Bonita Friedericy (born 10 October 1961; age 63) is an actress who portrayed Rooney who was later turned into a Borg drone in the Star Trek: Enterprise second season episode "Regeneration". She filmed her scenes in early March 2003. Friedricy is married to John Billingsley, who plays Doctor Phlox in Star Trek: Enterprise. He had been trying to get her a role on Enterprise for a while, specifically to play one of his character's many wives. When she did guest star in "Regeneration", he made it a point to tell people that her name is pronounced "so that it rhymes with Fried and Greasy". (citation needed • edit)
In an audio commentary for "Regeneration" on the ENT Season 2 Blu-ray, Friedericy and Billingsley joked that Friedericy got the part of Rooney by sleeping with Tucker actor Connor Trinneer. In reality, Friedericy auditioned for the role of Rooney, but when she walked into the room to audition, Star Trek: Enterprise creators and Executive Producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga pretended not to know her. "It was very unnerving, because I'm very shy and I didn't know whether I should say hello or not," Friedericy explained. "So, I sort of waved at them and they both kind of looked distastefully at me, and looked up at the ceiling and then they said, 'Go,' and I thought I wasn't gonna get it, and it was sad, but then I got the call and I got it."
On the set, Friedericy was referred to as a Borg baby. "I was called the baby Borg because Borg are never little, and I'm five-foot-three," she remarked. Applying the Borg makeup to Friedericy for Rooney's assimilated appearance took five-and-a-half hours. This was longer than usual because the makeup team, not having done any Borg for a while, initially made a mistake with Rooney's Borg makeup. To portray the assimilated Rooney, Friedericy also wore a Borg costume that Roxann Dawson had previously worn, in VOY: "Unimatrix Zero". Once Friedericy was made to look Borg, it was time for her to go before the cameras as the assimilated Rooney. Filming the character's death scene didn't require a stunt performer. "I was really pleased with myself," she reminisced, "because they squibbed me [repeatedly], and I did my own stunt." Each time Friedericy performed the stunt sequence, John Billingsley applauded her from off-camera. (ENT Season 2 Blu-ray, "Regeneration" audio commentary)
Her arctic archaeology team coat from "Regeneration" was later sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay. [1](X) Her Borg costume was sold off at the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction at Christie's. [2](X)
Friedericy was interviewed for the article "A Bonnie Lass" in the Star Trek Monthly issue 108 in 2003 and for "Top of the Phlox" in Star Trek Magazine issue 115 in 2004.
Career
Friedericy is probably best known for her role as General Diane Beckman in the NBC series Chuck, a role she played in seventy-four episodes between 2007 and 2012 during the complete run of the series. Robert Duncan McNeill worked as producer and also directed several episodes. On Chuck, Friedericy worked with Tony Todd, Scott Bakula, John Fleck, John Larroquette, Clyde Kusatsu, Faran Tahir, Patrick Kilpatrick, Robert Picardo, and Christopher Lloyd.
In an interview, she compared the role of General Beckman to Vaughn Armstrong's role as Admiral Maxwell Forrest on Enterprise, appearing mostly on a viewscreen to send the main characters on various assignments. [3]
Friedericy worked for around thirteen years as a teacher to finance her acting career until she made her stage debut in the early 1990s. Among her first screen roles are guest parts in episodes of Mad About You (1998, with David Carpenter), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1999, with Anthony Stewart Head, Harry Groener, Armin Shimerman, and Jimmie F. Skaggs), Oh Baby (1999, with Ethan Dampf, Peggy Jo Jacobs, and Jennifer Savidge), The Practice (1999, with Tucker Smallwood), and The Drew Carey Show (1999, with Diedrich Bader, Nan Martin, and Benjamin Brown) as well as featured roles in the family adventure Malaika (1998), The Pornographer (1999, with Craig Wasson, Todd Feder, and Franc Luz), and The Debtors (1999, with Michael J. Pollard, Steve Schirripa, Clement von Franckenstein, David Youse, and Kirk Alexander).
Further television work includes Family Law (2000, with Salli Elise Richardson, Christopher McDonald, Julie Warner, K Callan, and Annette Helde), 3rd Rock from the Sun (2000), Strong Medicine (2000, starring Jenifer Lewis, with Robert Foxworth and Whoopi Goldberg), Spin City (2001, with Alan Ruck), Becker (2001, with Terry Farrell), Dharma & Greg (2001, with Mitchell Ryan and Tracey Ellis), Malcolm in the Middle (2002, with Dennis Cockrum), Scrubs (2002, with Ken Jenkins), Alias (2003, with Victor Garber, Terry O'Quinn, Ken Lally, and Greg Grunberg), Angel (2003), 7th Heaven (2004, with Catherine Hicks and Stephen Collins), Veronica Mars (2004), Bones (2005), Criminal Minds (2005, with Tony Todd and Sharisse Baker-Bernard), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2006, starring Paul Guilfoyle, Wallace Langham and Liz Vassey), Monk (2006, starring Ted Levine, with Clyde Kusatsu and Aaron Lustig), The West Wing (2004 and 2006, starring Martin Sheen, with Gary Cole, Stephen Root, David Clennon, Van Epperson, and Wallace Langham), and Without a Trace (2007, with Enrique Murciano and Mark A. Sheppard).
In 2006, Friedericy portrayed Mary Foote in three episodes of The Nine, playing the on-screen wife of her real life husband John Billingsley. She also worked with Jessica Collins, Conor O'Farrell, Matt Kaminsky, Ron Ostrow, Jamie McShane, and Zach Grenier on these episodes.
Beside her work on Chuck, Friedericy also had recurring roles in episodes of My Name Is Earl (2008, with Jim Lau, Jack Axelrod, and Frank Collison), The Starter Wife (2008, with Ronny Cox, James Black, and Robin Atkin Downes), and Twentysixmiles (2010, again working with husband John Billingsley) and appeared in Parks and Recreation (2010, with Jim O'Heir), Castle (2012, with Penny Johnson Jerald and Patrick Fischler), Justified (2013, starring Timothy Olyphant, with Jim Beaver), Hart of Dixie (2013, with Cress Williams), and Intelligence (2014, with John Billingsley, Tony Amendola, and J. Downing).
Film work includes the drama Par 6 (2002), House of Sand and Fog (2003, with Mark Chaet, Marco Rodriguez, Al Rodrigo, Spencer Garrett, and Michael Papajohn), Christmas with the Kranks (2004, playing the wife of "Regeneration" co-star John Short), Akeelah and the Bee (2006, with Tzi Ma and Craig Wasson), the comedy Stay (2006, with Melinda Page Hamilton), Next (2007), South of Pico (2007, with Jimmy Bennett and Paul Rae), Alien Raiders (2008), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Paranormal Activity 3 (2011, executive produced by Akiva Goldsman), The Lords of Salem (2012, with Bruce Davison, Meg Foster, Richard Fancy, Andrew Prine, Michael Berryman, Sid Haig, Clint Howard, Daniel Roebuck, and Roger Morrissey), and Shotgun Wedding (2013).
Friedericy later appeared in Impastor (2015), How to Get Away with Murder (2015, with Famke Janssen, Roger Rignack, and Billy Brown), The Friendless Five (2015), and The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016, with Bruce Greenwood and Michael McGrady) as well as the drama Salt Water (2016, with Deborah Strang) on which she also worked as producer and Madtown (2016, again playing the wife of John Billingsley).