Nana Visitor has secured her place in TV history after playing Major Kira Nerys in seven seasons of Star Trek ‘Deep Space Nine’.
The role of the former freedom fighter from the planet Bajor allowed Visitor to play a tough woman, a rare opportunity on television in the ’90s, but this actress has done so many other interesting things outside the world of Star Trek.
Visitor is in Perth this weekend for the Oz Comic Con which takes over the Perth Convention Centre this weekend. When we meet up the star of stage and screen is instantly recognisable and looks strikingly attractive and fresh, even though she only arrived in Australia a few hours earlier.
I suggest we start our chat at the obvious place, and then surprise her by asking what it was like working on the early ’90s comedy series ‘Working Girl’. Visitor breaks out into a enormous laugh and retorts “It’s so, not obvious,” she chuckled.
Visitor’s first big break into the television world was a TV sit-com based on the successful Melanie Griffith film of the same name. The film followed a secretary, Tess McGill who broke out of her role as a secretary to climb the corporate ladder. The TV show picked up where the movie ended with McGill had just got a job as an executive in a new firm. In the TV series Visitor plated Tess’ new boss. Melanie Griffith’s role was played by a then unknown Sandra Bullock.
“They just dragged me out for an interview recently,” said Visitor, “They were doing a series on ‘Where Were They Then’ on all the people who were up for Oscars this year and they were asking ‘What was Sandra Bullock like back in the day?’
Visitor is full of praise for her former co-star “She is the most genuinely wonderful person I have ever met.”
The series didn’t prove to be a breakthrough for either actress, it was cancelled after 12 episodes were filmed and only 8 made it air in the USA. Visitor would have to wait another three years when ‘Star Trek Deep Space Nine’ came around and Bullock would get her big break the following year when she signed up for the action film ‘Speed’.
The actress said back in those day you’d sign up for a project expecting it to fail. “You’d sign up for so many pilots, at least that was my experience.”, said Visitor, “you go in for one job after another hoping one would hit and expecting them not to.”
Even when she signed on for the mega franchise show, Visitor said the thought that unemployment was just around the corner never left her. “Every year I’d think, ‘Oh God please let us have another year.'”
Visitor says her Broadway upbringing prepared her well for the world of television. She said that Broadway taught her that actors are always looking for another job.
As soon as ‘Deep Space Nine’ was on television Major Kira attracted a large lesbian fan base, something Visitor said she was well aware of.
“I meet women who the character spoke to,” said Visitor, “it’s hard to imagine these days, but twenty years ago there were not a lot of character on TV who women could look to and realise that ‘it’s OK for me to make mistakes’, a character who struggled with things to be strong and to have a warrior instinct. That character gave comfort to a lot of women.”
Visitor admits that she still regularly thinks of Major Kira. While she knows the character has had a future in the Star Trek books, Visitors likes to think that an older and wiser Major Kira is still commanding Deep Space Nine.
Since Star Trek finished Nana Visitor has had a busy career, she’s balanced appearing on many different TV shows with a healthy stage career. Growing up in a Broadway family Visitor said that she was surrounding by actors and dancers her while life. Vistors’ father was a choreographer and her mother was a dance teacher. Her aunt is the famous dancer Cyd Charisse.
“At the dinner table we talked about theatre, my parents would get into arguments about the dynamics of a pirouette. They’d get up and be demonstrating. In our household dance was something everybody did.”
A few years ago Visitor played the lead role in the musical ‘Chicago’ on Broadway and toured across the United States. During the production she met her husband who was the company manager. Visitor says her dream role is a musical one, she’d really like to do the musical ‘Sweeney Todd’. Visitor’s not interested in lead actress part of Mrs Lovett though, she’d like to play Sweeney Todd himself.
Visitor enjoys the convention appearances that let her meet the fans of the shows she’s been in. She reveals that the common questions fan ask her are which episode was her favourite, (it was ‘Duet’) and there’s always a lot of questions about the process of creating the prosthetic nose she had to wear for seven years. While many actors might have come to resent spending 90 minutes each morning in the make up chair, Visitor loved the experience.
“I love it, I actually preferred looking at my face with the nose on that without it, I know that’s a little weird, but I did love it!”
