--- name: "Nana Visitor" canonical: "https://film.one/person/nana-visitor" roles: ["Actor"] born: "26 July 1957" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 84 updated: "2026-09-16T23:24:35.588337+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Nana Visitor Actor. Born 26 July 1957 in New York City, New York, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 26 July 1957, New York City, New York, USA - **Active:** 1993–2004 - **Also known as:** Nana Tucker, نانا ویزیتور ## Fi1m on Nana Visitor > Nana Visitor plays anger as a settled condition rather than an outburst. Her Kira Nerys, seven years on *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*, is one of the few television leads allowed to stay difficult, and the series is better for it. Kira Nerys arrives on *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* (1993) as the Bajoran officer on a station at the end of an occupation, and she is not grateful to the people who have come to help. Nana Visitor plays her as a woman who spent her youth in the resistance and has now watched the Federation move in, politely, to run the place; she treats them as a second occupier with better manners. Most series would have thawed her before the first season was out. Visitor never softens her, and the writers, to their credit, never ask her to. The part came late. Visitor had been working since the 1970s, on Broadway and in soaps under the name Nana Tucker, with a film debut in *The Sentinel* (1977) and a decade of guest turns on *MacGyver*, *Knight Rider* and *Matlock*. Most of what television offered her was wives and mothers, and she has been open about wanting the fully written parts instead. *Working Girl* (1990) did not last. Then came a script she nearly refused. "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." It became 173 episodes over seven years, and it is the work by which she will be judged. What holds it together is her refusal to make Kira likeable. Visitor was a dancer before she was an actor, and it shows in how the character stands and in the fights, which she does without fuss. She is reported to have stayed in Kira's worst states between takes and to have dreamed in character; whatever we think of the method, the result is on screen. Trauma here is a condition the woman lives with, not a backstory visited in one special episode. She got at us more than we expected from a franchise this comfortable, and the reason is plain: Kira's faith and her anger come from the same place, and Visitor plays them as one thing, so that when the station's neighbours start pressing in, the turn towards war lands on a face already braced for it. Some viewers at the time did not take to so hard a female lead. They were wrong, and the show waited them out. Since 1999 she has played a recurring villain on *Dark Angel* (2001), taken over Roxie Hart in *Chicago* on Broadway the same year, and led the family drama *Wildfire* (2005–2008) for four seasons. We have not reviewed them and will not judge them from a distance. She has since gone back to Kira, in voice on *Star Trek: Lower Decks* (2022), and published *Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman's Trek* (2024). If you know her only as Kira, you know the work that matters, and we suspect she would say the same. ## Biography Nana Visitor is an American actress. Born Nana Tucker on 26 July 1957 in New York City, she is the daughter of a ballet teacher and a choreographer, and a niece of actress and dancer Cyd Charisse. She began her career on the New York stage in the 1970s, appearing in Broadway productions including *My One and Only*, and made her film debut in 1977. Visitor is best known for playing Kira Nerys in the television series *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* (1993–1999). She has also appeared in *Wildfire* as Jean Ritter and in guest roles in series including *Family Guy*, *Grimm*, *Castle* and *Resident Alien*. Her earlier television work includes regular roles in several soap operas. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Battlestar Galactica* (2004), Fi1m 83, as Emily Kowalski — [page](https://film.one/tv/battlestar-galactica.md) - *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* (1993), Fi1m 85, as Kira Nerys — [page](https://film.one/tv/star-trek-deep-space-nine.md) ## Also known for - *Ted 2* (2015), Adoption Agent - *Grimm* (2011), Melissa Wincroft - *Friday the 13th* (2009), Pamela Voorhees - *Castle* (2009), Patty Barker - *Knight Rider* (1982), Sandra Rusk - *CSI: Crime Scene Investigation* (2000), Mrs. Garbett-Katz - *Resident Alien* (2021), The Mayor - *MacGyver* (1985), Carol Varnay, Laura Farren --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/nana-visitor