Jeri Ryan on Seven of Nine, Choosing Motherhood, and Hollywood’s Vanishing Middle Class

Nearly 30 years after Jeri Ryan first stepped into Seven of Nine’s famously unforgiving costume on Star Trek: Voyager, the character still follows her around the world.

That is not necessarily a complaint.

At the Italian Global Series Festival, Ryan joined fellow Star Trek stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Celia Rose Gooding, and filmmaker Nicholas Meyer in accepting the Maximo Celebration Award, honoring the franchise’s extraordinary cultural legacy as it approaches its 60th anniversary.

Speaking at the festival after joining her fellow Star Trek actors for an anniversary celebration, Ryan reflected on the improbable gift of returning to a character decades after first playing her and discovering that both Seven and the woman portraying her had changed in the intervening years.

“No, never in a million years, not even a little bit,” Ryan said when asked whether she could have imagined still discussing Seven nearly three decades later. “It’s a rare gift as an actor, it really is.”

In the traditional television system, even a successful actor might inhabit a beloved character for seven seasons and then be forced to leave that person behind. 

Ryan had the unusual opportunity to revisit Seven more than 20 years after Voyager ended when she joined Star Trek: Picard, allowing her to examine not only how the former Borg drone had evolved but how her own understanding of the character had deepened.

“I think I appreciate her a lot more than I did then, and I really appreciate her resilience,” Ryan said.

When she first joined Voyager, Ryan was still early in her career. It was only the second television series she had worked on, and she admitted she was not entirely certain she wanted to be there because she knew little about Star Trek or the community surrounding it.

Two decades of encounters with fans changed that.

Ryan began to understand how profoundly viewers connected with Star Trek’s characters and how important it could be for someone to recognize a part of themselves in the franchise’s vision of the future.

“I’ve had 20 years of Star Trek fans and seeing what it means to people, and hearing from them, and seeing how many lives it really touches,” she said. “What a difference it legitimately makes in people’s lives to feel represented by these characters and to feel themselves connect with these characters.”

That made returning to Seven an entirely different experience emotionally, and it gave Ryan a deeper appreciation for the unusual family she had entered without fully understanding that Star Trek membership tends to be permanent.

During her first season on Voyager, the show’s cinematographer gave the cast and crew shirts featuring the Starfleet insignia behind bars with the word “Lifer” printed beneath it. At the time, it was a joke. Decades later, it feels more like a contractual prophecy.

“You are in this family, and you are in it for life,” Ryan said.

Some members of that family have become her closest friends, including Jonathan Frakes, who directed her on several projects before they finally appeared together as actors on Picard.

“We’ve been friends for 25 years,” Ryan said. “It really is an amazing gift.”

Ryan’s television career stretches well beyond the Star Trek universe, although not every piece of that history has remained readily available to audiences.

Boston Public, the David E. Kelley drama in which Ryan played attorney Ronnie Cooke, remains frustratingly difficult to find through legal streaming services. Ryan suspects the show’s extensive use of music may be responsible.

“I think they don’t want to pay for the music rights,” she said. “That’s the only thing I can figure out because it was such a beautifully written show. It was so good, and I think it’s more relevant now than it was even, or as relevant today as it was then. And I would love for that to be seen.”

The inability to revisit a major series is one of the stranger contradictions of the streaming era. Viewers have access to more television than ever, yet significant shows can effectively disappear because the complicated rights attached to their music make distributing them too expensive.

For Ryan, however, the largest change in television has not been how audiences find shows. It has been the disappearance of the professional structure that once allowed actors and crews to build lasting careers.

“The biggest thing that I’ve personally witnessed is Hollywood is no longer in Hollywood, which is very sad,” she said.

The migration of productions away from Los Angeles has eliminated a heartbreaking number of jobs, but Ryan noted that the consequences ripple well beyond actors, writers, and studio workers.

Restaurants, shops, and other local businesses also suffer when production leaves because entertainment has historically been such an important part of the city’s economy.

