Kate Mulgrew: From Man Who Fell to Earth Menace to Star Trek Prodigy Mentor

If you’re a fan of actress Kate Mulgrew—and frankly, why wouldn’t you be?—the last year has gratefully rewarded us with an abundance of new projects of which she’s been involved. In 2021, Star Trek: Prodigy, the first Trek animated series aimed specifically at younger viewers, debuted with a holographic version of Kathryn Janeway, voiced by the actress, at the helm. This April, Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth series debuted with Mulgrew in a recurring role as CIA operative Drew Finch. And this July, she will be part of the ensemble cast for the Lifetime limited series Flowers in the Attic: The Origin.

We spoke to the actress recently about her busy slate, her menacing turn on The Man Who Fell to Earth, and how much of that Prodigy twist she knew about when considering her return to Star Trek.

Watch an exclusive clip from The Man Who Fell to Earth Episode 7 right here:

A ‘Good Girl’ No More: The Man Who Fell to Earth

With all of the aforementioned projects finally landing, the actress tells IGN she’s now settling into writing her third book and being judicious about considering what acting roles to embark upon next. But the work she spent much of last year on is now making it to screen, especially her expanding role on The Man Who Fell to Earth. The most recent episode, "Cracked Actor," finally revealed the backstory between CIA operative Drew Finch and her mentee, Agent Spencer Clay (Jimmi Simpson).

After spending half the season with the two just trading tense phone calls, Finch and Clay finally made it into a CIA meeting room where Clay proceeded to throw the woman he considers his mother figure under a professional bus. The results were incendiary as afterwards she menacingly whispered into his ear, “You little orphan f***.”

Mulgrew says it took about two days to shoot that entire sequence but she knew it was going to be a gamechanger. “I remember the intensity of that scene and the joy of doing it with Jimmi because he's nothing if not multi-dimensional in who he is,” she says. “He brings to any character he plays the elements of surprise and despair. I mean, you pity him in that scene. In the very moment that you want to shoot him, your heart goes out to him. Very, very few actors can play that, and he can.”

Lots of times people think I'm just sort of a good girl. But I'm many, many other things.

That scene in "Cracked Actor" was one she’s been anticipating since series co-creator Alex Kurtzman first pitched her the role of Finch. Mulgrew remembers him telling her from the start that he wanted to see a “strange, vivid and layered relationship” between the characters. “He said, ‘The sky's the limit, but there's darkness there. Wherever there's light, I want to see an instant refraction into the darkness.’”

And that certainly played out as Clay’s obsession with finding the alien Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has now crossed into self-destructive territory. Mulgrew characterizes Spencer Clay as “a dangerous human being” and says that Finch has always known his potential, good and bad.

“It looks as if Drew is tethering him, but in fact, he's giving Drew something that she needs to breathe. When we find out that this is revoked, and that a betrayal the nature of which Drew Finch could never have anticipated befalls her, you see then what it is to plunge into the darkness that was always there,” she says about their dynamic now. “They managed to hold that at bay with one another in their lives, but once you withdraw that, which Spencer does, you see where they stand. Drew Finch is first and foremost an extraordinary CIA operative and nothing and nobody is going to take her down.”

What will happen next between the two, Mulgrew will only say, “They are to be pitied, these two. But mostly they are to be avoided. She understands deceit as very few in life ever do. She understands the nature of it. She understands the thrust of it. She understands why it is necessary. And she understands why she is attracted to it. And that's what you find out.”

The actress is effusive in her appreciation of Kurtzman asking her to play such a character. “I love that Alex Kurtzman wanted me for it because lots of times people think I'm just sort of a good girl,” she says. “But I'm many, many other things. She's just so much fun to play. There's lots of meat there.”

Star Trek: Prodigy - Returning to the Role That ‘Shaped My Life’

There’s also lots to play in her ongoing voice role of Captain Janeway in Star Trek: Prodigy as the hologram Janeway. Mulgrew reveals that Kurtzman (who is also the master of all the Trek shows now) actually didn’t pitch Prodigy and Man Who Fell to Earth at the same time. In fact, she admits to some trepidation about revisiting Janeway at first.

“She had so shaped my life and so changed my life,” she says. “There was no way I was going to undertake this lightly. I thought about it and I asked my trusted colleagues and friends what they thought. And they all thought I was mad not to do it because, of course, it would open [Trek] up to an entirely new demographic of children. And how Star Trek has managed to avoid that demographic so far is a mystery to me because the child's mind is the perfect mind to absorb and to adore the idea of Star Trek! They will find this not only enchanting, but they will understand it on levels that adults take years to grasp.”

The beauty of Prodigy as a kids show is that it also features a bunch of kids (alien kids, sure, but still kids). And Janeway, or the holographic version of her anyway, has turned out to be a pretty amazing mentor for them as well.

“She mentors them in the way that I hope Janeway mentored [her] crew, with levity, humanity, a warmth and a wonderful passion about where they're going to go once this defunct ship takes flight,” says Mulgrew, while adding that part of her mentorship of the crew is to let them make mistakes and learn from them. “This is sort of the beauty of a hologram, if that word can be applied to a hologram. She is blameless in the end, and therefore she can make all of the right decisions regarding this motley crew of hers. And kids really cop to that. My image is of the five-year old girl sitting next to her perhaps 10-year old older sister, sitting next to their mother, and the mother sitting next to the grandmother, and all of them have grown up with Star Trek. And nothing really could be more gratifying than that, with the possible exception of having brought women into science, and women into STEM in particular. A whole new way of looking at their futures through the eyes of Captain Kathryn Janeway.”

They didn't know the [exact] steps, but I think I understood they were gonna go wherever they could go.

And with the twist revealed in the midseason finale, “A Moral Star,” it looks like the real Janeway of the USS Dauntless might be part of the series when it returns for the back half of its first season too.

Of that surprise, Mulgrew says the writers were aware it was happening from the start and shared it with her too. “The outline was magnificent,” she says of the first season stories. “They didn't know the [exact] steps, but I think I understood they were gonna go wherever they could go.”

Asked how she’s enjoyed playing Janeway just as a vocal role, Mulgrew says it's been far more satisfying than she ever expected. “When I'm in the recording booth, I'm almost immediately elevated because I'm watching the stuff on the screen and, of course, synching to it,” she details. “But while I'm synching, I'm moving with it and it's absolutely liberating. I'm finding things vocally that I didn't even know that I had, little nuances that I pull out and throw into the throat, you know?”

One of her favorite episodes of the new series so far has been "Kobayashi," where Trek fans from all eras were rewarded with a VIP lineup of holograms including Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, James Doohan’s Montgomery Scott, René Auberjonois’ Odo and Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura. “It was strangely very moving,” she shares. “I would think that I would be beyond that by now, but I wasn't when I saw it. Even when I saw it scripted. I thought, 'Oh, these guys know the essence of this thing is deeply emotional.' And children will know that too. They won't be able to identify it the way you and I can. But they will know that this is rare and exalted, the bringing in the old guard.”

New episodes of The Man Who Fell to Earth are currently streaming on Sundays on Showtime. The second half of Star Trek: Prodigy’s first season is expected to debut later this year.