Kim Cattrall Influenced Her Star Trek Valeris Look More Than Fans May Realize
There's no question that Kim Cattrall developed her own sense of style and attitude as Samantha Jones, the PR executive who marched to her own beat in the "Sex and the City" HBO series and films. As such, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that Cattrall's creative input helped shape her lone role in the "Star Trek" universe.
Cattrall starred as the Vulcan Lt. Valeris in 1991's "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country." But she was intent on setting herself apart from the previous female actors who were featured in the classic "Star Trek" series. In the 2016 book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams," Catrall said that she wasn't interested in playing the type of woman whose beauty and style made her more like "set decoration" than being an integral part of the plot.
"I wanted a very definitive Vulcan woman. I was a warrior. I wanted a bold look to make it very different from what had come before," she said of her character in director Nicholas Meyer's "The Undiscovered Country." "I came in to [see] Nick after everything was settled and I said I want to have traces of Leonard [Nimoy's Spock], so I dyed my hair black and had it done very sixties and shaved my sideburns, because I felt my ears would look much stronger. The great thing about the hairdo was the way I could sort of surreptitiously put it behind my ear and that was really fun."
Cattrall was worthy of acting opposite Nimoy, co-producer says
Even though Kim Cattrall had some influence in the creation of her appearance as Lt. Valeris in "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, she admitted in a 1992 interview with Cinefantastique (via Forgotten Trek) that she wasn't a big fan of her Starfleet uniform. Originally, Cattrall said, she unsuccessfully lobbied for Valeris to wear a skirt akin to Nichelle Nichols' Lt. Uhura in the "Star Trek" franchise, but instead ended up wearing a pantsuit that she said was too warm and bulky.
But while Cattrall didn't love her Valeris costume, she kept one aspect of it after filming the movie. Having loved Leonard Nimoy's Spock while watching "Star Trek" growing up, Cattrall told Cinefantisque that she had to preserve her memory of working on the film by holding on to her character's Vulcan ears. Valeris is Spock's protégé, after all — that is, until her true self is revealed in the third act of the film.
While Cattrall's contributions to Valeris' look and attitude were vital to "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country," co-producer Steven Charles Jaffe told Cinefantastique that the actor brought even more to the role in terms of finding the right tone for her character, who, as a Vulcan, had to subdue her emotions. "It's not easy to play a Vulcan. There are a lot of people who did readings where either there was nothing there with absolutely no emotion or there was too much," Jaffe said. "Kim was exquisite because she had the proper balance of not showing emotion but also being very alive. You knew there was this very smart person worthy of being opposite Leonard Nimoy as Spock."