-thirty. Later, I'd get up a four, be there at five. The last year, I have to
admit, they tried to squish it tighter. But it still took me two hours to get ready,
really, because I wore a wig.” (The days were long, a minimum of 14 hours, and more
likely 16-18 hours.)
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| Her and Nana played strong women : “I think that it lent
itself to a sense of camaraderie, that we were both really proud that we had the
opportunity to play strong women. For me, in particular, I was really proud that Dax was
strong, but she wasn't a bitch. I got to play the strength, without being mean about it.
And I think we both had strength for different reasons. Nana's character has an anger to
get over about the rebellion that she went through. Mine didn't come from anger; Dax's
strength came from a sense of knowing who she was and there was a frustration to figure
that out when she got the worm and had to separate all the different personalities
herself.”
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| Getting to know Jadzia : “They never gave me a throughline,
so each script had a little piece of information about her. That's how I got to know the
character, I just got relaxed with not knowing. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but I
think it must have been after somewhere in the second season, maybe the third, where I
really got comfortable with her.”
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| Tobin : “Rather than always talking about old stories, I
would have liked to have seen when I was Tobin Dax, so that people see me as Tobin, but to
the audience I still look like me. That way, I could experience playing the other parts of
Dax, the other lifetimes.”
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| Memorable DS9 Episodes and relationships on/off screen :
 | Jadzia and Worf :
“I really liked that relationship. And I'm very proud that race wasn't an issue when
she married Worf...” (she says pointedly. It didn't hurt that she and Dorn got on
famously off-camera.) “..He's a very good friend of mine, so it was great. We could
be in an argument and then still work together and apologise by the end of the day. Like a
brother and a sister. I'll miss Michael.”
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| “Rejoined” : “That was challenging, because I got
to explore Dax's sexuality because of the duality of living in a man's body and a woman's
body several times over and over again, It was very exciting because it was something the
studio fought to tell that story.”
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| “Blood Oath” : “In a general sense, whenever I got
to display protecting other people, I really liked how that felt, saving somebody else,
Putting their life above mine because I'd lived 350 years and they were all babies to my
character.”
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| “Fascination” : “...was goofy. and farcical and
just short of insanity.”
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|  “Tears of the Prophets” : “It was
very emotional and I tried to be very centred and together when I was at work, I also
tried to be supportive of everybody else, because the crew didn't believe I was leaving,
either. Neither did the actors, until the episode came out on paper.” (Terry
reportedly snapped some photos of the crew/cast before leaving). “The crew signed
this kind of big cardboard thing for me that said, `We're going to miss you'. That was
great. But, what am I going to ask for? A communicator that doesn't work?”
(postulates jokingly.) “I'm never going to wear the outfit again, and I'm certainly
not going to wear it for Halloween. Besides,” (laughs) “...Paramount owns my
likeness like that, so legally I cannot go dressed as Dax for Halloween.”
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| Director LeVar Burton : “LeVar is amazing. I mean, not just
as a director, but as a human being. He is generous and spiritual and so centred and
grounded. He sets a great tone on the set. Like big daddy’s there. He's right there
with you in the trenches. He doesn't tell you to do things; you want to do them for him.
He's the biggest influence, I think, on me, personally. Because I really respect him as a
human being.”
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| Director David Livingston : “David and I had an interesting
relationship in the beginning. I mean, it was sort of touchy, but then, I'm sort of
confrontational. If I have a problem with something, I'll say something. That's one of the
best things I learned while I was on the show, having the experience of being able to say,
`You know what? No. I don't understand why.' And not be afraid to question what's going
on. Anyway, there's a good example of having a relationship come full circle and being
able to really have a good relationship with somebody. David did my wedding episode and the episode where I almost died. So it was a great joy to get to
work with him. We really understood each other and it was really great. It went from not
understanding him - as much my fault as anyone's - to really looking forward to working
with him because he's a perfectionist.”
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|
| Not enough fighting in Season Six : "I didn't have a lot of
emotional scenes, They didn't give me a lot to really sink my teeth into in that
direction. But with fighting, it felt really like it was fun. The last season, I didn't
have any fight scenes and I kind of missed that a lot, It's fun, like a dance with
choreography. You're working with people and you're all doing it together and if there's
one person who's not doing it right you have to practice it again until everybody gets it.
I think there's an element of fun to that too, because it makes it more like a team sport,
kind of, doing action sequences."
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| Feedback from the fans when she announced that she was leaving :
“That was an incredible moment in my life. I was really surprised, really genuinely
shocked and had no idea. Nobody believed I was really going to go.”
|
|  Working on “Becker” (a mid-season replacement series
with Ted Danson) “I'd thought half hour would be so great. I didn't want to star in
it, I wanted somebody else to star in it so I can learn from them. With that lifestyle, I
could see my family, I could have fun doing my work, and I'd work every day. I mean, I
love Dax, I think she's great. But I don't want to, for nine and a half months, get only
14 days of work where I feel like I'm working. I like to work. I love work. And that's why
I like the idea of a half-hour show. I know they're going to need me at work. I like that.
It makes me feel good.”
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| Becker rehearsal : “You get time to rehearse, you get to do
the thing that I missed so much with Deep Space (Nine) - rehearsal and really trying to
find the performance and make it the best you can make it. It's extraordinary. We did the
pilot and it was so much fun. Ted was so generous. He's so nice and has such a talent for
making you feel comfortable.”
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| Jadzia could be back : “Dax hasn't died, Jadzia has.
But you know... When I realised that a new actor can't play the same character that I
played, I thought, `put the worm wherever you want it.’” (Meanwhile, don't rule
out a possible final appearance by Farrell as Deep Space Nine approaches its series finale
this season; Farrell has made a standing offer to DSN executive producer Ira Steven Behr
to do so.)
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| Six years at DS9 : “I'm so grateful for the experience, I
feel like I've grown as an actress and I feel like I have so much more to learn. I'm so
grateful that I got the chance to play a character that was so multi-dimensional. I'm
trying to stay with not making any choices out of fear. I feel like I know myself so much
better.”
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