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Scarlett Fever Written by Ian Spelling It used to be that Colm Meany was the busiest person in the Star Trek universe. Well move over Mr. Meaney, because Scarlett Pomers is running rampant in Tinseltown. Pomers, the talented 10-year-old actress who portrays Naomi Wildman on Star Trek: Voyager, simply jumps from project to project to project. Right now, on a sunny day in Los Angeles, Pomers is speaking to me on a mobile phone as a car takes her and her mother to a voice lesson. In the coming weeks, Pomers will film an episode of ST:VOY; loop dialogue for her scenes in Erin Brockovich, her new movie with Julia Roberts; then sing, dance and act in Geppetto, an upcoming musical for television based on the story of Pinocchio. "I'm excited, very excited," enthuses Pomers of her jam-packed schedule. "Probably the best part of doing what I do is getting to meet the starts I work with," she tells us. "I like getting to go special places. I got to go to Disneyland for free when I did a photo shoot, and that was great. It's also cool to play people and see how I relate to them. With Naomi on Voyager, we both like to learn. I like Naomi because she's really smart and wants to learn a lot more." Sometimes, Pomers admits, she feels a bit intimidated about meeting people like Julia Roberts. But then she gets over it. "Once I work with them, they're usually pretty nice," she says. "I was scared of working with Julia, but she was great." And who's the coolest actor whom Pomers has encountered? "That's a tought one," she responds. "It's probably either Ehtan Phillips or Kate Mulgrew from Voyager. Kate is really nice and really smart and Ethan is so funny. He's always making me laugh." Pomers was no acting rookie when she arrived on the ST:VOY set. Her many credits include the films Mighty Joe Young, The Babysitter's Club and Slappy and the Stinkers; the stage musical Ruthless!; and she has guest-starred on such television shows as Martial Law, 7 Days, Step by Step, The Secret Life of Alex Mack and Touched by an Angel. Her first television job was a small role in the pop superstar Michael Jackson's video for his hit song Heal the World. As for Star Trek: Voyager, Brooke Ashley Stevens portrayed Naomi - the half-KItarian/ half-Human daughting of Ensign Samantha Wildman (played by Nancy Hower) - in the episode Mortal Coil. When the show's producers diecdied to cast a new actress in the role, Pomers was among the youngsters who auditioned. Pomers eventually won the coveted part as the only child aboard Voyager and made her debut on the series in the episode Once Upon a Time. Pomers has an admission to make. "I wasn't really a Star Trek fan before doing the show," she explains, "but my brother was! Every Wednesday night he would go into the den and say, 'OK everybody, get out. It's time to watch Star Trek: Voyager!' So, when I got my first audition, I watched the show. It was an episode with Seven of Nine [Jeri Ryan] and The Doctor [Robert Picardo], and I really liked it. He was excited that I got the audtion, and when I got the role he was like, 'Yeah!'" Pomers gets a kick out of the whole ST:VOY experience, from working with her co-stars to having Naomi's Ktarian bumps applied to her forehead, from dealing with the special effects to, most often, being the only kid on the set. "I like having a recurring role," she enthuses. "Whenever I do a movie and it ends I get sad. I don't see most of the people again. After I did Once Upon a Time and before I went back form my second episode, I said to my mom, 'I miss Star Trek so much!' But it really did become a recurring role for me, so I get to see everybody again and I get to play the same character. Being the only kid is nice, actually. Nobody treats me like a kid. They won't say, 'Oh, go away little kid, we're talking.' They just let me join in the conversation. When I'm on the set, I'm oftern working with either Jeri or Ethan, so we talk a lot between scenes." And Pomers has had plenty of time to talk, given that she's turned up so many times on the show already. Among her episodes during the fifth season are Infinite Regress, Latent Image, Bliss, Dark Frontier (the two-hour TV movie), and the season finale, Equinox. Playing the character as frequently as she has also helps the actress better understand her character. "She's three years old, so I think she's pretty smart for her age," Pomers comments. "I like the fact that she's the only kid on the ship. I like how she's made friends with Seven of Nine. She kind of helps Seven to become more Human. "The big question for Naomi is, 'What does my father look like?' Naomi is half-Ktarian and half-Human, and we know my dad is all-Ktarian and my mom is all Human, but we don't know what a Ktarian looks like yet. Plus, my dad doesn't even know I was born. So I hope we get to do a show about our relationship that we get to see what he looks like." Pomers has no problem citing her favorite Star Trek: Voyager episodes. "I really liked Once Upon a Time," she enthuses, "because I go to do so many scenes with Ethan and I also had a scene with Jeri. I really liked Dark Frontier, too, because that was the first time I really got to work with Kate." As for season six, Pomers expects to be back in costume and make-up fairly often. Look closely, though, at Pomers and her costumes. The young actress is growing up quickly, and it's starting to show. "It was funny. I just got called for costume fitting," she says. "All of my outfits were getting too small. I don't think they'd fix all of my outfits or give me some new ones if they weren't going to have me around a lot." And the more she's around, the more often Pomers will be recognized by Star Trek fans. Yes, the faithful can already spot her when she's free of make-up and out and about in Los Angeles. "A couple of months ago I was at Ralph's [a major supermarket in LA] with my mom," she recalls. "We were at the deli section and this girl said, 'I know you.' I said, 'From what?' and she said, 'Star Trek: Voyager.' I said, 'Oh, hi, how are you?' It's cool to be recognised. And I get a lot of fan mail, too, which is nice. The letters are mostly from girls who want to know about me or about Naomi. I get letters from boys, too. I actually got one letter from a guy who was in the Navy and was on the ship U.S.S. Enterprise. It was really neat." Scarlett Pomers was born in Orange County, California, and was encouraged by her mother to try acting at the age of three. In fact, Pomers was named after Scalrett O'Hara from the film class Gone with the Wind. "I didn't not want to act," Pomers remembers. "It was really fun. I was like, 'OK, yeah, I'll try it.' Now, I really do love it. Star Trek has been my favourite thing so far. Erin Brockovich was really fun, too." Erin Brockovich, due for release later this year or sometime next, is a major drama already creating Oscar buzz. Marg Helgenberger, who starred opposite Robert Picardo on television's China Beach, plays Roberts' confidante in the film, and Pomers portrays Helgenberger's daughter. In the black comedy Happy, Texas, Pomers plays, as she puts it, "a pageant girl who twirls flaming batons and burns down everything." Then there's Geppetto. "I'm one of the perfect kids from Idelia," she reveals. "I come out of a machine and I sing and dance and I get to do this big number called 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' with lots of other kids. It's with Drew Carey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I don't work with Julia, but I do work with Drew. He's really nice. And Rene Aberjonois and Brent Spiner are also in it, but I don't work with Brent. I'm just about to start shooting Geppetto. We've been rehearsing and recording the music." After Pomers wraps production on Geppetto, it'll be back to auditioning and, of course, more episodes of ST:VOY. At this point, Pomers loves acting and she thinks it's what she wants to do when she grows up...sort of. "I was to act and be a horse trainer," she announces. "I love horses. Maybe I can do both." |