Michael Dorn 'Lost It' Every Time Patrick Stewart Spoke Klingon During Picard

There are various levels of a franchise achieving pop culture iconography. It's one thing for a series to make millions at the box office or inspire people to dress up like the characters at conventions. But it's another thing entirely for a fictional language from the franchise to catch on in the zeitgeist to the point where fans start actually speaking it. 

That's precisely the case with "Star Trek." Numerous alien races have populated the series from its beginnings, but one of the more memorable species is the Klingon race, complete with their own language. While the language was alluded to in the original series, it only stood on its own, starting with the 1979 movie, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." At the start, it was just random sounds, but it wasn't long until Dr. Marc Okrand was brought on to actually develop Klingonese as its own language. 

The Klingon language still factors into the "Star Trek" mythos, including with the most recent season of "Star Trek: Picard." Worf actor Michael Dorn even said that listening to Picard actor Patrick Stewart speak the language made him crack up. 

"Star Trek: Picard" Season 3 brings back a lot of familiar faces for anyone who watched "Star Trek: The Next Generation." LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes, and Michael Dorn will return to reprise their characters from previously in the franchise. With the new season having premiered on February 16 on Paramount+, it's time for the promotion wagon to run full steam ahead, and several cast members appeared on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast to talk about their return to the "Star Trek" franchise.

Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn are joined by Frakes and Gates McFadden to discuss all things "Star Trek." During the conversation, Dorn revealed one amusing aspect among the otherwise serious production. He said, "There is one thing that always tickled me out of everything, and I don't know if you guys know this, but Patrick talking Klingon. I literally couldn't get through a scene." He goes on to say how Stewart delivered his lines in a "deadly serious" manner, to the point where he couldn't get through a scene without laughing. 

Stewart followed this up by saying that him speaking the way he did in Klingon was absolutely intentional. After all, he's speaking an alien dialect. But fans can assess for themselves how well Stewart did when new episodes of "Picard" air every Thursday on Paramount+.