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With otherworldly beauty, brains, and firearms skills, Jeri Ryan has brought a welcome new dimension to Star Trek: Voyager that starts with "s" and ends with "x." Paul Semel sets his phaser to "flirt."
I am completely transfixed.
"They're beautiful," I think to myself, "utterly perfect." Though partially
obscured, I can still see them, and I'm staring like a school boy. finally, I
work up the nerve to say something about them, only to be crushed when she
admits, dear god, that they don't work all that well. "Yeah, I'm blind,"
she says, batting her eyelashes behind her sunglasses. "I'm really bad. And it's
getting worse. I'm so blind without my contacts it's not even funny."
It's hard not to get transfixed by Jeri Ryan,
the strikingly gorgeous woman who -- for those of you who've been on Mars --
plays the part-Borg/part-human Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager.
Besides her big, intoxicatingly beautiful eyes, Jeri has full, round lips, and
engaging smile, and a body that would make a comic book heroine jealous. Even
the way she eats is sexy, opening her mouth wide and slowly closing her lips
around her fork.
But Jeri's more than just a
pretty face. She's got spunk, this one. When I preface our breakfast at Kate
Mantilini in Beverly Hills by warning her of my tendency to flirt during
interviews, she grins and tells me, "I won't smack you, I promise. I'll probably
flirt back."
Which she does. And not just with
some cheap double entendres -- she's not the one racking her brain for a crude
"tribble" euphemism. Behind those eyes is the swift and fully functioning brain
of a National Merit Scholar, one that harbors a wicked sense of humor that
repeatedly erupts in a devilish laugh. Instead of making dumb jokes about the
size of someone's photon torpedoes, her banter is mart and playfully sarcastic.
A couple days after our interview, for example, I visited the set of
Voyager to watch her rehearse. Later, when I tell her about the visit,
and make fun of the bathrobe she wears over her uniform, she jokingly admonishes
me for not saying hello, then asks what I thought of her big, floppy slippers.
Beneath all that, however, there's a nurturing
compassion, a sense that she genuinely cares about the people she meets, the
obvious product of a heart that's as big as, well, her eyes. In short, she's the
kind of woman you could easily fall in love with, even though you know she'd
never go out with someone like you.
Like a lot of actors who get to wear
Starfleet uniforms or run around spouting Klingonese, Jeri Ryan seemed to
just beam to Earth from some far-off planet where people don't mind spouting
techno-babble like it makes any sense. But Jeri had a whole life before she met
you, and since being born in Munich, Germany, has actually lived in a number of
the 50 states, including Hawaii, Kentucky, and Illinois. "I was an army brat,"
she says of her gypsy-like formative years. "Dad was in the army for almost 30
years." Which explains where Jeri got her firm handshake, though it's actually
not the reason she's (and I'm not kidding here) proficient with firearms.
"That I actually learned from Dark
Skies," she explains, referring to the X-Files-esque show she
appeared on before Voyager. "I love it, shooting all the guns. I shot
M16s, and 45s, and 22s."
She does not,
however, have the same enthusiasm for the weapons on Star Trek. "I
hate the phasers," she growls. "They're so anticlimactic. It's really
depressing. I was so excited last season because I had this episode where they
gave me this big phaser rifle and told me to come out of the turbo lift and
shoot these guys. So I walk out of the turbo lift and I'm like 'ugh, ugh, ugh'
(acts like she's shooting people). But they were like, 'Uh, no, it's a
phaser, there's no kickback.' I just went, 'Aw, come on, you can't even pretend
there's a little kickback?'" she says, whining. "I was so upset, because I love
it, there's just a big adrenaline rush when you shoot these guns. They created a
monster on Dark Skies, I was like 'I'm gonna join the NRA! This is
great!'" she says, now yelling.
"Sorry, I get
a little excited when I talk about firearms."
Guns, however, aren't the only things that
make this woman happy. "I love to cook," she enthuses, setting down her
swimming-pool sized latte. "I love food. I love deserts, I love pies. I love
everything about it. I love going to the grocery story, and that's a luxury that
I actually miss, I don't get to do that much anymore. I just love going to the
grocery store and standing in the produce section, fondling all the vegetables.
