Nancy Hower as Ensign Samantha Wildman on Star Trek: Voyager. Photo copyright of UPN.
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, Nancy Hower talks about juggling parenthood and serving aboard the U.S.S. Voyager as Ensign Samantha Wildman in Star Trek: Voyager.
In today’s world being a single parent is not easy. Not only are you responsible for providing food, shelter and clothing to a human being who is totally dependent on you but also a generous dose of your time and love. Imagine having to do all of this and being seventy-five-thousand light years from your friends and family as well as your husband, who has no idea that he is a father. This is what Ensign Samantha Wildman is faced with when she and the rest of the U.S.S. Voyager crew are cast adrift in the Delta Quadrant.
“There are so many people on that ship whose husbands and wives were left behind,” explains Nancy Hower, who plays the devoted mother on Star Trek: Voyager. “It makes it even more intense to know that I’ve got a child who my husband doesn’t even know about. She seems a little bit lost without her husband and on top of all this the baby has either been sick or near death in each episode. I’m not quite sure if they meant to do this with the development of my character but the baby’s health has become a huge issue in Ensign Wildman’s life. So, it’s not been an uplifting time yet,” she laughs, “but hopefully that will change.”
Hower’s agent sent her out to audition for the part of Wildman on Voyager and that same day the actress found out she had been cast on the series. “Originally they weren’t even certain if was going to be a recurring role. They knew that they wanted the baby in the plot but were not exactly sure if they were going to go anywhere with it. Once they shot that first episode with Wildman they said, ‘OK, we’re going to do more with your character.’
"I was much more familiar with Star Trek: The Next Generation than I was with Voyager,” she continues. “When Voyager first started I was moving around a lot and didn’t have a television set, so I couldn’t watch the show. I was, however, very much aware of Kate Mulgrew [Captain Kathryn Janeway] and her work on the program. Oddly enough I used to do an imitation of Kate. All my friends burst out laughing when I told them I had gotten a part on the series and asked, ‘My God, are you going to be talking to her?’ Luckily, as of yet she hasn’t seen the imitation.”
Ensign Wildman announces her pregnancy to Captain Janeway at the end of the second season episode Elogium. For Hower, being on the set of Voyager for the first time is an event which she will never forget. “Even though I didn’t have a large part in this episode it was pretty exciting for me to see all of the props and to be on the set. That was a pretty mind-blowing experience for me and scary too because it was my first scene with Kate.
“Kate’s an amazing actress,” continues Hower. “She is so much fun to work with and is genuinely giving and caring. The first day that we worked together I remember her coming up to me afterwards and saying, ‘That was really wonderful.’ Her generosity just blew me away. Despite her workload Kate always seems to take time out for people who might just be on the set for a day or two and just opens her arms up to them. I really love working with her and everybody else on the program. I have a lot of scenes with Robert Picardo [The Doctor] and Jennifer Lien [Kes], both of whom are just incredibly wonderful. They’re a fun crowd. Nobody takes themselves too seriously and that’s the way I like it,” laughs the actress.
When the Kazons take control of Voyager in the second season cliffhanger Basics, Ensign Wildman and her baby along with the rest of the ship’s crew are left to die on a barren planet. Once again baby Wildman is in danger of dying, but it was the actress herself who was more in need of medical attention. “I was just getting over pneumonia and still feeling a bit under the weather when we went out into the desert to film the second part of this episode,” she recalls. “Despite that I had a great time on location and enjoyed having the chance to bond with everyone and getting to know them on a much more personal basis.
“I remember one particular scene in this episode when Kate and I were standing next to each other on the side of a hill. Most of the time I had a plastic baby there with me and we were supposed to be performing this ceremony over the baby. Kate made a joke, I cannot remember what it was for the life of me, but because of my pneumonia I started laughing and then I began coughing. It was like a fit and they had to stop filming for about ten minutes.
“Here we are on this steep hill and Kate starts yelling, ‘Somebody get some water.’ Of course, within two minutes 30 bottles of water were held up to me. I’m drinking and Kate’s going, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.’ I drank a little bit more and put the bottle down with the rest of them behind me. A few seconds later I turn around and Kate’s drinking from one of the bottles. I said, ‘Kate, I think that’s the bottle I drank out of.’ She said, ‘Oh, well, here take it.’ I don’t think she ever got sick, at least I hope not, but that’s just another example of how great Kate is. She’s the captain in every way.”
Although she has appeared on stage and in front of the camera before, Hower finds working on Voyager slightly different simply because of the show’s premise being science fiction. “It’s much more pretend than other things I’ve done,” explains the actress. “With Star Trek there’s a lot of staring at nothing and trying to make something out of the whole thing. There’s also quite a bit of technical jargon that you just don’t have to deal with on other shows, so you spend a lot of time trying to make it sound as if you say these words every day. I suppose if you’re on ER or a similar type of show then you’d have to do that too, but at least medical words have some sort of meaning. I remember during one scene I pronounced the name of the alien race that Wildman’s husband comes from incorrectly and I had to go back and redo it. I said, ‘Who is going to know,’ and they said, ‘Someone in the audience will because in an episode a long time ago it was said in this way.’ So, that’s the kind of stuff that you really have to be aware of and make sure that you get right.”
“Up to this point most of my work on Voyager has been with Ensign Wildman saying, ‘Something’s wrong with my baby.’ I’ve been told that they might age the baby a bit, which will allow them to set up a few more interesting situations involving the two of us.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of UPN, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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