Visitor Talks Breaking With 'Dark Angel'

Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys) stepped into the shady world of Madame X in Fox's sci-fi drama series Dark Angel at the end of its first season. In a new interview, the actress spoke about why she won't be becoming a regular on the series.

"I think they were angry with me," Visitor told the Sci Fi Wire. "I know they were angry with me, because they perceived [that I was] trying to manipulate for a lot of money or something like that, when it was really just life. It was just impossible. So they were a bit angry with me, and my demise may have been given a little short shrift."

The blonde, smartly-dressed Madame X was introduced in the first season episode 'Pollo Loco.' The character was one of the high-ups in the military organisation Manticore, boss to series regular Lydecker (John Savage who played Captain Ransom in Voyager's 'Equinox',), and rather similar to Deep Space Nine's Intendant. The series also has another Trek connection, in the form of Deep Space Nine supervising producer René Echevarria, who is co-executive producer on Dark Angel. Madame X was shot and met a fiery demise in the second season premiere of the show.

Original, the character was well received and Visitor indicated she would like to become a regular on the show (story). "Then they decided that they wanted to make the show's target audience younger and didn't want anyone over 40, really 35, in the cast," Visitor explained. "So they fired everyone that was older, except John Savage. And they offered me the same deal that they did him, a recurring role.

"Well, financially, I couldn't keep up an apartment I own in New York and take two boys to Vancouver. What they wanted me to do was commute. So what that would have meant was having someone else raise the boys while I went back and forth for weeks at a time. I found out afterwards that with the work schedule the way it was, I would have been in Vancouver, and my boys would have been [in New York] with a nanny on 9-11. So it was a heartbreaking decision and a financially difficult one to make. But I had to say no. At a certain point, you can't think about lifestyle. You have to think about having a life."

Visitor is currently starring as Roxie in the Broadway production of Chicago. The original interview with the actress can be found here at the SciFi Wire. Dark Angel airs on Friday evenings on the FOX Network.

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