Interview: Celia Rose Gooding on Uhura and belonging in ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’

On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Celia Rose Gooding is helping us all communicate a little bit better. The actress plays Nyota Uhura, a role and character that’s quite legendary in Trek Cannon. For Gooding’s version of the communications officer, Uhura starts off as a Cadet and, by the end of the second season, is fully engaged and on board as a member of the crew on the USS Enterprise.

Over Zoom, we talked with the star in detail about this season and even got a tiny preview of the season (3!) that the cast just wrapped filming on. Gooding talked with us about the most memorable episodes – from the musical Subspace Rhapsody to the crossover with Lower Decks. Gooding went in depth about Lost in Translation, the Uhura-centric story that brought Zombie-Hemmer in a turbo lift to the Star Trek lexicon. Read on for the full interview, or listen to the audio above.

Ayla Ruby: Okay. Awesome. It’s wonderful to talk to you. I love your work, so I’m really excited.

Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I’m happy we could do this.

Ayla Ruby: Yeah. So we’re talking Strange New Worlds. And this season, things are more established. You’ve come from season one where you’re world building and establishing this whole new thing. Can you talk a little bit about your character, where her starts and where she ends up? She’s officially the communications officer this season, so things are changing.

Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, yeah. Things are changing at a rapid… Well, it’s a rapid speed in canon. In our world, it’s been like five years.

Ayla Ruby: I know.

Celia Rose Gooding: But yeah, she starts in season one as a young ensign. Oh, wait, no, she starts as a cadet.

Ayla Ruby: Cadet, yeah.

Celia Rose Gooding: Shows how long we have been in this space. She starts as a cadet and then moves up to ensign, and it’s a really big change for her. She starts in a place where she’s not really sure if she wants to be on the Enterprise. She’s still trying to figure out where her place is in the world she wants to inherit. She’s just faced really incomparable loss and is just really feeling the weight and the pressure of that. And she is grappling with the idea of family and community and what it means to belong somewhere and what it means to belong with a group of people that isn’t her biological family. And so that’s where she starts.

And then by the time we wrap up season two, she has a permanent position on the bridge. She is the communications officer. She really has a sense of understanding that she has a place here. Not only does she have a place here, but it’s one of the more important places she could have filled out in the Enterprise crew. She is the person who… Well, she has a whole song about it in season two. That is how she keeps everybody connected. And yeah, I think in season three, she’s just continuing to expand on taking space and really ownership over her responsibilities and her contributions to the Enterprise crew.

And so we’re just continuing to see her expand and expand and expand, and I’m really excited about her journey in season three. That’s just been the word of the day exception. She’s just taking up space, really owning her title and her role, and her confidence is really blossoming and blooming. I think, as the seasons go on, I’m trying to get closer and closer to a recognizable version of Uhura, really trying to emulate Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura. And I think season three, we’re just getting closer and closer and closer, so it’s very exciting for me.

Ayla Ruby: As an audience, it’s been super fun to watch her growing into this very empathetic person and just really, like you said, finding her place. And I have a lot of questions about the musical episode, so I’m glad you mentioned that.

Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

Ayla Ruby: But along with that, there’s Lost in Translation, which is a super big episode for her. And I would love to know if you could talk about your reactions to first hearing about the episode, just your approach to being her in that episode.

Celia Rose Gooding: Sure, sure. Lost in Translation was a massive undertaking. I think, honestly, it was harder than the musical episode for me emotionally. I think the musical episode, it was very familiar to me. It’s a wheelhouse that I’ve lived in for the majority of my life. And so when I was tasked with a horror episode, ask somebody who is naturally quite anxious and does not watch horror movies. Yeah. It was definitely a big undertaking for me because I really had to put Celia’s fears aside and really embrace that. We’re really not holding back and displaying how trauma affects a person’s mentality, their emotional wellbeing, their mental health. And Uhura, someone who really prides herself on her ability to just keep going, we see her really break down in a way that… I have something very similar to Uhura, where it’s my instinct to just keep going and to really deny that instinct and really sit in this very wounded, very vulnerable, very soft and fleshy place. It was very uncomfortable.

