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Star Trek Monthly - May 2001 When Kes gained godlike powers and left the U.S.S. Voyager at the start of Star Trek: Voyager's forth season, most of us thought that that would be the last we'd see of the Ocampan cutie-cum-deity. So it was a pleasant suprise when Kes returned to the fold in the sixth season episode Fury - although, as we soon discovered, it was slightly less than pleasant for the Voyager crew. Paul Simpson and Ruth Thomas track down Kes' real life counterpart Jennifer Lien and find out what she's been up to in her time away from Star Trek.
Fun is something that the young Ocampan, Kes, probably didn't have a lot of prior to joining the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager. But it's something that Jennifer Lien, who played Kes for three seasons on Star Trek : Voyager, has quite definately been having over the past few years. Over a leisurely lunch in an Italian restaurant in the heart of picturesque Old Town Pasadena, a few miles east of Hollywood, the actress speaks softly but firmly about her life working on the U.S.S. Voyager, and how her horizons have broadened since she parted company with the crew in the autumn of 1997. She's certainly no longer the childlike and fragile figure who was brought on board the ship at the end of the pilot episode, Caretaker, 1994, and was initially the youngest member of the cast. Working outside the protected environment of a weekly television show has given the actress a new perspective on life.
Jennifer Ann Lien was born in Illinois in August 1974, the youngest of three children. Acting is something she always wanted to do, and luckily she was encouraged by her  family. "It was fun," she recalls. "I respected a lot of people in the acting business. I started when I was about 12, and kept on going from there.
Lien joined the Illinois Theater Center at the age of 13, where she had roles in several productions, including Miranda in The Tempest and Bianca in Othello. She first appeared in front of cameras in a dual role, playing twins for an industrial film for Amurol bubble gum. However her first big break came when she auditioned for the part of Hannah Moore in the US daytime soap Another World at the age of 16, which was followed by another regular role, as Roanne in the highly successful television series Phenom.
Looking back on those days, Lien can't choose any particualr role that gave her a special buzz. "All of them had something that did something for me," she says carefully. "There was nothing that was really important or stood out. I can't really pick one out of them."
The role that shot her top stardom, of course, was as Kes on the forth Star Trek series, Star Trek : Voyager. Lien's mother, Delores, had been a fan of Star Trek : The Original Series, so Jennifer had grown up with the show around her in reruns. But she never imagined that one day she would actually be a me mber of the cast.
Lien was one of the early selections made by the producers, and she recalls the descriptions they gave her when she joined the cast: "Kes left her home planet, having rebelled against the planet's leaders. She doesn't want to stay there anymore. She had to go, and decided to join the Voyager crew along with the Neelix character."
That was the start of three years of adventures, during which Kes and Neelix became closer, then drew further apart, and the Ocampan became the holographic Doctor's trustednurse and aide. Did she have any inkling when she started where the producers were going to take the character? "No," she says bluntly. "I found out when I got the scripts".
Unlike some of her contemporaries on the show, Lien did not lobby for changes to the way her character was being drawn, nor did she find at times that Kes was acting in a manner that contravened the notion that Lien had of her alter ego. "I thought the writers were doing a good job," she points out, "and I felt my contribution was  more in acting, and not in writing."
One thing she is certain about is that she liked the character of Kes, and she thinks carefully before adding, "I don't think I've ever played a character I didn't like."
Kes departed Star Trek: Voyager in the second episode of the forth season, The Gift, and most people believed that this was the last time they would see her. She had entered a higher realm of consciousness after nearly decimating Voyager, and her final act was to push the crew a further 10,000 light years in the right direction towards home - and right away from the Borg. However, it seems everything did not go exactly as the Ocampan had expected, and Kes made a highly dramatic return to ST:VOY in Fury, one of the closing episodes of the sixth season. 'The producers wanted me involved in it," Lien explains, "and they wanted to use my appearance to move the story forward."
The three years that had passed between The Gift and Fury saw Lien take on a number of othe roles, maturing both as an actress and as a person. The result of this was that she wasn't so willing simply to accept what the producers had planned for her in the script when they made their approach. "In the beginning, I had them redo part of it," she explains. "I felt uncomfortable with it. I wanted it to go a certain way, and they did respond."
The original story for Fury was created by ST:VOY's executive producers, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, and the final teleplay penned by Brian Fuller and Michael Taylor. Lien was keen to see some changes in Kes' character, after all Ocampans only live for nine years, so she had been gone for a third of her lifetime - and certainly Kes' dramatic entrance, crashing her shuttle into the ship and deliberately causing mayhem and devastation as she heads for the warp core, is very different from anything seen before. At the end of The Gift Kes departed Voyager because she didn't want to cause any more problems for her friends; in Fury, she's out for revenge for what she believes the crew did to her.
