Warehouse 13 and Life with Jeri Ryan

A new interview with Jeri! 😀

Although fan science fiction fans know actress Jeri Ryan from her memorable role as Borg Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager, Ryan steps into the Syfy world of Warehouse 13 on Monday, August 1 at 9pm. In the Warehouse 13 episode called “Queen for a Day,” Ryan portrays Amanda, whose planned fairy tale wedding is derailed when exposure to a Warehouse 13 artifact threatens her life. Interestingly, Jeri Ryan steps into the Warehouse 13 guest shoes of a Marine with close ties to Eddie McClintock’s Pete Lattimer character.

Now that Warehouse 13 is in full season swing on Syfy, Jeri Ryan joins guest stars Rene Auberjonois, Jaime Murray, Sasha Roiz, Faran Tahir, Lindsay Wagner and Ashley Williams.

Ahead of Warehouse 13 and “Queen for a Day,” TheDeadbolt spent a few Syfy moments with Jeri Ryan to get the guest scoop on her character, what she loves about Warehouse 13, balancing comedy with drama, and why Ryan loves TV more than film.

THE DEADBOLT: What was your most memorable moment working on the show?

JERI RYAN: I don’t know that there’s one specific moment, but there were a couple of really, really nice sort of emotional scenes that Eddie [McClintock] and I got to play together. It was just really fun connecting with him. He’s a great actor. He’s a funny, funny guy. But he’s also just a really good actor. So that was a lot of fun.

THE DEADBOLT: What would you say is the most important thing that you learned from your time spent on the show?

RYAN: I don’t think I learned anything particularly except how much fun Eddie is. That was my big surprise. But yes, it wasn’t like, a huge educational experience in my acting career. But it was great. It was a fun show to do. I really enjoyed it.

THE DEADBOLT: What can you tell us about the character Amanda?

RYAN: She’s a Marine. She is Eddie’s ex-wife, which is a bit of a surprise to everyone else at the warehouse. And she is getting remarried and things sort of take a bit of a turn, without giving away too much of the story. She sort of needs Eddie’s help to get out of a bit of a problem.

THE DEADBOLT: Was there anything you found challenging about the role?

RYAN:Always with comedy in general, and especially comedy that sort of is in the sci-fi genre, you’re really [spinning] this belief. You always have to sort of find that line between playing the comedy, but playing the realism too. That’s always a bit of a balancing act, but it’s fun. The people in the show, they’re pros and this is what they do. That sort of fine line is where they walk all the time. There is no better training ground for that. I mean, it was a lot of fun.

THE DEADBOLT: What would be your ultimate dream role? Is there someone you still want to work with that you haven’t?

RYAN: Oh, there are tons of people I’d love to work with that I haven’t. I used to say Hamlet was my ultimate dream role, and it still is an amazing role and I would love to play it. But yes, there are so many actors I would love to work with.

I’d love to work with Clint Eastwood, as a director especially. I’d love to work with Sidney Poitier, because he’s the reason that I became an actor in the first place. Meryl Streep is everyone’s dream because she’s the greatest living actor of our time. There are a lot of just amazing talents that I would love to work with at some point.

THE DEADBOLT: You’ve done Sci-fi with Star Trek, Dark Skies, and now Warehouse 13. You’ve done horror with Dracula 2000. You’ve obviously done comedy and drama. Are there any genres that you haven’t done yet, or that you would like to do more of?

RYAN:I’d like to do action like Mortal Kombat Legacy. That’s sort of action fantasy. I think I’ve done all the genres, there are not too many that I haven’t done with the exception of maybe porn, which I’m not really interested in. But I would to do more comedy because it’s fun and that’s an escape. That’s just a very light environment to work. But I like being able to jump around and do all kinds of things.

THE DEADBOLT: Is there a certain part of your character in Warehouse 13 that you can personally relate to, or any of your characters in the Syfy genre that you’ve played?

RYAN: Yes. I can certainly relate to part to this character especially because this one is human, a little closer to my own reality than other sci-fi characters I’ve played in the past. There are a few more parallels in life than maybe with 7 of 9. But yes, she’s a smart cookie and she doesn’t take crap and I like that about her. And she’s getting remarried and I’ve been in that situation. There are a few parallels. My dad was in the military so it’s nice. My dad was in the Army for 28 years, so I was going through putting on a Marine uniform and he’s looking forward to seeing that.

THE DEADBOLT: What do you enjoy filming more television, or films?

RYAN: Personally, I like TV better. The pace is very, very different between TV and films. On TV, sometimes we’ve even done eight pages in a day of script. So that’s, six or seven scenes sometimes.

In film, you shoot like two pages a day. So you’re shooting the same scene all day long. That to me is a bit mind-numbing. And I don’t know how they do it. I was working on a movie called Dam of Love and I was sitting on the set between shots with Renee Zellweger and I asked her, “How do you do this? If you’ve got a big emotional, scene how do you do this?” And she said, “You just have to live in it all day.” You don’t have lunch with the crew, you don’t hang out between shots. You sit in your trailer and you just stay in that emotional place all day because you have to.

I just don’t know how you could get your sanity doing that and go home to your family at the end of the night and not be just insane. That seems like a tough one for me. I like the pace of TV. I like keeping it moving and having a different story to play. But that’s also been what most of my experience is, so that’s more comfortable for me. That’s my comfort zone.

Related Posts