Meet the Helmsperson

A recent BlueSky post mentioned Wing Commander IV's "chief corkscrew woman," the lady seen piloting the Intrepid throughout the latter half of the game. That got me thinking: what do we know about her, anyway?

The character is credited as HELMSPERSON (not helmswoman) and she was played by actress Beverly Castaldo. She actually appears in about a dozen cutscenes, generally in periphery any time we see characters interacting in the Intrepid's CIC (often right over Blair's shoulder). She has a few scripted lines which are mostly variations of "aye aye, sir" after she is ordered to set a course to a new location.

In spite of this, she gets several dedicated reaction shots which give us a good look at her face. And there are two 'moments' that fans will remember immediately: when Maniac attempts to flirt with her and instead sends the carrier careening off course and then when she can barely control her amusement when Maniac can't use the communications system. Neither of these moments were scripted or storyboarded which suggests they were something that came out of Tom Wilson's performance.

She has very little in-universe lore beyond that she mildly tolerates Maniac's advances. Her nametag is tough to spot because of how she holds the helm but it reads DAY (after Wing Commander IV producer Mark Day) and her rank is 1st Lieutenant. She's also wearing 'wings,' though these appear on most characters in the game. That's about it!

What about Ms. Castaldo? She only has one other film credit, a 1995 thriller called Separate Lives. Her big scene sees her attending a party with lead Jim Belushi, only to have Linda Hamilton steal her away.

It looks like she was better known a model -- here she is advertising Cone-brand jeans in the late 1980s!

What about the 'corkscrew'? It is of course the BWS Intrepid's helm which controls the ship (as we see clearly when Maniac knocks it off course!). When she's shown from the side you get a good look at the additional controls that surround it. Remember that the Intrepid's CIC has been converted into a makeshift bridge and so it is intended to look somewhat out of place in the environment. The design itself seems reasonable for a ship that must operate in 3D space. Compare to a modern destroyer:

It's also very similar to a very silly contemporary game controller, the infamous Fragmaster.

We also see the same control device aboard the Vesuvius at the end of the game. Wing Commander IV's writers actually made a deliberate choice not to show the Lexington's bridge in the first act to make your character feel more lost aboard the ship!