Which is kind of an unappealing thought if you're the next person in line
(laughs). But I can kill three hours in a grocery store, easily."
Not being able to hang with the veggies, Jeri
says, is a fair trade for being able to work, since she really enjoys her gig as
an actor. Well, usually. Though she has no bad memories of playing Lucy in
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when she was 13 or 14 -- "It was kind of
fun, actually" -- there are some roles she'd rather not remember. "I
guest-starred on a lot of sticoms," she sighs, "but nothing really good. My
first one was Who's the Boss, which still reruns ever week. It haunts me,
the stupid show will not die."
Enduring
a few moments with Tony Danza eventually paid off, first with that role on
Dark Skies and later with Voyager. True to form, though, Jeri got
both roles without being a big sci-fi fan. "I was aware of Star Trek,"
she says. "You can't be born in this century without knowing about it. But I
just never watched it. That's the irony of it: I never watch science fiction,
but I'm the designated sci-fi pinch hitter. I was brought in mid-season on
Dark Skies, third season on Voyager..."
Being the new kid isn't always easy, Jeri
says. "Because my character was so new, she was, at the very least, the B
storyline in every script. Partially out of necessity, 'cause they have to tie
the character into all the other characters. But also, to be honest, because
this was something the writers were excited about 'cause they'd been writing the
same characters for years. Things have sort of normalized this season, though,
which makes it a lot easier."
Well, sort of.
Joining the Trek universe is never easy, it's been said, thanks to the
near religious fanaticism of the people who watch those shows. Which is why,
despite anyone's best efforts, Jeri wasn't totally prepared for what she was
getting herself into.
"[Executive Producer]
Rick Berman gave me the single most accurate glimpse of what was to come that I
got from anyone," she says. "'You're getting on a freight train, and you have no
idea how fast you're going until you're on it.' And I didn't really realize it
at the time, but that's so accurate.
"Star
Trek is this whole world unto itself," she continues. "And I knew that, sort
of, going in. But I didn't realize to what extent to which this universe ...
It's big, it's really big, and that I was not prepared for. I also
didn't know what a big deal the introduction of this character was within
Star Trek. I didn't know that this was the first time in the history of
Star Trek that they've added a new character in the middle of a show.
"Actually, it was probably good that I didn't
know that."
Even so, nothing could prepare
Jeri for the ultimate horror: becoming an action figure. "this whole thing is
weird," she laughs, "but the action figure thing is surreal. There's one out now
-- it's not even an action figure, it's a statuette -- and when they showed it
to me, I was trying so hard to look pleased, but it was just the strangest thing
I've ever experienced.
It's easy, almost too easy, to fixate on
Jeri's looks. Unless you're Jeri, in which case you didn't think much of
them growing up. That isn't to say she insults anyone's intelligence by claiming
to be an ugly child. ("I went through my phases," she says. "I was a really cute
little kid, but then I hit prepubescence, which wasn't a great look. But I was
okay.") Still, Jeri wasn't always aware of how good looking she was, nor was she
always aware of the awesome power those looks can wield.
"I was really naive like until I was in
college," she admits, slicing into what has to be the thickest piece of French
toast in the known universe. "I was very oblivious to the fact that I wasn't
everybody's little sister. I've always had more guy friends than girl friends,
so it never occurred to me that there would be the complication of physical
attraction because I just figured I was everybody's buddy, I was one
of the guys.
"But in college I did a bit
part, which got cut, in Planes, Trains & Automobiles. I didn't know
what was going on. And one of the crew guys, who was my buddy, asked me to come
over for a drink later, and I was like 'Sure, whatever.' So I go over to his
room, and he asks me if he can have a back rub. And I'm looking at him, 'This is
a little weird, but okay.' But then he asked if he could kiss me, and I just
freaked out, 'Wha wha what do you mean?' And I'm sure he was like, 'How
stupid could she possibly be?' But I was! I was absolutely stunned when
he tried to kiss me, stunned. It was kind of a rude awakening."
