Jeri: Fun will now commence.
I'm Jeri Ryan I play Seven of Nine, again (laughs), sorry.
My first point of contact with Star Trek was when my agent,
twenty however many years ago, called to say that the
audition's coming through and I showed go and read for it.
And I passed and she said,
okay passed then you came back through again
and I passed and then the casting director called her
and said okay she really should look at this,
it's really something special.
And so I read the scenes and there were two scenes,
one of which was the you know infamous
Harry Kim take off your clothes,
blah blah blah blah blah scene that I've always hated.
And the other one that we never ended up shooting
was one of the most beautifully written scene
I've ever seen for any audition, before or since.
And it was a scene of Seven I think she was with Chakotay,
having her first memories of laughter.
And it was so beautiful and I say what the potential
for this character could be
and the growth that she could have.
And based on that scene I went in and the rest is history.
Stepping on set was very surreal for a lot of reasons.
Being back in this character but so very different
from the last time that I played her was a little scary
and I a little until you sort of find her feet
and find her voice again.
And the hardest one to shoot was the first one
that I had to do on Picard as Seven again.
Because I was struggling to find okay how does she move now?
And how does she, where's her voice,
because she's so different after seventeen years.
And so I was so so grateful that Jonathan Frakes
was directing my first couple episodes.
Because I love him to begin with and he's a wonderful
director who I've gotten to work with before on Leverage.
And he's a dear friend and I knew that he wouldn't
steer me wrong so I knew that he would (chuckles),
drag me back if I was in danger
of looking like a complete idiot.
And it was great and it didn't take long at all
to feel like okay there she is,
now I've got her figured out I think.
But it was pretty tough getting ready to shoot it
and walking in there for the first shot.