Jeri Ryan Talks Seven’s Arc And Corset ‘Breast Mounds’ April 11, 2012
by TrekMovie.com Staff , Filed under: Celebrity,History,VOY , trackback
Actress Jeri Ryan spent four years in the Delta Quadrant on Star Trek: Voyager. In a new interview the actress says she is happy about her time on the show and with the character, but she doesn’t miss her costume. She even goes into some detail on some her corset’s painful functionality.
Jeri Ryan talks Seven’s arc and corset ‘breast mound’
It’s been over a decade since Jeri Ryan and the USS Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant, but people still want to talk to her about her time on Star Trek. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Ryan says that she (mostly) looks fondly on her time with Trek. She notes that her character, the Borg Seven of Nine, was "so nuanced and beautifully written" and she was pleased with the arc she took on the series:
Ryan: [Seven of Nine] was a great character to play. As an actor, that’s really a gift. She had a huge development arc — she didn’t even start out human! [Laughs.] That’s a lot of growth over four years.
However, the actress says she does not miss her skin tight space suit, and epsecially not the corsett underneath:
Ryan: Oh yeah. Apparently they don’t wear bras and underwear in space. It was a very elaborate undergarment. I have to say that Robert Blackman, the costume designer, is an absolute genius. That costume was a real feat in engineering, because the producers had said that they wanted it to look like skin, to be skin-regenerative fabric. For the breast mound, they wanted two individual breasts and they wanted it to hug every curve, like skin.
HP: Sorry, the breast mound?
Ryan: [Laughs.] Yep, that’s what they called it. The fabric naturally stretches from high point to high point, right? So he had to devise this construction, this corset. It also added to the mechanical non-human look of Seven.
Ryan as Seven of Nine – with her corset and its ‘breast mounds’
Ryan is currently a regular on the ABC procedural series Body of Proof, which aired its second season finale last night. However, while the show has high overall ratings, it has struggled capture viewers in the key younger demographic. Ryan complained to HuffPo about the ratings system, calling it "archaic," but she remains hopeful the show will get picked up for a third season.
Ryan in "Body of Proof" – no more need for a corset
More from Ryan at Huffington Post.
Loading ...
Comments
An awesomely attractive woman, and probably a better actress in the role of Seven than she is generally given credit for. Just acting around that ridiculous costume would have been a challenge for Meryl Streep.
Now there are some “entitties” that are NOT crystalline…..
possibly siliconilline?…..;)
I find that interview to be very exciting ;-) ! Seven was actually a well-written character, though they were obviously trying to give her immense sex appeal, which they did quite admirably, I’ll gladly admit.
She and the doctor were the best characters in Voyager, if you ask me, but it wasn’t quite enough for me to rate the series highly on my list of Trek series. But Ryan always made the show watchable. You couldn’t take your eyes off her.
I have not seen Body of Proof.
I like Jeri and will try to catch it.
Beautiful woman.
I think she looks better today than she did during her Seven of Nine days…
I remember my crush on 7 of 9… I was like 7 or 9… lol
Um, …. breast mound. I’m at a loss for words. Maybe Harry Ballz has something to say about this.
Jeri Ryan still looks great! I was excited she was coming to Voyager after seeing her star in the limited run series Dark Skies. She was pretty good in that too, and then Boston Public later on as well. I might have to watch some of her newer projects.
Love her character on BoP, she did a great job looking like death in the two-parter that was on before the season/poss. series finale (hope not).
Didn’t Montalban have breast mounds?
Beautiful woman. I just think she should’ve been in a Starfleet uniform like the Maquis were.
7. “breast mound….Maybe Harry Ballz has something to say about this”
Well, er…..(cough)….let’s see……..if I pitched her one of my pick-up lines, and she took the bait, then I would compare it to a baseball game….I can hear the commentary now…
“….the pitcher takes the mound….”
7′s outfit never really made sense to me, but I can understand why she couldn’t wear regular underwear with it. The lines from conventional undies would cling to the her outfit like a pair of Tiberian bats.
Well, Sally Kellerman did decide while filming “The Cage” that women didn’t wear bras in the future. I guess she got it right.
@10:
No. He just had breasts.
yeah that cat suit made no sense after about a year of “Regenearating” skin.
aside from the T&A factore for the straight fanboys
Great actress, well developed character. Right, and we also read Playboy for it’s insightful articles. It’s not a slam on Ms. Ryan, but she was on the show as eye candy, nothing more.
Say….isn’t there a new Trek movie being made? Those damn breast mounds are a bit distracting….
Jeri Ryan’s breasts, at least when she was younger, could provide shade to a small child!
12
Ha, ha, ha. Harry.
