‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’: Celia Rose Gooding on Playing ‘TOS’ Uhura

There is so much to love about the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 finale, “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” which once again deals with time travel and offers a look at the crew’s future — in fact, at the TOS era crew for characters like Captain Kirk (Paul Wesley), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and more. In this case, it’s a matter of black and white holes and the temporal anomaly that results for Uhura, leading to Gooding playing the present and future versions of the character interacting in a major way. TV Insider spoke with Gooding about just that. Warning: Spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 finale ahead!

At first, SNW Uhura and TOS Uhura are simply talking to one another across time, with one goal: to save Scotty (Martin Quinn), with whom she’s involved in the future timeline. (In the present, Uhura avoids his attempt to ask her out.) But then they end up switching places, and in order to swap back and fix the situation, they have to essentially help deliver a “baby” together.

But what’s most important are the conversations each version gets to have. SNW Uhura has a sweet moment with TOS Chapel (Jess Bush), and TOS Kirk can tell pretty quickly that something’s going on, speaking to their relationship. (Also of note: Brian Markinson’s Boyce is the doctor on the Enterprise, and McCoy is mentioned.) Meanwhile, back in the SNW timeline, TOS Uhura sits down with Pike (Anson Mount) for one of the best scenes of the season, in which she has the opportunity to tell him that everything she is in Starfleet is because of him, so poignant knowing his fate.

And once the Uhuras switch back, TOS reunites with Scotty, while SNW‘s is now open to their future together.

“If you loved 410, you’re going to love every single episode of Season 5,” teases Gooding. Below, the star goes inside that spectacular finale. (Plus, read what executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers had to say about the episode and what’s ahead in the final season here.)

We, of course, have to start by talking about you playing TOS Uhura because that look was everything.

Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, you mean it? Thank you. Thank you very much. It was so fun to do. It was so fun. I, at first, was really intimidated because as human beings, when we see ourselves looking different, it triggers something. And the first thing it activated in me was like, “Whoa, I look different.” And then immediately, I got out of my head because it’s not my business what I look like, but it really started to warm in me when I got to see in the edit the conversations between TOS and Strange New Worlds Uhura. The way that they’re both me, and they’re often shot on both sides of the conversation were shot in the same day, it felt like two different people having a conversation, neither of which were me. Movie magic, man, the power of the edit.

John Medland/Paramount+

I was going to ask about playing the two different versions — because especially when they are interacting, how was it to slip into TOS‘ mindset?

Man, we shot this so long ago that now I’m trying to harken back to just because it was such an intense shooting schedule. It was a challenge. It forced me to lean into the current of what this episode is meant to be in a way that, as someone who still is learning to detach from the illusion of control, it was definitely a test of leaning in and saying, “Hey, it may feel a little weird, but lean into that weirdness because the weirdness is the bedrock of the tension that exists between the two of these people who are the same person.” It was a lot of looking to the showrunners and looking to my director and being like, “Is this working?” I remember looking at Chris Fisher and being like, “Is this working? Is it looking right? Am I doing right?” And him being like, “Don’t worry about that. Just go. It’s working. It’s working. Just go.” As much of it was a conversation between TOS Uhura and Strange New Worlds Uhura, it was also a conversation between present-day Celia and Season 1 Celia, someone who desperately just wanted to do everything the right way, and now that I’m older and wiser, I’m like, “Baby, there’s no such thing. Just do it and we’ll figure it out.”

And I think one of the most challenging days was the conversation between — the first conversation between the two of them when they’re both in their science labs, when they sort of challenge each other for the first time being like, “Are you actually like this? What happened to you? What’s going on?” They’re sort of reading each other. At least that’s how I remember it because I haven’t seen the episode in a minute, and I don’t know what they cut and what they didn’t. But I remember feeling like I was going through a washing machine, having that.

I’m so grateful for my stand-in, Lisa, who would read the other Uhura’s lines. We actually have very similar vocal inflections and vocal tones, and so it felt like I was talking to myself, but not in the way that I do in my own sweet time in the shower. It felt like literally having a conversation with a version of me, but that’s the whole point of the episode, so it totally worked.

But yeah, it was challenging to know what the scene is going to be and ignore that and just exist in my one point of it, and acknowledging that challenge and trying not to overcome it, to live in that challenge and to get comfortable in that challenge because I said it earlier, but the challenge in that episode for me as an actor is the bedrock of the tension that lives with these two characters until the very end of the episode where they have this conversation, and they meet with each other and they hold hands, and they’re like, “Hey, I love you. I love you so bad.” I wish there was a way for it to work where they could hug, but I think the CGI of it was like, “We’re not going to be able to make that happen.” But it felt just to watch — it makes me so emotional.

The gift that is being able to look a younger version of yourself in the face and say, “You’re doing great”? We don’t get that. We don’t get that. And as badly as I want that for me, as badly as I want to be able to look a younger version of myself in the face and say, “Girl, just go. You got it. This is not a test. Just go and live it and enjoy it and let your joy be the thing that keeps your sails filled.” And then on the flip side, to look a future version of yourself in the face and to have all of these ideas of what that person is going to be and what their existence means to you, to hear praise from that version of yourself that you’ve idolized, even when I think about it that way, my whole body unclenches. It’s so powerful, this journey that she gets to go on.

I’m so grateful that I got to go on it, that Uhura got to go on it, and that audiences get to see her go on it, and people who see themselves in Uhura to have that for themselves. Everybody gets a high five. Everybody gets a high five, and it’s great, and I love it. As Celia, as someone who is playing a communications officer but is also deeply mercurial and deeply — when I say mercurial, I mean ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication astrologically — I just love that everybody gets to talk to themselves and gets to love on themselves in a way that I think as human beings we all desperately want but are too shy to name.