It was uncomfortable, but necessarily uncomfortable. It was so interesting to really display how haunted Uhura is and how vulnerable she has to be with her crew mates, and really with Paul Wesley as Captain Kirk. I’ve really had to open up to Kirk in a way that is not an instinct for me personally. And Uhura, I think this was the most vulnerable she had been on camera for the first few seasons. This is probably one of her most vulnerable moments where she’s expressing to the superior officer that she just does not think she can go on, which is a big deal, especially for a legacy character, especially for a character as beloved and as historic as Uhura. To hear her say, “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” is really, it’s a gut punch. It displays her humanity in a way that I think we haven’t had an opportunity to really see.

I think, in later iterations of Uhura, we see her as this super person, this person who knows all the answers and has a funny little quip and something to just keep everyone else going while keeping her own personal feelings inside. And we see her in a light in which she’s really putting it out in the open, and that was a real undertaking for Celia. Celia likes to keep… Sorry to talk about myself in the third person.

Ayla Ruby: That’s okay.

Celia Rose Gooding: Only actors would talk about themselves in the third person unironically. But yeah, I tend to keep my cards closer to my chest, especially when I’m talking to people in a superior position to myself. And Uhura does the exact opposite. She finds the most important person in the room and says, “Help me please.” Which I think is the smarter way to go about life. But this is a really roundabout way to answer your question. It was very difficult, but also such a wonderful learning experience. And yeah, I had to buckle up and watch a few horror movies. A lot of Jordan Peele. Because I feel like Jordan Peele has a way of… he has a way about the horror genre that you still have the very classic themes of horror, but not in that jump, scare, flash way. That really just unsettles me to my core.

So yeah, Dan Liu, our director, Dan Liu, he really shepherded me through that process. And I’m very, very grateful for him. I don’t think I would’ve been able to really show up the way I needed to show up in this episode without him.

Ayla Ruby: There’s a lot of almost psychological horror in this episode, but there’s also… You mentioned jump scare, but there’s zombie Hemmer and the turbolift, which had to be interesting doing that.

Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, it was very interesting. Honestly, I think that was one of the harder scenes to shoot. It was one of the first ones we shot for that episode, I’m almost positive. Again, my memory fails me more often than not. But it was really wonderful to see Bruce Horak again, who plays Hemmer. And so I had to shed all of my excitement to see him very, very quickly so that I could play somebody petrified to see their gored up friend. But yeah, in between takes, we were just catching up and joking as we always did during season one. And so it was wonderful to see my friend again and play with him in person as opposed to just VFX or a body double, because a lot of his prosthetic is practical.

And so I was just very excited to see him. And then of course, I had to put that in the back there and be really petrified, which I think worked well because he did look so scary. He looked so scary in person. And he’s a fantastic actor. And so zombie Hemmer really zombied up, and it was very easy to play scared when the cameras were rolling because Bruce has such a way of zoning in and tapping into wherever he goes as a creative. And it’s really wonderful to see and wonderful to play opposite because he’s so dropped in that you have to meet him where he is at, and that is how he got some of the really… I think, some of the more powerful emotional work, especially on the bridge where Uhura is flipping her focus between the ghost of Hemmer and her commanding officers, and having to play both of those, having to just navigate the pressure of both of these incredibly intense situations. It was difficult, the nature of the episode, but also very, very easy because of how connected our characters are emotionally.

Ayla Ruby: And to talk about connected, to bring us back to Subspace or Rhapsody a little bit. So I talked to Kay and Tom, and they just praised you so much saying how wonderful you were and everything great about the musical episode. I’d love to know about your thoughts when you heard there was going to be a musical episode. And not only that, that you would have this incredible song, Keep Us Connected, that just explain so much of the character.

Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, of course. Musicals are my first love. I’ve always loved musicals. I grew up in the musical industry. And so the fact that I got to bring a little bit of what feels like home to this space that was still very new to me at the time, it was wonderful. I was so excited. At first, I thought they were kidding. At first, I thought they were playing a silly little joke on me because I’m the only person with a musical theater background in the cast. So I was like, it sounded too good to be true. And so I thought they were kidding. And then when I found out we were really doing it, that’s when I got a little nervous, truthfully. Because yeah, as somebody with I think the most musical theater experience in the cast, I put a lot of pressure on myself to just show up and be fantastic, which I think is a little impractical now. But I really just wanted to do well and represent my training well and represent what feels like a very big part of me. I just wanted to represent it well.

And working with Kay and working with Tom, it felt really, really safe and really, really sacred. I could tell that they were taking it so seriously and they wanted it to be something legit and really respected, especially when we are playing in this sci-fi fantasy world. We tow the line of camp every once in a while. And I know that our showrunners and our music team, they didn’t want it to be super campy and silly all the way through. They wanted there to be some really tender moments, some very honest moments. And I think Keep Us Connected was one of those really, really tense moments in the musical episode. I think that was the moment where Uhura decided that she was going to stay and really devote a hundred percent of herself to the enterprise team and to this workplace.

And to be able to do that through song felt just so good and so right. Keep Us Connected is really her accepting her place and accepting how the really hard and… Language. This is why Uhura is the linguist, and I’m not. I’m just trying to find the right word for it. But all of those really difficult moments and those really heartbreaking moments that she had to persevere through, those are the things that, while they did not have to happen, they did happen. And they’re the things that will… They’re the cushion. They’re the foundation of her understanding of how she got to the bridge and how she developed these relationships with her crew. These moments of real loss allowed her moments of real gain, truthfully.

And the gaining of understanding that she has a role and a place and a responsibility, and her accepting of that and her almost excitement about that and that anticipation feeling that she starts to get of like what next, what next, what next. We see all of that come to a head and keep us connected. And it was wonderful to do. It’s a beautiful song. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs towards the end, but it worked and makes sense. And so yeah, I loved doing it. And it really is a testament to the writers, to Tom and Kay, to our showrunners who really, really made sure that we felt rehearsed and well oiled and really confident in the undertaking, because you can’t half-arse a musical episode in Star Trek. You have to give it your all, especially because we’re doing it for the Trekkies and we really want them to appreciate the big swings that we’re taking. And it felt very loved. It felt very well received, which is all you could ever want.

And so yeah, the musical episode started off feeling like I was being pranked, then realized it was real, then got very nervous, then got very excited and felt very, very proud by the end of how hard each and every one of us in the cast worked and how devoted and just how committed we were to the process. And I feel like that commitment really shows in just how well it came together.

Ayla Ruby: You mentioned rehearsing. You mentioned, I guess, more so than a regular episode. What was that process like for this episode? How was it different than… I don’t know how long Strange New Worlds takes, but was it more than a week? What was that?

Celia Rose Gooding: So an episode takes roughly, I think, two weeks.

Ayla Ruby: Got you.

Celia Rose Gooding: It changes depending on how intense the material is. But the musical episode was definitely a months long undertaking. We had recording of the music before we even did the episode. So we had tracks to lip sync to when shooting came around. And then there were many weekends where we, excuse me, where we came to set and just did choreography rehearsal. I know when Rebecca and Chrissy as La’an and Una, when they had to do their zero gravity work, I know they had harness rehearsal that I didn’t even have to be a part of. But yeah, it was definitely a lot of showing up early, staying up late to get this done. And not just on the cast part, on the crew part, on the music team’s part, on our directing team, on our writing team. It was really an all hands on deck project and experience.

Because I find that musicals, while they are live, I think there’s such a choreography even behind the scenes that goes on when you’re putting on a musical that there was a lot of that that I saw and experienced in shooting this for TV. There was a lot of behind the scenes choreography. Again, a lot of just us showing up and being ready to download a lot of information that was new for, I think, a lot of the cast. I don’t know. I can’t remember how many… I don’t know how often our cast had to show up for choreography stuff. I don’t know if they’ve had to do that for other projects. But for this, I know that this is the first time for me in a TV and film space that I had to show up and do choreography rehearsal and then just go home. And yeah, it was just a lot of showing up and being committed. And I think that it turned out really, really well.