Ryan became particularly conscious of that shift because of the choices she made while raising her daughter.

Her older son is now 31, and Ryan believes she missed too much of his childhood because she was working. When her daughter was born, she resolved to make different decisions.

Early in her daughter’s life, Ryan could still accept work outside Los Angeles. Her daughter and nanny joined her in Portland while she filmed Leverage and in Providence, Rhode Island, for Body of Proof. Once her daughter entered school, however, traveling with Ryan was no longer practical.

“I had to be very selective with what I could do because I could only shoot a series here,” Ryan said. “I wasn’t willing to give up. You make decisions. You balance things, and that was more important to me.”

Her daughter graduated from high school shortly before our conversation, leaving Ryan on the verge of becoming an empty nester.

That transition has made the disappearance of Los Angeles-based production even more apparent, but it has also opened the door for Ryan to consider taking on a larger role again.

Her recent guest appearances, including emotionally affecting turns on Dark Winds, Bosch: Legacy, and Criminal Minds: Evolution, allowed her to continue working while remaining close to home during her daughter’s final months before college.

“It’s been really good for me at this point when my daughter was getting ready to graduate,” Ryan said. “These are my last few months with my daughter before she’s in college, so I’ve wanted to be home as much as I can be with her.”

Once her daughter leaves, Ryan expects the equation to change.

“In the fall, she’ll be out, and then I’ll be looking for stuff to do because then I’m going to be going crazy,” she said.

Whether the television industry can still provide the kind of sustained career Ryan built is a more complicated question.

Ryan spoke passionately about streaming’s effect on working actors, particularly those who once made a living through guest appearances, supporting roles, and residual payments from long-running network shows.

Television seasons once commonly consisted of 22 or more episodes. An actor could book several guest roles in a year, receive residual payments when those episodes were rerun, qualify for union health insurance, support a family, and potentially buy a home.

“That was what made it a career,” Ryan said.

The streaming model has dismantled much of that system. Seasons may consist of six, eight, or ten episodes and frequently end after only one or two years. Even three streaming seasons may not equal a single traditional network season in total episode count.

Ryan recalled another actor describing residuals as “the party we all RSVP’d to.”

Actors accepted the uncertainty of the profession with the understanding that successful work could continue generating income through reruns. Streaming changed the invitation after everyone arrived.

“Actors aren’t qualifying for health insurance,” Ryan said. “It’s really scary.”

The problem extends across the industry. Writers, crew members, and below-the-line workers are all attempting to survive on fewer episodes, shorter jobs, and far less predictable compensation.

“At every level, it’s a scary time for the industry,” Ryan said.

Her concern was not abstract or rehearsed. It emerged from someone who has spent more than three decades working steadily in television and has watched the profession become less sustainable even as streaming companies demand an endless supply of content.

Ryan is among the fortunate ones. Seven of Nine made her part of a global legacy, and her continued appearances across television have demonstrated a range far wider than the emotionally controlled former Borg character that first made her famous.

Still, longevity does not make anyone immune to an unstable business.

Ryan’s first professional acting job placed her opposite Judith Light, and more than 30 years later, both women remain visible, working, and committed to portraying women who refuse to disappear quietly.

“It’s pretty cool,” Ryan said of her own endurance. “I hope we can still do it. I hope we can be back here in ten years doing the same thing.”

She also recognizes that continuing to occupy that space carries meaning, particularly at a moment when she believes women’s progress is under threat.

“I think it’s important for women to stay strong and present,” Ryan said, “especially now when we’re going backward.”

Seven of Nine survived assimilation, reclaimed her humanity, and eventually became a Starfleet captain. Ryan’s own journey has been less theatrical but no less defined by resilience. 

She made choices that protected her family, continued finding meaningful roles, and remained present in an industry that has made survival increasingly difficult for nearly everyone inside it.

Now, with her daughter beginning a new chapter, Ryan may be ready to begin another one of her own.

Television should be ready for her.