Kate Mulgrew Field: Actor (Star Trek Voyager) Website: www.startrek.com

The Battlestar Galactica Fan Club's Gregory L. Norris and Laura A. Van Vleet recently spoke with Kate Mulgrew, Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager. The interview has some interesting insights on Kate and her future after Star Trek.

An Interview with Star Trek: Voyager star Kate Mulgrew

by

Gregory L. Norris & Laura A. Van Vleet

Star Trek: Voyager’s Kate Mulgrew recently sat down and spoke with writers Gregory L. Norris and Laura A. Van Vleet on a variety of topics – her role of a lifetime as the first woman to captain a Star Trek series, her thoughts on the encroaching end of the seven-year adventure, and on how she came to be a real-life hero: spokeswoman for the Incarnation Children’s Center, New York City’s only residence home for children and babies afflicted by HIV/AIDS.

Kate Mulgrew: I’m not even sure I even thought – I’m not sure I gave myself that luxury. It was so overwhelming initially I just threw myself into it. It’s been a remarkable opportunity and an intriguing journey, because Janeway is written very bravely. She’s written big – the captain has to be big. But I do hope and would probably say that I’ve given her my passion, as much of my heart as they’ve allowed me to give her with impunity. I have tried very hard to endow her with a humanity that is common in most captains, and I think most important to me is that I leave Voyager with a Janeway who knows beyond her love of Starfleet, beyond her even going down with the ship, she’s had a rather rude and extraordinary awakening – that she’s grown to love deeply and beyond words eight very flawed people, and she will never again be the same because of that. So, I think she has become that, become everything, because of the relationship between myself and the writers, which has all been very respectful, highly creative, and very trusting. I’ve learned how to really embrace her as a political being as well. It’s the ideal situation for an actress to be in.

KM: You can’t imagine the mixed emotions involved here, and I think they parallel my own. This is exceedingly poignant and heartbreaking for Janeway, whose last seven years have absolutely hinged on these eight people and this beloved ship of hers. She has transcended her own loneliness, her own needs, and many of her own struggles in order to understand and finally really love these senior crew. There is a sense of intimacy in these relationships that most circumstances simply will not allow. They’ve been in the trenches together and life as a civilian knows it will strike Janeway right through her heart. She’s accustomed to the big fight with these noble hearts, and I think that saying goodbye will be profoundly disturbing and difficult for her.

KM: Then you can imagine how I must be feeling. A part of me is very ready, as a human being and as an actress to bring closure to this chapter. But the wisest part of me understands that it is not that easy. The complications and the joy, the triumphs and the barriers, all the secrets that we’ve shared, have indeed transcended anything written on the page. We know each other as actors and as characters. It’s been a different life for us and it’s not going to be easy to adjust to life without that. You’re talking about something very, very deep to an actress who’s created a character like this. I have fashioned Janeway, from the beginning, with everything that I’ve had. My commitment to her has been complete.

KM: Well, I was intended to lead them. I wasn’t sure in the beginning how I would do it. But I think what you and the fans are seeing and acknowledging is the fact that I have loved almost every minute of it. The camera doesn’t lie about that. I have had great joy in creating this woman, whom I now find to be separate from myself, whom I admire and love in a way that’s going to be really tough to say goodbye to.

KM: No, not at all. I did my training in acting school. I have a pretty flexible and strong body, so I am not afraid of those stunts at all. An audience always knows when the actors are doing them and when the stunt double is doing them, so it always looks better to have the actual actor doing the part. It really physical, and it’s fun.

KM: The most difficult I think for me has been to understand that the captain must exercise a certain discipline that the others don’t have to, which is confining as an actress, and at the same time immensely challenging. Janeway doesn’t have the luxury of emotions that the others have. So that’s been the real challenge – how do I convey that without crossing the line? How do I convey command and at the same time my humanity, and how do I make myself accessible with unspoken authority? That’s been the ongoing challenge, as I think it would really be to a captain. At the same time, it’s been very rewarding. There hasn’t been a down side of any of great significance to me. I find actors who complain about a great role to be rather petulant. I’m very pleased to have had this role. There’s not much I can say by way of complaining. I’ve been able to go to work everyday on a character I have grown to love deeply, who serves not only as role model but as a character of great substance and virtue and some flaws, as I repeatedly state. It’s been my choice every morning for the last seven years to commit myself 100% percent.