Ayla Ruby: Now, I know we’re getting close on time, but I want to ask-

Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, really?

Ayla Ruby: Yeah. There’s a crossover episode with Lower Decks season.

Celia Rose Gooding: Yes.

Ayla Ruby: And for your character, there are some really interesting moments with Mariner. I’d love if you could talk about filming that, what that was like, and getting that, not chemistry, but just getting that comradery from another Trek series to this.

Celia Rose Gooding: Of course, of course. I love Lower Decks. I think Lower Decks is one of the best iterations of new Trek. It is my favorite iteration. Love Lower Decks. I just think what they do on that show is so smart and special. I belly laugh watching that show and getting to work with Tawny and Jack and Jonathan Frakes, our fricking director. Amazing to get to work with him. I was so excited. And yeah, I think Tawny and Jack showed up with such a spirit of… I can only describe it as joyful mischief. They came with the intention to really just shake things up and try new stuff and really allow the Enterprise crew to show a comedic and silly side of themselves that, as an ensemble, we haven’t had an opportunity to do.

We’ve had some comedic episodes and certain characters have had comedic moments, but for all of us to come together and have to wrangle these two adult toddler character figures and make sure that they’re okay so that we could do our job, it was just such a joy. I think Uhura and Mariner, their relationship was so… I don’t know. It reminds me of how I love Tawny Newsome. Tawny Newsome is the love of my life. I love her so much. And so to get to work with her and really have a very honest conversation, it felt at times very much like Celia and Tawny talking as opposed to Uhura and Mariner, just because she was someone who I talked to a lot about just showing up in this franchise and how to be a person in Trek.

I don’t know if I really ever expressed it to her as specifically as I will try to now, but she really just uplifted me in a way that made me feel so safe and so supported, and gave me such freedom to try new stuff and really take big swings comedically. I consider myself to be a really dramatic actor. And the comedic moments find them when they can, but I think, when it comes to me, the comedy has to be in the writing. And because we have such a stellar writing team, it worked out so well. But yeah, that scene when we’re in Uhura’s quarters and she’s opening up to Mariner saying that, “I don’t know what the future version of me is doing, but I am barely holding it together.” And Mariner is the one who teaches her how to relax and exhale and let her, at the time, very short hair down and take a little bit of pressure off herself.

And that gave Uhura permission to move to a version of herself that is, again, more recognizable. I think the Uhura that generations of Trek fans have gotten to know and love is somebody a lot more relaxed than the Uhura that we’re seeing today. And she’s a lot more carefree, a lot more joyful, a lot more… She flirts with life. And I love that about her. I can’t wait to bring more of that to my Uhura as time goes on. But I think Mariner is one of the first people in canon that we’re seeing really just feed and uplift Uhura’s joy and uplift her confidence, which is something that she desperately needed more of in that season. And so, to be able to do that with somebody as just awesome as Tawny Newsome, it just felt real good. It felt really, really good.

She is just a wonderful person and a wonderful actor and a wonderful medium and person and friend. And so, to be able to play opposite her and to really just be poured into by her, it felt very good for the character and for the greedy actor that lives within me. It was great. And Frakes is such a wonderful director. The three of them, Jack, Frakes and Tawny, they brought such a lightness and a… Ooh, come on language, find me. They just brought such a air of positivity and lightness and joy and ease to the room that was so necessary because they’re sandwiched in between.

That episode is sandwiched in between two really deep and emotional and complex and heavy episodes that to have a nice filling of silliness and honesty, of course, but that lightness and that comedic tone and genre, I feel like it was perfectly placed in the series… in the season, excuse me. And because we had such three wonderful comedic talents, it was perfect. It was so great. I had such a good time.

Ayla Ruby: Oh, well, that’s awesome. I think that’s a great sentiment to end on too. I appreciate your time and you talking.

Celia Rose Gooding: Of course. This was great. It went by so fast. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your questions. Yeah, this has been a blast.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.