AUGUST 16, 2022 - Star Trek fans are likely to know Penny Johnson Jerald as Kasidy Yates on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and perhaps in her current role as Dr. Claire Finn on the Trek-adjacent series, The Orville. Well, she spent some time recently with Heavy, reflecting on both roles and more. The interview was with Ian Spelling, though our own T. Rick Jones also writes for Heavy.

Jerald said we almost didn’t see her on DS9. “I didn’t want to do it at first because I was not a Trekkie. I didn’t even understand what that was until my husband, who is also my manager, said, ‘No, you’re going to do this because this is Star Trek.’ He’s a diehard Trekkie.”

But Jerald loves what we did end up seeing. “It was the first time, because you’re talking about the 90s, that I felt empowered as a woman of color. She was a captain. We didn’t have that. And there was a relationship between she and Sisko…. You saw two African American strong, very strong, and powerful people put together. You saw a man who was a single parent. Put these two together and it was dynamic. So, shooting Deep Space Nine was the ultimate.”

For more from Penny Johnson Jerald, including filming DS9 and her thoughts on The Orville as well as other things she is working on, head over to Heavy.