Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Director Remembers Kirstie Alley

Kirstie Alley may have had to “fake” her résumé to get in the room for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but according to filmmaker Nicholas Meyer, he was all in on casting her to play Saavik — the half-Vulcan, half-Romulan member of Starfleet — once he saw her. The character was one of the most important roles that had to be cast specifically for the film — after all, most of the main cast, as well as Khan himself, had been cast for the TV series — and turned out to be the start of a decades-long career for Alley, who also appeared in the Look Who’s Talking franchise.

Speaking with People, Meyer remembered Alley, who died yesterday. The 71-year-old Emmy winner passed away in Florida following a brief fight with cancer.

“The main cast was handed to me on a platter,” Meyer told the magazine (via Yahoo!). “We were looking for Saavik, and I found myself seated with this stunningly attractive woman with this amazing pair of eyes and big mane of hair. She had this strangely merry aspect, which I was later to learn was absolutely a characteristic of her. I recall that she came from Wichita.”

Meyer described Alley’s take on the character as brimming with “unselfconscious originality.” He agrees with what Alley said for years: that he quickly became her biggest champion.

“I don’t think she was trying to be original, or as some might imprecisely call ‘kooky,’ but she nailed it,” the director says. “What was impressive about her reading was that she didn’t inject her own, as I called it, ‘merry personality’ into it. I don’t know if she had enough experience, but she had enough intuition to do what the role called for.”

During convention appearances, Alley would say that her character was never meant to cry during Spock’s funeral in the movie, but that she was personally overcome with emotion, and let it determine the direction her character would take.

“And that included her in the funeral scene,” Meyer recalled. “I didn’t instruct her to weep. When I saw it happening, I remember Shatner came over to me and said, ‘You’re not going to let her do that, are you? Vulcans can’t cry.’ And I said, ‘That will make this so much more effective when she does.’”

Our thoughts go out to Alley’s family, friends, fans, and colleagues during this difficult time.