@ 14
You mean while Ms. Kellerman was filming “Where No Man Has Gone Before” instead of “The Cage.” For a couple of reasons, I feel like watching that show again.
19.
I’m glad to see SOMEBODY got the joke!
I don’t know what she’s talking about, with the fabrics and the breast mound, but whatever it is, I know that want more of it.
She is beautiful.
does that mean, that she where wearing such things in the episode with braxton & co., in the relativity episode???
Because she did´nt seem to wearing it, and seem more natural look in the episode.
In other word, I liked her in a starfleet costume, than her catsuit, and in normal clothing, in endgame and other episodes in the holodeck.
But very beautiful indeed :-)
Such a gorgeous lady. Seven actually had an interesting arc – probably the most interesting of all the characters in Voyager. Those costumes didn’t do Trek any favours though…..
Much prefer the non-mechanical, human look of Jeri.
And they avoided Camel Toe with her outfît too, how clever was that?
She is so beautiful!! Her X husband is a morron!!
Can we get a video of how the suit was put on. Like the Spidey II DVD extras.
I commented once that if it were not for her age, how would she have done as She-Ra if they made a live action version?
#14: Since Sally Kellerman wasn’t in “The Cage,” that’s an interesting statement. :)
I will chime in and support any interview of this nature! Jeri is always a pleasure to see and hear from her.
It’s easy to assume from appearances that Seven is a tawdry gimmick, but the depth of her character has continuously surprised me as I make my way through Voyager for the first time. It’s a great arc.
Jeri Ryan is a wonderful actor, and it’s great that she’s had so much success post-Voyager.
Ryan is great, its a shame her time on Voyager was made difficult thanks to Mulgrew
It’s awesome she gave credit to Robert Blackman. It would have been very easy for her to write it off as just ridiculous sex appeal whatever, but it was very cool to hear about all the engineering involved. Very gracious of her.
I prefer Mounds over Almond Joy. ;-)
beautiful woman. loved her then, love her now. lol
I really liked the silver catsuit. I thought it was space-agey. I didn’t like like other suits she wore. And I wish she did wear a Starfleet uniform once in a while. She could have alternated between that and the silver suit. It would have allowed the character to break free from the sex object stereotype, while keeping her sex appeal intact.
I am all for ridiculous sex appeal. Who doesn’t like pretty things to look at?
But I also liked the way 7 was written and portrayed. Jeri Ryan’s intelligence as an actress and person were obvious in her portrayal. Personally, I always thought that hers was a great example of how a beautiful actress could be allowed to look gorgeous and be complex and intelligent all at once. Voyager’s producers get too much flak about writing 7 of 9 into the show just to be a sex pot. I believe that they saw an opportunity in her as an actress to do just what I had mentioned: have a beautiful, intelligent, layered, complex character amongst the regulars of the crew.
I think my reiterative redundance has finally become repetitive again.
I was never a big fan of VOY, but I just watched the Scorpion two-parter again recently, and it was just as strong and kickass as I remembered (I would seriously put it up there with BOBW as one of the best Borg stories).
And Seven had tremendous presence in it as well. Unfortunately once they put her in that ridiculous catsuit it wasn’t long before her character became just as cheesy and generic as all the others.
she was also HOT in Mad men.
Wrong(often wrong soong) , sorry I meant two and a half men, mad men .
@39 Since she was not a member of Starfleet, it would have been inappropriate for her to wear the uniform. The Borg children Voyager encountered later wore similar clothing on the ship. 7 did wear a Starfleet uniform once when she was working undercover for Starfleet Intelligence, from the future.
Hey, lets not be making mountains out of mole hills now….wait, that didn’t come out right….
#14, #31…it was A New Hope!
George Lucas told Carie Fisher that there were no bras in space…
sorry to go starwars on ya!
So, yesterday I posted a link to this article on another story here on the site along with a question on how to submit links to your site. Did you answer my question? Did you say, “hey, thanks for the link”? No, you just deleted my comment. Well, you’re welcome.
Breast mound, so thats what they call it. It helped advance her career, so while she maintains it was uncomfortable she di put up with it and made it thru the rest of the series run. I agree with many other voices here, she did an excellent job portraying well the nuances of the character’s development.
Let me be juvenile here: Jeri Ryan was and still is HOT. Quick – who do you take? Her or Jolene Blalock? I go with Jeri any day of the week.
She. Is. Easy. On. The. Eyes.
