Nana Visitor initially turned down the role of Major Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Nana Visitor spent seven seasons playing Major Kira (eventually promoted to Colonel Kira) on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A complicated character, she'd joined a terrorist organization in an attempt to take down the Cardassians. She wrestled with feelings of guilt and anger which worked to make her one of the best characters on the show. But it was a role Visitor initally turned down as her manager assured her it would kill her career because it was a part in a science fiction television series, which weren't popular in the 1990s. [via Variety] At that time, it was easy to get pigeonholed, and that could affect an actor's future career prospects.

Executive producer Rick Berman intervened and called Visitor to tell her more about the character and where he saw Major Kira going on the show. And during the conversation, he convinced Visitor to give the role a shot, largely because it was something different than the roles she normally was offered.

"“By the end of the call, he had convinced me that I did want to be a part of it whether it impacted the rest of my career or not. When I read the script, I thought, ‘That’s a man’s role. That’s not for me.’ Yet it was all I wanted to do. I hated every part that I had to play where I was chastising a husband or getting upset about the carpet. And I did a lot of those. Any time I could get my teeth into something, that was my flow state. That’s why I was an actor. Major Kira was like Disneyland for an actor."

- Nana Visitor

Fans didn't know what to think of Major Kira at first. She came across as a strong, leading woman who didn't take any flak and stood up for what she thought was right. She wasn't afraid to get in someone's face, even if that someone was Commander Sisko [Avery Brooks], and this was the first time Star Trek had introduced a character who didn't play by Starfleet rules. But Major Kira was always a soldier first, and that was why she didn't see everything in black and white.

"Some people in the ‘Star Trek’ world were like, ‘That’s not what a woman in “Star Trek” should be. That’s the wrong thing to be teaching. But what I saw her as was a woman of appetite and gray area — lots of gray area. Very fallible, but growing and trying. And that’s all over television now."

- Nana Visitor

Over the seasons, Major Kira transformed into a beloved member of the Deep Space Nine team and even found love with the shapeshifting head of security, Odo [played by the late Rene Auberjonois]. Major Kira's story alone made for a compelling story, but her unconventional love story with Odo elevated this pair to one true pairing status for lots of Star Trek fans, making all of us thankful that Visitor was convinced to join Deep Space Nine despite her manager's hesitation.