Jeri Ryan Panicked When She Read Her First Star Trek: Picard Script

The return of Jeri Ryan to the Star Trek universe in Star Trek: Picard is one that’s been welcomed by fans, especially as Ryan has taken her character Seven of Nine to new places. The actress has recently commented on loving how Seven’s developed since Star Trek: Voyager and how she fits into the new CBS All Access show. However, Ryan has also revealed how she initially panicked when she received her first script for the series.

According to the actress, her decades-long absence from the role meant she needed some support from co-star Jonathan Del Arco to get back into the character, explaining the situation as so:

“Jonny saved me. I was panicking… He saved my ass, totally, because I was panicking, totally, when I finally saw the first script. And I know, for this character specifically… I had four years of playing a character that was very specific. And she went from being full Borg to meaning mostly human, but there was a lot of transition, but she was still pretty stylized and specific at the end of that four years.”

Some of the advice from Del Arco was to focus on emphasizing how much Seven of Nine is still pretending to be human in order to fit into the crew, indicating that her Borg background is still very much a part of her personality. Ryan went on to say the following:

“This is 20 years later, and when I saw the first script, not knowing a lot of or really any of the backstory yet… I panicked because I couldn’t find her voice. I couldn’t hear her in any of this dialog because it was so different. Her voice was so specific for those four years. Partly because of the character the way it was written and developed but partly also because Brannon Braga wrote or rewrote most of Seven’s dialogue over that four-year period. Not every line, but a lot of it, so it was a very specific voice. And this was so different, so much more casual and human and slangy and not Seven to me, and I panicked.”

For those not in the know, Seven of Nine was introduced to the fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager as a former Borg drone who joins the crew of the USS Voyager. Over the course of her time on the series, Ryan saw Seven of Nine develop significantly as a character, while also having to deal with a changing costume that often required a lot of hours in the makeup chair, as well as a tight-fitting costume that drew some criticism when Seven was brought onto the show.

In Star Trek: Picard, Seven of Nine, or Annika, is part of the Fenris Rangers, a peacekeeping outfit near to the Romulan Neutral Zone. Her path crosses with Picard and the La Sirena crew as part of their mission to rescue Bruce Maddox from the Freecloud planet, wherein she offers herself as a hostage to his captor Bjayzl, a black market trader. We also get to see more of Seven of Nine’s backstory and her motivation for a violent act of revenge in the series. It’s as yet unclear whether Ryan will be back for more episodes this season, but we certainly hope to get more of the character soon.