Curious that Trekmovie.com in the little square picture (at the top of this article) that they show always with Jeri Ryan articles, always shows here leaning back in some sort of 40-degree angle leisure pose, with her right boob hanging down noticeably more then then her left one, and with nearly 1/4 of her head chopped off. It looks here to me that basically they photo-shopped this photo to death to make her boobs as prominent as possible. This seems kind of lame and teenagerish to me…like an American Pie version of a Trek character.
Come on Anthony, can’t you guys come up with and better stock photo for Jeri than this obviously “ha-ha” woodie-inducing one here? :-)
28, I totally agree with you, Jack Ryan was and is total idiot, on top of being dirty pervy wackjob. He had a beautiful wife who aside from being very successful in her career is a real down to earth and lovely woman.
I like to think of her as Jeri Zimmerman. Too bad she didn’t keep her maiden name, or revert to it! Sure would be interesting if she had, considering what most people think of now with the name Zimmerman.
.
She definitely lights up any room she enters, whether it be onscreen, or in person at a convention…. (another reason why Zimmerman fit her… if you know your German!)
.
@28,52… Jack Ryan, who had he not been a fool…. would have been elected Senator from Illinois. Talk about changing the timelines!!!!!
@52. Come on now, if it wasn’t for Jack Ryan, the Russians would have started World War III back in the 1980′s, and terrorists would have nuked the Superbowl in the 1990′s.
#42. mrs. trek77
When was Jeri Ryan in “Mad Men?”
I’m a big fan of MM and I don’t recall ever seeing her in an episode.
54. Nice. I believe he saved the lives of Charles and Diana when they were still married (in the book, the movie changed it to something slightly less goofy).
Was there a technical, Borg-y reason for Seven’s 3-inch heels? I can’t even think of a good joke reason.
@20:
Oh yeah–sorry, my process took a recess there… :) Their shirts all looked the same in those episodes.
boltbait
sorry about that. The article was actually spotted via twitter. The tipline link is at the top right of the site front page or tips@trekmovie.com. I do appreciate posting the link, but as it was off topic and there was already an article for it, it was removed.
so: Thanks for the tip!
Thanks, Anthony. I love your site and come here every day to read Trek news. I guess I was just grumpy this morning.
I see the link now that you’ve pointed it out. I’ll use it next time.
I wrote wrong, i meant TWO AND A HALF MEN .
Anyone need to find the definition of a woman?
Look up the words Jeri Ryan! One of the most attractive AND nicest actresses in the history of television and 21st century entertainment.
To quote a line from a Farrelly Bros. movie:
“Looks like a dead heat in a zeppelin race.”
@62. DM, just got your joke! LOL !!!
@62….hahahahaha…
60. mr. trek77
Honest mistake.
And I goofed on your name the first time! I apologize.
It’s a shame she’s never been on “Mad Men.” She’d look amazing in mid-’60s attire. Give the women on the show a real run for their money…
And 62. dmduncan
That was brilliant!! ROTFLMAO!! :-D
(especially in that silver catsuit….)
Great Ryan performances in Voyager are probably “One Small Step” & “Someone to Watch Over Me…”
One small step for a man, two giant breasts for mankind?
that´s ok. #65 .
I like the Seven of Nine character, despite all attempts by the costume department to make her eye-candy.
My greatest complaint with her outfit has always been the built-in heels… what a joke!
I’ve said it before, and I stand by my contention: She should have stayed in a version of the Borg accoutrements – the same Borg suit, with maybe a few implants removed. That would have been more realistic than the corset.
The episode where 7 of 9 discovers her heritage and comes upon the remains the crashed vehicle where she was abducted by the borg as a child is the only episode in the entire pantheon of Star Trek to make me cry. I fell deeply and romantically in love with Jeri Ryan at that moment.
@70. That would be “The Raven” IIRC, great episode, also the ones mentioned above “Scorpion pts. 1 & 2″, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, and “One Small Step”, also “One” when 7 has to take the ship through a region of space alone. Then there are “Collective” and “Child’s Play”, cause I (unlike some) liked the Borg kids, mainly Icheb. Well I’m off to watch a couple of these.
Sebastian S, re: #55:
“When was Jeri Ryan in “Mad Men?” I’m a big fan of MM”
I’m a huge fan of Mad Men too. You’ll love this article:
“Why Don Draper is the Captain Kirk of Mad Men”.
http://whatculture.com/tv/don-draper-the-captain-kirk-of-mad-men.php
My only complaint with 7 of 9 is that she was converted to human looking too fast. It should have taken most of the season to gradually transform her to the picture above, not in the same episode.
I really enjoyed at least half of Voyager’s episodes and most of those episodes were after Ms. Ryan joined the crew.
Loved all of voyager and 7 of 9…. Was such a great show
#2 – If you’re looking for silicon-based life forms, just check out the Horta.