No such dramatic motivation affected Lien when she returned to Paramount Pictures stages for the first time in three years. "It was fine," she comments on her feelings as she worked once more with her old colleagues. "It was great to be in an episode like that. nice to see a lot of people, and catch up. It was a lot of fun."
Make up supremo has remarked that Lien's old pair of ears still fitted her from her original appearences, and Lien herself laughs as she says, "It wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated. I wasn't in them as long as I'd normally been for the show."
By the end of Fury, Kes is more a peace woth herself than she started off, closer to the original portrayal of the character. But how much of that spirituality came from Lien herself? Kes is a very caring, loving, down to earth, sensible person: would Lien describe herself in that way? " I think the character was very endowed, but I'm not reall," she says slowly. "I think I'm normal, whereas that character has those virtues to a very heightened degree, because she was raised in that sort of culture. I don't have those virtues to that height. My emotions are lower."
Although Lien says she prefers working in television, "because I liked the schedule", her career path since she left S tar Trek : Voyager has taken her more towards movies than the small screen. The work she's done in that time - including Amarican History X, alongside Star Trek : Deep Space Nine's Avery Brooks, and the independant file SLC Punk - has been very varied; did she set out to get as many different experiences as she could? "Well, luckily, I got them, whether I wanted them or not," she laughs. " I was happy because it did vary so much. It was great. There was so much change and it couldn't have been better really."
She recently attended a screening of her most recent independant film, Rubbernecking. "That's still looking for a distributor," she points out, "so if you guys have any idea of anyone...! It's a film about being stuck in Los Angeles traffic. It's funny - it's a humourous film."
Humour was also a key part of her involvement with the animated spin-off from the Will Smith / Tommy Lee Jones SF movie, Men in Black, for which she voiced the part of Agent 'L'. "I was there for two seasons," she recalls. Her workload on the show varied from week to week: It would depend on how much I had to say. It might take an hour to record, it might take two hours. I liked it. I thought it was funny, intelligent, witty and very well done." Voiceover work has continued to keep her busy, with additional stints on comedy series The Critic and Duckman, as well as more seroius adventures of Todd McFarlane's Spawn.
Lien tries to keep abreast of what's going on in the entertainment industry. "I'd like to get to the theatre more often," she admits. "I read a lot of plays as opposed to going to them. I don't really go out too much to theatre. I watch television or go to the movies. I see a lot of films."
She is very eclectic in her tastes - she admits to liking every type of music (there's not one she can thionk of she's not into). She still plays the trombone, which she started learning in her high school band - although she giggles at the thought that she might be any good at it. She watches comedies or dramas on television with equal ease, and will pick up a book of plays of any description. "There isn't a type I don't read," she offers.
So has she found any roles during her studies that have really grabbed her and fired her up to play them? "I think in everything there's been some part that I'd like to do," she confesses. Her recent reading has included a compilation of audition pieces, used by actors to demonstrate their range. "What I find most interesting is how political people are," she says. "It's really quite astounding how the arts can give you that venue to speak those things."
Her theatrical reading, and her early grounding in Shakesphear, have obviously b een things that inspire the young actress, as does music. "Art inspires me as well," she adds. "People inspire me. Actors inspire me. Food inspires me!"
Which begs the question: with such a wealth of inspiration, would she like to share her vision by becoming a director? "I think I need to do acting a little more before I do that," she demurs, but admits that whn she's reading a play she can often see exactly how she would block the action and move the actors about the stage. "I think that happens naturally for a lot of people ," she says, but does agree it is a talent not everybody posesses. What she finds facinating is watching someone elses interpretation of a scene. "You just wouldn't think of it in that way," she says. "I might block it one way, and they might block it in an entirely different way."
while Lien might claim not to have Kes' spirituality, she obviously cares deeply for others. Asked what her favourite word is, she ponders for a few moments before saying, "I think 'love' is". She gives her support to charities helping people suffering from AIDS and she has worked with the US group Camp 40. "I want to be doing what I can for people who need it," she explains. "I'm a big recycle freak. I like to take care of the Earth. I recycle paper, bottles, cans, everything."
So what does she see herself doing in 10 years time? "Still working in the acting industry," she replies. " I can't really change the world that much. I want to spend time with people I care about, meet new people and do what I like."
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