The actor explained his process on the special features for season 6 of the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” DVDs. O’Reilly recalled:
“I read the analytical scene almost as myself. You know, with a couple of head twists and stuff. And they were totally bored by that reading, I could see that there were like eleven people watching. And I went, ‘Well, I guess I’m gonna have to wake them up on the next one.’ And what I did was I just turned around and I just went [Gowron eyes] ‘Ahhhh!’ And you could see everyone just backing off, and then I went crazy.”
That was enough to get the attention of his co-star and occasional director Jonathan Frakes, one of the eleven people watching.
“Frakes sort of looked at me — and we peeled a few people off the ceiling — and I think he understood what I was doing with the character. I was making him a thinking, humorous, crazy; a lot of dimensions, not just one dimension with it. And when we got to the set he said, ‘I want you to do the eyes thing.’ And I didn’t know what he was talking about … But, when I go like this [big eyes], or if I’m doing it right, you triangulate light, and that’s what he was seeing. And when I saw it on film I went, ‘Frakes, you know what you’re doing.'”
The Gowron stare was born. Frakes knew exactly how to wield cameras and lighting to assure Gowron’s eyes would pop. It likely helped that O’Reilly’s eyes were naturally expressive, with sclerae that completely surrounded his blue iris. Jonathan Frakes directed “Reunion,” the first Gowron episode, so O’Reilly may have created the character, but Frakes had a hand in accentuating Gowron’s signature look.