10 Behind The Scenes Reasons For Star Trek Characters' Quirks
5. The Cardassian Neck Trick
The Wounded introduced audiences to the Cardassians who, along with the Borg, would go on to become one of the primary antagonists in the Star Trek universe. Marc Alaimo stars as Gul Macet, the first soldier that the Federation encounter during The Next Generation. He sports distinctive make-up, designed entirely around his physique.
Alaimo has a very long neck, one that make-up artist Michael Westmoore used as inspiration for the race as a whole. He designed the neck ridges that ran from the base of his skull, sweeping down and out toward his shoulders, and every Cardassian since has featured the same look.
When Deep Space Nine rolled around and built the Cardassians into the very premise, they brought Alaimo back and re-cast him as Gul Dukat. Gone was the facial hair that he had sported during his first appearance, yet the ridges remain. Beyond the look of the Cardassians in general, Marc Alaimo's style of speech played into how Dukat was written, with his slow and methodical tone commanding any other character in the scene to operate at his pace.
This one man alone was responsible for the overall depiction of the entire Cardassian race, simply because he spoke slowly and had a long neck.