Could the actor even talk in the Morn costume? Was Morn never having any lines a complete bit or practical because the costume was never meant to be anything but background?
I don't think he could, at least not at first. The honest truth is that Morn/Mark Allen Shepherd was technically an extra/background actor and therefore wasn't contractually allowed to speak (or he would have cost us more money).
I think once Morn got a name, he was promoted to an SSE (a Special Skills Extra) which paid him a bit more and let us feature him. But I honestly don't know if he ever got paid as a full-on actor, which would have allowed us to give him lines and specific direction. I certainly hope so, but such things were well beyond my purview.
As an aside, Peter Allan Fields is the one who named him Morn, which he probably wasn't supposed to do, but Pete didn't give a damn. He was a POW in the Korean War at 17, and he once quit showbiz entirely to be a train conductor. Pete had zero fucks to give. God love him.
Anyway, modifying the makeup to let Morn speak lines would have been a budget issue, both because it would have probably required the make-up to be updated ($$) and because it might have upped Mark to a recurring character ($$$$), which would have ironically required using him a lot less.
But ultimately, I have no idea. If they did modify his make-up that way, it was a waste of time and money, since we were trying to keep to the constrictions of him as an SSE, which ultimately led to the "Morn is chatty as hell but only off camera" gag, which we all loved.
Much love and credit to Mark though, who suffered through a lot of make-up, delt with the restrictions of being an "extra" instead of a better paid actor, did it all without complaint, and helped create a fan favorite character!
Trivia: Mark is also an artist, and we used his work as set dressing on the show!