And I love what we get from both versions of Uhura with Pike and Kirk, to see the evolution of those relationships.

Oh my God, the conversation between TOS Uhura and Captain Pike!

John Medland/Paramount+

I know that one, especially because we know what Pike’s fate is. So for Uhura to get that moment where she can thank him for what he meant to her, knowing his fate –

Oh my God!

And then even just to see Uhura and Kirk’s dynamic and how that’s evolved, even it’s not that far in the future…

Yeah. When the screeners came out for the cast, God, it feels like a year ago now, I watched 10 [through my fingers] because I wanted to see it, but I was really scared to watch myself do it. Man, I know that I am the person that is meant to talk about this, but I feel like just the wrong person to be speaking about this. It’s incredible to — man, while I love the conversations between Strange New Worlds Uhura and Captain Kirk, the thing that is just so much more meaty to me is the conversation between TOS Uhura and Captain Pike. I’m going to cry my eyes out. I think because Uhura knows — Oh, because Uhura, oh my God! Because Uhura knows what’s going to happen to Captain Pike and for her to be like… It just means so much. We got to invent time machines, man; we got to be able to do this for ourselves. I don’t mean to be selfish, but that conversation between TOS Uhura and Captain Pike, it’s like being able to talk to a dead relative, which we don’t get to do literally. We’ll do it metaphysically and there are entire practices dedicated to conversations between the veil. To do it practically, it is a unique and incredibly special gift. And the weight of it is so heavy, but it is carried by neither party in the conversation. It’s carried by the audience. Thank you to the audience for holding onto that because I sure couldn’t, but it’s a gift.

As an actor, the way I approach things is to personify it and to make it really important to me, Celia, as a human being, and to be able to look Anson Mount in the face and be like, “Hey, thanks. Because if you weren’t Captain Pike, I couldn’t be now Lieutenant Uhura”…

When we were shooting that episode, there was an energy of, we didn’t know what Season 5 was going to be. We didn’t have that understanding yet. And so it felt like a mini finale. It felt like a mini series finale, that conversation of these two characters that don’t really know each other, being able to be like TOS Uhura, “Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate you deeply. I know I cannot go with you on this journey, but I carry you with me every day.” And Strange New Worlds Pike being like, “I hear you; you’re doing great. Not super savvy about all the time f**kery that’s going on, but I believed in you every step of the way, and even on this side of the veil, I believe in you now.” It’s like, how do you go on? I don’t know how I did it.

Yeah, I’m just filled with gratitude, to be really candid with you. I feel aglow with gratitude and pride and reflection and catharsis. I’ve been holding onto this episode for so long — a little over a year now. I’ve been holding onto this episode because we finished shooting this June of last year, I think. And I’m just really excited for fans to see it. I’m really excited for people who’ve loved Uhura, for people who’ve seen themselves in Uhura, for all the Uhuras all around the world to see just how celebrated and reflective and appreciative she is of herself. I could cry. I could cry.

So you brought up how TOS Uhura gets that gift, but it feels like TOS Uhura also gives Strange New Worlds Uhura a gift in the Scotty relationship that she says yes to.

Oh god, right!

Related

Inside 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Puppet Episode: 'Wrath of Khan' Nod, Explained

And it seems like there’s really hope in that final scene when we see Uhura and Scotty at the table, and it feels like they are moving forward. What is it about that relationship that Uhura needs that she didn’t really want to accept, maybe, and that’s why she was holding off on it? Because it could work. I’m excited to see that because it is in canon, too.

It absolutely is in canon. And so much of what I wanted to do with that relationship is just give that canonical romantic connection that happens in Star Trek V. It just felt right. I think, especially with Strange New Worlds, the nature of our show, our crew is so — the web is so entangled in so many different relationships that go on and so many will they, won’t they type things. And so it felt really good to throw Uhura in there and let her have a little something because Uhura’s playfulness is eternal. She’s always been a flirty little romantic, beautiful, Venusian, Venus harmony planet; she’s so Venus-forward. And so to have an older version of herself be like, “Girl, go do it. Have fun. We know you’re brilliant. We know you’re capable. Stop treating everything like a test. This isn’t a prank. You are exactly where you’re meant to be. Enjoy it, and enjoy it outside of how you conserved your crew, because while that is important, your joy and your pleasure is important too. Go have fun…”

And I love Martin. I love what he’s done with Scotty. I have such admiration and respect for him, and how these two characters have existed with each other over the seasons of Strange New Worlds, you can interpret it in many different ways. And I think for the people who have been rooting for Uhotty since Martin’s casting announcement, they get to have this as a little treat. So yeah, I think when I first read it, I was like, “Oh, we’re moving fast. All right, let’s do it.” But when I was looking back at old episodes of Strange New Worlds, I’m like, “Actually, now that we have this understanding, you could interpret a lot of what they were doing as maybe being a little flirty.” During “Space Adventure Hour,” Scotty goes to Uhura, he says, “Hey baby, I need you.” And Uhura is like, “I’m going to drop everything and help you because that’s what friends are for. Not because I think you’re hot and want to kiss you on the mouth.” Not that, no.

But no, I think we established it in little beats. Even Martin and I, before we knew that that was the relationship that we were going to inherit for these two characters, just the little things that they have between the two of them, it colors their relationship beautifully, and it establishes a beautiful bed of soil for their love flower to blossom. God, that was disgusting. But yeah, we’re establishing some good background for their relationship in the future to make just that much more sense.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Fifth and Final Season, TBA, Paramount+