Summerguide 2009

Augusta’s Rachel Nichols brings a dash of color to Star Trek and lights up the screen in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
interview by Colin Sargent

This summer, local audiences enjoying the critically acclaimed Star Trek movie have the right to point at the screen and say, “She’s from Maine,” when they see Rachel Nichols, painted green in some wonderfully steamy scenes with Captain Kirk.

Not that it’s easy being green: “It took four hours to paint that on her,” Rachel’s mom, Alison Nichols, tells us from the same house in Augusta where Rachel grew up and pointedly did not dream of becoming an actress.

Of course, Nichols is only the second Maine-connected star to look green and fabulous. In the original Wizard of Oz (1938), Margaret Hamilton, who retired to Southport Island off Boothbay, was painted a lurid copper-based green while playing her unforgettable Wicked Witch of the West. When she scares the scarecrow, the pyrotechnic special effects set poor Margaret’s paint on fire, too. She was in the hospital for days.

“Oh, no!” Nichols says. “In Star Trek, I don’t think my paint was flammable or copper-based, thank goodness. That process, including hair and makeup, took five hours.”

Nichols has come through being green comparatively unscathed. After bursting on the national scene in Dumb and Dumberer, she won recurring roles in Sex in the City, Alias, parts in films like The Woods, and this summer has vaulted up to far greater renown with the major motion pictures Star Trek and G.I. Joe.

This must be such an incredible year for you. Is this something you’ve wanted all along?

I had no plans to be an actress. I left Maine to go to Columbia with aspirations of power suits and briefcases and working on Wall Street. I started modeling my sophomore year at Columbia.

Was there a crystallizing moment, then, that changed your life around? It’s not as if they have a Schwab’s Drugstore in New York, or do they?

There were several moments. I used to work in Abercrombie & Fitch at the [South Street] Seaport in New York, and a casting director for a photographer who saw me contacted me.

Not that I didn’t have my doubts…You know, the girl from Augusta, Maine, being bamboozled by people in film.

It was funny and strange-I was still working at Abercrombie & Fitch when the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog came out, with me in it!

Your Star Trek opportunity is huge, but your role in the blockbuster G.I. Joe this summer is even bigger, isn’t it?

I’m extremely excited about it. It’s definitely the biggest role I’ve ever played, in the biggest movie. I’m playing the role of Scarlet, the good girl. She grew up with all the guys, working with all the Joes all her life. Some people think G.I. Joe is one man, but it’s really a group of guys who make up a high-level covert unit she’s worked with all her life. Scarlet is like their kid sister. The bad girl is Sienna Miller.”

So you’re Sienna Miller’s opposition character?

“Yeah. My biggest fight is against her. She’s extremely funny, really easy to work with. She’s a fantastic actress-I like her so much. We’re pretty much the only two girls in the movie, so if we hadn’t liked each other, it would have been a disaster.”

Was it out of character for you to fight? How many gangs could there have been in Augusta?

On Alias, I was told, ‘as Sydney Bristow’s protégé, you have to work out like Jennifer Garner works out.’ So I trained with Valerie Waters, Jennifer’s trainer, on Alias, where I also had some weapons training. I still work with her.

When I got the role in Star Trek, I wasn’t really familiar with [all the episodes and movies beloved to Trekkie universe]. Of course, I knew who Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were. But I wondered if my not having been [a card-carrying Trekkie] before would be hard to overcome, and then I was relieved when the director, J.J. Abrams, admitted he wasn’t, either.

When I read the script, I was immediately fascinated by it. The old Star Trek fans really like the movie, but it’s wonderful way of creating a starting point for a new generation to love it, too.

How hard was it to get the green paint off?

They air-brushed the color on me for the scene with Capt. Kirk, so it wasn’t so much paint and paintbrushes. My hair was sprayed a sticky red. To get it off, they used shaving cream to break the chemicals down and loosen the color. A week later, there were still places of green that kept showing up-I’d look down and see it turn up on a toenail, or between my toes. I’d find it behind my ears! I think I was green behind my elbows the longest. I don’t even want to admit how long it took for me to notice that!

Your mom has told us you’re homesick sometimes.

I’m always homesick. I’m really, really close to my family and love returning to the same house I grew up in, close to the edge of town. I’m definitely coming home this summer, before the extensive press tours for G.I. Joe. I always fly to Portland. A visit to Maine isn’t complete until I get to see my friend, Christine York, in Augusta. Then I know I’m home.

The scary thing is, won’t Trekkies be bothering you for the rest of your life? Liv Tyler’s still being pestered for having been the Queen of the Fairies in Lord of the Rings.

My management company has been contacted by some Star Trek fans, but I was lucky, since I was painted green and had bright-red hair in the movie, they don’t know what I look like otherwise!
Nobody’s going to be following Gaila down the street. n

>> For a link to Rachel Nichols’s filmography, visit imdb.com/name/nm0629697

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