Which is why Jeri never, ever uses her looks
to get what she wants. "No," she grins, adjusting the unbuttoned sweater that
only half-covers a see-through shirt and black bra, "never."
Though sexy, her breakfast attire isn't the
most revealing outfit Jeri's been known to wear. On the show, her uniform is
actually a skin-tight number that leaves nothing, and I mean nothing, to even
the most naive of imaginations. Jeri finds this quite funny, if only because
when I ask what she wears underneath, she gets to reply in a seductive voice,
"What do you think I wear under that thing?" before erupting into a fit
of giggles.
"There's a corset that goes under
that thing," she explains when she stops laughing. "Because the fabric is so
tight, you can't wear conventional undergarments or they would show. I mean,
this costume really is a marvel of engineering. You wouldn't think so, because
it looks pretty straightforward..."
It looks
sprayed on," I say.
"Well, yeah, it does," she
laughs, "It looks like body paint. It's really unbelievable to me, I've never
seen anything so intricate before. Literally, literally, every inch they
would take another measurement. It's that detailed. They wanted it to look like
skin, essentially, so they made it so there's two distinct breasts, and you see
the curves, things like that."
Of course, some
women aren't confident enough to walk around a starship in an outfit that would
get you arrested in 45 states. Though Jeri didn't freak out the first time she
saw it, she hasn't been asking to borrow the thing on weekends either. "I didn't
have a problem with it per se," she says, "except for the normal neurosis: Who
wants to actually walk around looking like you're wearing skin? 'Cause I'm not
quite that enormously comfortable with my body, or I wasn't at the time. I've
gotten substantially less self-conscious in the last year and a half, let me
tell you."
The outfit was actually indicative
on what could've been a larger problem. The producers of Voyager have
always been rather open about the fact that her character Seven of Nine was
written into the show, in large part, as an object of sexual desire. This had
some people -- including Jeri -- worried that Seven was going to be a space
slut, with Voyager mutating into an intergalactic Danielle Steel novel.
Which is why Jeri almost didn't audition.
"I
was very ambivalent about taking this role," she reveals. "I didn't want to read
for it originally, and I didn't know much about Star Trek, so I didn't
know what the writing was going to be like. I had no problem with the overtly
sexual/physical appearance of this character, that honestly didn't bother me in
the character was intelligent and written well, but given that she was being
added for sex appeal, it would've been real easy that, by episode two, she's
totally human and in bed with this character, and then she's in bed with this
other character. I was very nervous about that.
"But I have to say," she adds, "they have
exceeded my best expectations. She's really been a tremendous treat to play
because she's really well-written and well-developed and very strong and very
smart, but still very Borg-like, which is what I like about her: that conflict
that she brings to the show and to the other relationships. I love that I get to
go nose-to-nose with the captain and tell her she's making stupid decisions. I
love that."
Jeri wasn't
the only one who was nervous about Seven being just a transporter tramp. "Before
the shows aired last season," she recalls, "and all anyone had seen were the
publicity photos of the bodacious silver costume, all this debate began on the
Internet. 'Oh, they're pandering to the lowest common denominator, blah blah
blah blah, Melrose Space.' And my breast size became a major topic
of conversation. But once the episodes aired, I got a lot of really nice fan
mail, mostly from women, saying, 'We were the ones making the loudest noise at
the beginning, protesting this character, but you and the character really won
us over.'
"Though there's still debate," she
notes, "as to whether I should be wearing a skin-tight outfit." It might help,
then -- as I saw during those aforementioned rehearsals -- that she's gotten
herself a spiffy new suit.
Well, not really,
but it's the thought that counts.
"It's just a
blue version of the same thing," Jeri says with a smile. "Which, I have to say,
is kind of funny because the answer to the critics who asked 'Why is she wearing
this thing?' has been that it was skin-regenerating fabric. Then it turned brown
for reasons that were never explained, though it was still assumed that it was
skin-regenerative because I wore it every day. But now they've thrown this blue
thing at me, which is obviously clothing 'cause the sleeves are different color,
and I'm alternating back and forth between the brown and the blue. I'm clearly
changing clothes at this point. So I don't know what the excuse is now. I guess
Seven just decided that the tight body suit and heels are enormously efficient."
