5. Famke Janssen As Jadzia Dax
Back when they were developing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the producers were attempting to create character dynamics. Now, the main female to female dynamic was to have been the relationship between Ro Laren and Melora. Who? Well, she was the original science officer on the station the idea eventually being recycled to appear in a second series episode. Famke Janssen had appeared previously in Star Trek: The Next Generation in the episode The Perfect Mate, as Kamala an empathy who bonds with Captain Picard during the course of the episode. The Trill also made their first appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but looked different to how they would appear in Deep Space Nine. They originally had some facial bumps and the spots were completely absent. The reason why I mention Janssen as Kamala, is because the look of the Trill in Deep Space Nine onwards actually was based on the make-up that Janssen wore in The Perfect Mate. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that when the producers created the Dax character, they offered the role to Janssen. She turned it down, saying that she didn't want to be tied to a main cast role on television. You can figure that this ended up being a good choice for Janssen's career. Deep Space Nine started in 1993. Two years later GoldenEye was released, starring Janssen as Xenia Onatopp. It was her breakout role in Hollywood and much of her later success can be attributed to this. She eventually did appear in some television roles, including 15 episodes of Nip/Tuck, but mainly stayed in films. Of course she's well known now for playing Jean Grey in the X-Men films... and although the character may have died, she's continued to play her afterwards in The Wolverine and as all comic book readers know Jean Grey has an annoying habit of coming back to life. So I'm sure we'll see Janssen again in that role. But how would the character of Dax been changed if Janssen got the role? We'll never know for sure. But my guess is that it would have been pretty much as it was they would have completely ignored the earlier Kamala work. The reason I think this is simple when they cast Robert Duncan McNeil as Tom Paris in Star Trek: Voyager, they based the character on his earlier appearance as Nick Locarno in The Next Generation. But changed the character almost completely once they found out it would have required ongoing payments to the original writer who created Locarno. They would have found themselves in a similar position with Kamala, and so Janssen would have ended up playing Jadzia Dax with characterisation very similar to the version played by Terry Farrell.