Early work at the 2012
Phoenix Comicon Sirtis started her career as a member of the repertory company at the
Connaught Theatre,
Worthing, West Sussex, in 1976. Directed by Nic Young, she appeared in
Joe Orton's
What the Butler Saw and as Ophelia in
Hamlet. Before her role in
Star Trek, Sirtis was featured in supporting roles in several films. In the 1983
Faye Dunaway film
The Wicked Lady, she engaged in a whip fight with Dunaway. In the
Charles Bronson sequel
Death Wish 3 (1985), Sirtis' character is a rape victim. In the 1984 film
Blind Date, she appears as a prostitute who is murdered by a madman. Other early works include numerous guest-starring roles on British television series. Sirtis appeared in
Raffles (1977),
Who Pays the Ferryman (1977),
Hazell (1978),
Minder (1979),
Up the Elephant and Round the Castle (1985), and
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986). She also played the flight attendant in a 1979
Cinzano Bianco television commercial starring
Leonard Rossiter and
Joan Collins, in which Collins was splattered with drink.
Star Trek Star Trek: The Next Generation In 1986, Sirtis relocated to the United States. When casting
Star Trek: The Next Generation,
Gene Roddenberry was inspired to ask Sirtis, whose appearance he considered "exotic", to audition for a role after seeing the film
Aliens with
Bob Justman, which featured the prominent
Latina character Vasquez, played by
Jenette Goldstein. Sirtis appeared in all seven seasons of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, and her character was developed from a more passive therapist to a tougher Starfleet officer. She has stated her favourite episode is season six's "
Face of the Enemy", in which she is kidnapped and surgically altered to pose as a
Romulan. Troi's switching to a standard
Starfleet uniform in the same season in "
Chain of Command" elevated the character's dignity in Sirtis' eyes, and her enthusiasm in playing her, with Sirtis commenting, "It covered up my cleavage and, consequently, I got all my brains back, because when you have a cleavage you can't have brains in Hollywood. So I got all my brains back and I was allowed to do things that I hadn't been allowed to do for five or six years. I went on away teams, I was in charge of staff, I had my pips back, I had phasers, I had all the equipment again, and it was fabulous. I was absolutely thrilled." Her own eyes are
light brown. She usually wore hairpieces for her role as Troi. Sirtis' real hair was slightly shorter and, although curly, was not as bouffant as her character's. However, Sirtis' real hair was used in the pilot episode, and also in the first six episodes of season six, in which Troi sported a more natural looking pony-tailed style. She was also asked to create an accent (described as a mixture of Eastern European and
Israeli) Sirtis stated of her role in
Star Trek: Nemesis, "I sort of had an inkling that I was going to have a good part in this film because John Logan was such a big fan of the character. So I knew that he would do her some justice." Sirtis also appeared in
Star Trek: Voyager for three episodes toward the end of the series (1999 and 2000), and the series finale of
Star Trek: Enterprise (2005). In 2020, Sirtis reprised her role as Deanna Troi in the
Star Trek: Picard episode "Nepenthe". She provided her voice for a number of episodes from 2011 until its cancellation in 2013. In March 2011, Sirtis guest-starred on an episode of ''
Grey's Anatomy''. She played an Iranian mother who was at the hospital to participate in a medical trial for
Alzheimer's disease. The same year, she played a fortune teller in the
Castlevania fan-made series posted on YouTube. She accepted a recurring role as director of
Mossad on
NCIS. Her character, Orli Elbaz, succeeds Eli David (portrayed by
Michael Nouri) and was introduced in the
season-10 episode "
Berlin", which aired in April 2013. She subsequently appeared in the second episode of season 11, which aired in early October 2013, and in the
season 13 finale "Family First". er at
Wizard World Des Moines 2017 In 2014, she co-starred in the SyFy channel horror film
Finders Keepers. The following year, she appeared in the British film
A Dark Reflection, and in 2016, Sirtis starred in the Hallmark Channel film
My Summer Prince. In 2019, Sirtis made her London
West End stage debut in
Dark Sublime, playing the character of Marianne, a freelance actor and now-forgotten icon of a British sci-fi TV show, whose encounter with a fan changes both of their lives. In 2019, the video game
Elite Dangerous released an alternative voice (named Carina) for the 'COVAS' in-game ship computer, voiced by Sirtis. She also played a school teacher in Season 3 of Seth MacFarlane’s
The Orville. ==Personal life==