Catching Up With Voyager Guest Virginia Madsen
•• What actress who guest starred on Star Trek: Voyager went on to earn an Oscar nomination? That’d be Virginia Madsen, who played Kellin in the fourth-season episode “Unforgettable” and notched a Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2004 for her performance in the film Sideways. The actress is also something of a genre veteran, with sci-fi and horror credits that include Electric Dreams, Dune, Highlander 2, Candyman, The Prophecy, The Haunting in Connecticut, Red Riding Hood, The Event and more. Madsen recently attended her first Star Trek convention, taking to the stage and meeting fans at her table during Creation Entertainment’s Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas last month. The chatty and ageless Madsen invited StarTrek.com to hang out at her table for a while to talk, and we took her up on the opportunity. Here’s what she had to say.
-How did you land your Voyager guest shot?
Madsen: I was begging to do it. I seriously had people calling them. I wasn’t working very much at all then. That was a really low time in my career and they just treated me like I was a star. It was just wonderful. I think I had two or three people who represent me call them and say, “She’s really serious and she’s a huge Star Trek fan.” I went in to meet with the producers and they said, “We’ve got one episode left and it’s a love story.” I’m getting chills now just thinking about it. I said, “Please, I’d love to be a part of this. I know this sounds terrible, but I just want to have a weird pig nose or anything.” I wanted to be a classic Star Trek beautiful alien. They said, “Don’t worry. However, you do have ears. They’re like Vulcan ears, but they have two things.” I was like, “Yes! Excellent.”
-You had some insane call time to set, didn’t you?
Madsen: Yes! It was my earliest call time ever. It was 2:43 a.m., and it was to put on the ears. I slept because I had to be on the set at 6 a.m.
-How was the shoot?
Madsen: Just as a fan, it was awesome because I got to be on the bridge during a battle scene, and we all had to do the lean. I wondered if they had some kind of light that the cast had to follow or if they had some high-tech thing, but it was just a dude with a broomstick behind the camera going, “This way, that way.” That was so much fun, and they loved doing it, too. Kate Mulgrew was like (in spot-on Mulgrew voice), “Oh, you have to be in a battle.” I got to beam in and out. I got to be in sickbay. I had my own quarters. I had a phaser. I got phasered on stun. I was in a Jefferies Tube. You’ve got to be a Trekker to know what that is. They cut that scene out, but I was there. And I had a romance. Continue Reading
