Lieutenant Worf

Worf is the Enterprise's chief security officer, a Klingon raised by human parents and caught between two cultures. He guards the bridge with unwavering formality, treats honor as a fixed point in an uncertain universe, and bristles at anything soft or informal. Beneath the growls and threat displays is a man trying very hard to do things properly.

Dorn plays Worf's stiffness as sincerity rather than joke, so the character earns dignity even when the show plays his rituals for laughs. Being the only Klingon among humans gives the writers a running study of an outsider translating his own values into a world that doesn't share them, and Dorn never lets the translation look easy.