Sonequa! How are you? I'm great.
How you doing? I'm very well. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your time on this.
Very exciting. Yeah.
Yeah.
Beginning in the UK, which is very good, I feel.
Is it wrong to say I feel like Tom
Cruise is paying for Paramount everything paramount wise with Top Gun?
Right.
Top Gun is making so much money it is paying for the free coffee.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Thanks, Tom.
You know, success.
Let's talk about Star Trek, you know, four seasons and now.
Did you anticipate when you first started that even though Star Trek
has such a big following, that you guys would get to have the run
that you've had so far?
Oh, my goodness. Well, I certainly hoped.
I certainly hope that we would, you know, because Trek is
Trek is Trek and Trek is a big deal.
And it has been for a very long time.
And so you anticipate that you can be welcomed into the franchise
and welcomed into the hearts of people
and you hope that you can do it justice and stick around.
And I'm just I'm very grateful that we have.
I'm very grateful that we have and grateful to be here,
you know, launching in the UK
and in other countries and territories later this year and so on.
I'm grateful for that because I think that I think that the message of Trek,
it's always been globally celebrated and that has to continue.
It has to. Yeah.
When you take it back to when you first started, when you first
read the character and the scripts and what they were trying to do
with this version of the show, what was your initial kind of lure
and did you expect your character to go on the journey that she has?
Because there's so much has happened to her in the five years
she had downs and over the numbers and everything.
That's right.
Ups and downs over the years. That's exactly right.
A lot of change and permanent change at that.
There's something about permanent change in a story
that really appeals to me and fascinates me.
You know,
it's one thing to be affected by something that happens, but then just
kind of bounce back to your neutral.
But it's another thing to completely change as a person
and for that to be who you now are
and to see it manifesting in all these ways.
But in the very beginning, you know, I was still on Walking
Dead, and a lot of people thought that I left Walking Dead
to come to Star Trek Discovery. That's not what happened.
I was I was actually on my way out of Walking Dead already.
I was shooting those last few episodes as Sasha.
And and then I heard about Star Trek.
I heard about Star Trek Discovery
that it was coming back to TV, first of all,
that it was going to be digitally streamed
and that it was going to be hyperspace realized.
And I was like, whoa, that's that's different.
You know, it's it's not going to be sort of like a, you know, buttoned up episodes.
It's going to be like a novel told in chapters.
And I said, Oh, my goodness, what would that look like in Trek?
You know, that's that's probably going to be really phenomenal.
And then I knew that they I found out that they wanted it to be
one of two black women to be at the helm.
They were really adamant about that and I respected that.
So yeah, I, I had high hopes from that.
From the very beginning.
I felt a great deal of pressure, but I had high hopes.
So I'm glad to. Yeah.
I mean, culturally, the show, from its beginnings, even more
so now as it's gone on, has, as has done so much for
not just the Trek community, but terms of TV and for, like you say,
you at the front of this network and everything else in between.
How important is a show like this?
Because its legacy is just got stronger and stronger and it's become even more
than what it began when it was when it was.
Shatner And that's that's right.
That's right.
And that's I think that's baked in right.
And I think that it's some it's baked in, but it also
it requires and acceptance of that duty and that responsibility to continue
pushing the needle forward and continue innovating, continue
growing and maturing so that we can look like the society
that we that we're in so that we can represent.
And that's that's always been the case.
And as our world changes, it's it requires
consistent engagement and consistent risk taking,
acts of courage, you know, on the page
and in the application of it as well in the making of it.
So I, I just appreciate that whatever it may do,
however, it may positively affect
people because of all of the diversity,
because of all of the strides forward, however small it may be.
I'm just grateful to be a part of it.
Are you able to keep up with all the timelines?
Because there's a lot of variables now, particularly now.
Patrick Stewart Oh yeah, back and that's right.
Chris Pine Coming back from are you able to keep up to date?
Is there like a Bible of ways where you say,
yeah, you know what, it does kind of get it gets baked in, it gets baked in
because even discovery, we've gone all over the timeline, right?
Starting in 2256, ten years before toast and then jumping ahead,
you know, after any other Trek 3188,
and where every decision we make is
canon, suddenly it's canon, everything.
And that's so
liberating and humbling.
And it happens all the time on set
where we go, okay, so what should we do with this particular thing?
And we're like, Well, let's establish it right now,
because what we do will become canon
since we're in this new time.
So, you know, I think that all of that gets baked in.
And then now that we're so far ahead, it's easier because, you know,
everything else is behind you, at least in terms of the timeline.
You can at least know that it's like, okay, well, Picard
And then so yep.
And got it. You know,
they talk to you about the possibility of you guys doing a film
because in the history of Star Trek, yeah, the show's just about into film.
But like you say,
your show slightly different in the way that it's serialized and everything else.
And they talked about maybe doing a feature length movie
or maybe somewhat paramount plus now that yeah.
Is there to maybe do something a little bit more.
Yeah it right. Right.
Well I mean we talk about lots of things, right?
We talk about I'm privileged
to be in these conversations, especially as a producer now on the show.
And so we we talk about a lot of stuff.
And I, you know, I might have heard a word or two.
I might have heard a word or two.
It would be exciting.
It would be exciting to see.
I don't know.
I don't think it's you know, I think it's just in talks
at this point, if I'm to be honest.
But I know that it would be.
I think that'd be really cool.
I think argue.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you guys are exactly right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
I thank you for yours.
Nice to meet you, too. Thank you so much.