Mulgrew Would Love To Appear In Film With Other Captains

Kate Mulgrew (Janeway) told fans at the 40th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas earlier this month that she would love to play Admiral Janeway in a future Star Trek film if the producers elect to incorporate cast members from the Voyager-era television shows.

"I'd love that! And I think maybe they will do it. This is the fortieth anniversary. Who knows?" Mulgrew was quoted as saying at her official web site, Totally Kate! "By the sixtieth [anniversary] all the captains may have come together in some motion picture. With any luck they will. I'd love to be the only girl! In that company, hmmm? I wonder if I'd survive?" At present, fans will have to make do with an upcoming video game, Star Trek: Legacy that incorporates the voices of all five television captains.

Mulgrew answered questions at the convention on a wide range of subjects, including the recent loss of her mother to Alzheimer's and her gratitude to fans for their donations for research to find a cure. "It has been a challenging and complicated year for me," she said, crediting her mother with her latest television role, a recurring character on the upcoming NBC mid-season show The Black Donnellys. "On my way to the airport to go home to say good-bye to her for the last time, I made a pit-stop and met these gentlemen, Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis, and they offered me a role in their new series...it's a great series. It's a story of an Irish Catholic – how very odd! – family in Hell’s Kitchen. It's really the beginning of the West Side Mob." Mulgrew has been shooting that series for several weeks.

In a previous appearance at the Star Trek Experience, Mulgrew caused controversy by declaring her support for a presidential candidate, so she joked repeatedly this year that she could not speak about politics, though she did mention that her moisturizer had been confiscated at the airport and said, "They won over there, didn’t they? It’s a mess." When asked whether she thought a Star Trek convention was really a good place to discuss her political views, Mulgrew stated, "You know, I've never been one for picking the ideal place. And why not, right? Why not? I mean it's not the ideal place to tell you that I'm broken-hearted about my mother, but such is life, right?"

Mulgrew noted that Star Trek has followed her everywhere. "You never know who loves it. And I’m constantly surprised," she said, explaining that her mother loved the Trappistine Nuns and that when Kate met the Trappist monk who celebrated the mass at her mother's death, he asked her when she would be in a Star Trek movie. Other fans wanted to know whether there would be a DVD production of Tea at Five, the play in which Mulgrew portrayed Katharine Hepburn, but she said that another actress had taken over the role in the touring company and she was unaware of any plans involving herself at present. She is hoping to appear in another play in London in the future.

Several viewers spoke to Mulgrew about being a role model for women and girls, to which the actress responded, "There can be no greater reward than that, right? Now, I'm sure you’re all saying, she's a beastly liar. She’d really like us all to say, you’re the world's greatest actress and certainly more beautiful than any other creature who ever walked. But the reality is when I hear that, that is the thing that endures. If I’ve been a role model to your daughter it means that I've imparted something that transcends the performance." She added, however, that the strength she portrays in characters comes from "the aura, rather than the essence" and said she would rather explore her vulnerability than her strength, which she believed might be a disappointment to one of the questioners who was uplifted by the latter.

As for Janeway, said Mulgrew, "I am terribly proud of what I did in those seven years...I look back at it in a kind of amazement. The stamina, the discipline, the presence, the constancy, the devotion I brought to her indicates to me only one thing. It wasn’t just about ego, or it would have gone to hell in a handbasket, it would have. It was about loving that character...and that – let me say it out loud – I was going to strike a blow for women."

The full transcript, including Mulgrew's thoughts on art, poetry and aging, is here.

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