This, Jeri tells me, is why she's still
vulnerable to the occupational hazards inherent to anyone who wears an outfit
more revealing than Marilyn Manson's autobiography. "Garrett Wang, who I call
Goober, we were rehearsing a scene where we're walking down the corridor, and
when the director said, 'Cut,' Garrett went to turn around, thinking that I was
turning around at the same time. But I didn't, and he put his hand up and
accidentally grabbed my breast. The crew was going nuts, they thought this was
the funniest thing they'd ever seen, but Garrett just freaked out, he was
so embarrassed. 'I thought it was your elbow, I thought it was your
elbow.' So I got Post-It notes and wrote 'elbow' with an arrow, and 'not an
elbow,' just in case he needed to brush up on his physiology. He's a fun one to
, um, play with."
Which, as we've discussed,
Jeri just loves (playing with people, that is). "I do. But everybody on the show
is a flirt."
Unfortunately, for both them and
anyone lucky enough to share the breakfast table with her, flirting with Jeri is
pointless. Fun, mind you, but pointless. You see, Jeri already has a special
someone with whom she can play "Ship's Captain & The Naughty Borg." The
woman is happily, frustratingly, head-over-heels in love -- with her husband.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the guy's name
is Jack Ryan. "Yeah," she jokes, "the [Tom] Clancy novels are loosely based on
his life..." Adding insult to injury, the guy actually sounds like he's cool.
"He doesn't get jealous," Jeri says when asked how Señor Ryan deals with his
wife being an object of laser lust. "He's much cooler than I would be, I would
be a wreck, I couldn't date an actor, ever."
Oh, and just so you know, she doesn't have a
twin sister. Or a cousin that looks like her. And though she says "my mom's
really hot," her parents are still married. I asked.
That Jeri has a husband isn't that big of a
deal; husbands can be "dealt with," if you know what I mean. But there's
actually a more important man in her life, one that won't be easy to eliminate.
Especially since he's rather small and spry. and four years old.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jeri's a mom. A
loving, doting mom of a four-year-old boy named Alex. It's hardly a surprise.
There's an obvious nurturing, caring side to this woman, and I'm not just saying
this because she offered me some of her bacon.
In fact, the only bad thing about Jeri being a
mom is that she's going to give her kid some impossibly high standards of
beauty. But she is, as you'd expect, aware of this and the other impacts her
status as a planetary pin-up could have on her son. Which is why you'll never
see any pictures of Jeri's, uh, "tribble."
"When he's 14," she says, "and his friends are
looking at girlie magazines, I don't want to be in them. 'Look, it's your mom.'"
"You know," I say to her, "all of his little
friends are going to be all over you anyway."
"Which is already going to be weird for him,"
she acknowledges, "so I don't want to exacerbate the situation."
Alex may have spoiled things for the rest of
us (and believe me, his friends will get back at him for that some day), but the
kid has helped his mom out at work. As has Dad.
Seven is actually based on a combination of my
son and my husband." Jeri explains. "Because she was raised as a Borg, she has
no memory of being human, no memory of emotions, everything is new to her. She's
very childlike in that way, very innocent. So I think back to when my son was
experiencing these things for the first tie and that way that affected him. Then
-- and this sounds worse than it's intended to -- the analytical, strictly
efficient, no-nonsense, Borg thing I base on my husband."
Well, that's a good enough reason to let the
guy stay in her life. I guess. Though, as Jeri reveals with that devilish grin
of hers, it seems like the kid might have other ideas.
"He's already got a girlfriend," she says.
"This little girl, very cute. When Alex walks in, she leaps to her feet and
throws her arms around him. 'Alex!'
"I've
already been replaced by another woman. Sniff."
Not a chance, babe, not a chance in this
world.
After this story went to press, we learned that Jeri had filed for divorce from her husband, Jack.
Bikini