KM: There is no question that my best friend, Nancy Addison-Altman, is completely responsible for my being part of it [Mulgrew and Addison-Altman both starred together on the ABC soap, Ryan’s Hope]. Nancy dragged me up to the ICC in Washington Heights five years ago and told me I would fall in love with these children as she had, and I did. I think the name I would put to this organization is empathy, in its most epic sense. These children are dying of AIDS, and this is the only facility in New York that provides them with one-on-one care. Through nurturing, they’ve learned that these children live much longer lives, and are much happier. So, I’m associated with the ICC because I love my good friend so deeply, and to honor the goodness of others.

KM: It’s going on twenty-eight years. Friendship is like love. It’s a matter of luck. You can search the world over. You can have the noblest heart. You, yourself, can be a charismatic, fabulous human being, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to find the right match. I think it’s like anything else. It’s such a mysterious element in life, and that is why I would say God is probably responsible. To me, it’s certainly mystical, both in my marriage to a wonderful man [in 1998, Mulgrew married Ohio politician Tim Hagan], and in my friendships, such as this oldest and most abiding of friendships I share with Nancy. She has taught me how to deeply be myself, and I love her more than any other person with whom I do not share blood with in this world.

GN & LV: What are your hopes for the ICC’s future?

KM: I find the culture to be increasingly more reluctant to take care of its needy and its underprivileged. The charity events we hold are now aimed toward raising money to put beds in the new medical facilities, and to provide nursing care, pediatricians, and to save a good number of lives. That’s my hope.

KM: I would like to focus on my marriage, and allow my husband some time to readdress his own life. He’s made such a huge sacrifice in the last couple of years, to accommodate our marriage and this crazy schedule of mine that when this is finished it will be my turn to shine the light on him. And I intend to do so. You know, he’s a marvelous man. He’s a public servant and a pretty important politician in Ohio. And I want him to be able to review his life and decide what his next time is going to be, and with my full and unequivocal support.

KM: The people. The real people. I’ll miss my friends. I’ll miss the feeling of the shared secrets, that sensibility of having been in the trenches with these guys, and knowing that pretty much it’s a once in a life time experience. And I think that I will miss the sense of accomplishment – I mean some of the stuff has been remarkably difficult for me.

KM: No, more the fatigue. After a certain number of hours to deliver, to perform at the standard that I’m found performing at. It’s tough after twelve-thirteen hours to maintain. So it’s punching through under those circumstances. That’s been difficult. Some of the techno-babble has been difficult, not only to understand but also to handle and deliver. I often felt short changed in some of the interpersonal relationships. You know I could get a little upset about that. I wish that B’Elanna and Janeway had had a deeper friendship, better explored. Same goes for the character of Tom Paris.

KM: He’s the consummate actor, Bob Picardo. When you think of what he’s done with this character, which I think when initially written had so little, he’s brought it to such astounding and vibrant life, hasn’t he? We’re very good friends. But these are minor complaints. I feel that I’ve ridden through it and even when I feel that I have not, I have always said to myself there’s tomorrow. I will miss knowing that there’s a tomorrow for Voyager. This final season has gone by rather too quickly, as good-byes always do. It’s been a closing of a chapter that has sort of redefined my life. In many ways, Voyager has made my life fuller, certainly richer by virtue of these people whom I have grown so fond of, and also because of everything that I’ve been put through. I never could have dreamed this, of sharing an experience as an actress with a character that I don’t think happens to many others. And I will very, very much miss her, Janeway. I am not an actress who says goodbye easily to a character. I think Janeway will linger in my heart for a very long time.

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