Ashley Judd told Anderson Live that she was asked to be on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” while auditioning for another project. “I auditioned for something else that day, and they started whispering about me, which is usually a good sign that you’re like gonna go in and see the producers, the head of Studio, or something. And they said, ‘We know you didn’t come in for this, but may we cast you in ‘Star Trek’ right now?'” she said, adding that they wanted her to go directly to wardrobe to prepare parts of her costume.
“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Season 5, Episode 6, “The Game” ends with Wesley Crusher rescuing Robin Lefler from a game that connects to the brain, taking control of much of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew. Robin then bids farewell to Wesley who is headed back to Starfleet Academy, also marking the end of Judd’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” career.
According to the official Star Trek website, this was Judd’s first professional acting role. While her sister Wynonna and mother Naomi took over country music, Judd was taking the acting world by storm, working on big films including “A Time to Kill” and later playing Tris’ (Shailene Woodley) mother Natalie in the “Divergent” film series. She told Roger Ebert in 1993, “I’ve known from the time I was about 7 years old that I was meant to be an actress … I know how to figure out what a scene is about, what it means to me, who the other people are to me and what I’m doing.”
