Star Trek Actress Reveals Studio Tried to Cast Jeri Ryan in Her Role
That would just be wrong.
Posted by Michileen Martin | Published
If you’ve seen the last pre-Kelvin timeline Star Trek film, 2002 Star Trek: Nemesisthen you may remember that Kate Mulgrew had a cameo in the film as Admiral Kathryn Janeway. This happened narratively because it was the first film in the franchise after the series finale Star Trek: Voyager brought unknown workers home to Earth. What you may know is that Paramount used this situation to try to replace it Star Trek: The Next Generation Marina Sirtis and Jeri Ryan, or force him to take a pay cut.
This Paramount trick was first revealed at the 2017 Star Trek Las Vegas event. That year, the meeting ended with a TNG reunion. One question from a fan got Marina Sirtis fired up enough to talk about something she had never opened up about publicly.
A fan asked why they keep hearing A journey female players talk about difficult contract negotiations, but never hear the same stories from men. Sirtis responded, “Women are paid less than men in Hollywood, just like everywhere else.”
Sirtis followed suit with the studio trying to replace him. “When I was negotiating Nemesis they threatened to fire me and cast Troi again, not really, but they said ‘We’re going to fire you and hire Jeri Ryan.’ And I said ‘Well Jeri Ryan won’t make that money for you, that’s for sure.'”
Aspects of Sirtis’ story were confirmed long before he told it. In 2011, Jeri Ryan said she refused a subpoena Star Trek: Nemesis. In 2014, Ryan expanded on the story, saying A journey Producer Rick Berman was contacted by Paramount Studios, who reportedly insisted on Jeri Ryan’s inclusion. Nemesis.
When asked how Ryan would fit into the film, Paramount replied, “Well, we’re going to replace one of the characters with Seven. Now we know the character was Deanna Troi.”
One interesting thing to note is that, among the four Star Trek movies where Marina Sirtis appears, Nemesis that is where his character is most important. Deanna Troi is married to Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) at the beginning of the film. Later, he is mentally attacked by the Reman Viceroy (Ron Perlman) and is later able to use this against the criminals.
Currently, in RebellionHis biggest contribution is the love episode with Riker. In First Contacthe is seen getting drunk with Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell), and offers Picard (Patrick Stewart) a brief counseling session Generations.
It’s not just that Marina was going to play a big role Star Trek: Nemesis it made it more difficult to replace her with Jeri Ryan’s Seven, but it’s not unreasonable to speculate this may be why Sirtis is asking for more compensation. He had a big part, so he deserved more money.
Nemesis it is still widely considered one of the worst films ever Star Trek franchise. Although we can’t imagine Deanna Troi inexplicably disappearing and being replaced by Seven of Nine (especially considering Picard’s history with the Borg) it would make it better.
