Exclusive:Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, finding comedy in Season 2, and the WGA strike

Mount and Rebecca Romijn, who play Captain Christopher Pike and First Officer Una Chin-Riley on the latest Star Trek spinoff, joined NationalWorld’s Alex Moreland to talk about the show’s ongoing second series. They discuss the wider critical reception to the show, and particularly how that has shaped and influenced their work as filming has continued compared to the relative isolation of the initial stages of production. Mount and Romijn also talk about their working relationship, and explain how they’ve influenced each other’s performance across the series so far.

They then went on to discuss the importance of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds writers room, detailing how collaborative their relationship is with the actors and sharing their support for the ongoing WGA strike, before concluding with a cryptic tease for a much anticipated experimental episode later in the series.

You had started filming season 2 by the time season 1 first started to air. What was it like going from the relative isolation of production up to that point, to then making it knowing how people had responded to the show?

Anson Mount: Mind boggling. To walk into Times Square and see yourself on the giant Jumbotron was just wild.

Rebecca Romijn: I think we were really happy to be able to celebrate [the response to S1] together on set. You know, season one, we didn't know what we were making, because we were doing it during full lockdown – super strict Covid protocols in place, socially distancing on set, never getting to see each other on weekends – we weren't sure we were going to be able to meld, to gel as a cast. It was just us and the crew: the producers couldn't come, the writers couldn't come. Sometimes they were there over zoom, but that's not the same thing. We would just look at each other going “well, hope we got that right! This could be a career ender, I'm not sure – but anyway!” So, we were delightfully shocked at the reception to Season 1.

AM: You hear word that the network loves it, but they say that about everything. We were pretty sure that we had something that the fans would like, but when the reviews came out, it was like we were left looking at each other going “guys, have you seen…? Really…? Is this real?”

RR: Right! And we were in production on Season 2 going, “let's go. Let's keep doing it, let's make it bigger and better.” Akiva Goldsman says that Trek can be a lot of things, and so it's really opened up.

AM: Trek is itself, not a genre. Trek is…

An anthology?

AM: Yeah – you can not only play with the story and the message that you're delivering each week, you can also play with how you get there. We've been taking full advantage of that idea, and discussions about genre have just become our jumping off point to discuss ideas in general.

Across Season 2, we see a lot more of Pike and Una’s relationship and delve into their history a little more. As actors, is that something you like to work out on your own before or as part of a performance? If I asked you, would you know how Pike and Una first met, for example?

RR: To a certain extent. We've decided we think that their friendship goes back to Starfleet Academy days. They're old, old, old friends, and they trust they can see through each other. I mean, Una can really call him out – he's able to share his insecurities with Una, who can flip that and make it a good thing for Pike. I think they trust each other implicitly, and I think we would love to do an origin story to figure out exactly how that relationship started. 

AM: Yeah, absolutely. 

RR: Do you think they would cast younger actors to play? 

AM: We're getting there, man. [laughs] 

RR: Would they de-age us? Or do you think they would recast us? What do you think? [laughs]

AM: Man, I don’t know. 

Almost on the flip side of that, what would you say you appreciate most about each other’s performances? How do you influence one another?

RR: I really appreciate the groundedness, the gravitas that Anson brings to [scenes] – every two hander that we have just feels like it's grounded, and I really feed off of that energy.

AM: Rebecca just keeps me from taking myself too seriously, both as myself and as Pike. And I love that there's… you know, there's real similarities between captaining a ship and being the lead of a TV show. I think one of the pitfalls of being or trying to remain an intuitive, sensitive person is that sometimes your self-confidence can go out the window, because you're naturally questioning yourself and your own motives all the time, because you want to be doing the right thing. I think that Una, for Pike, gives him the confidence he needs every day to be captain.

RR: I think also, right around the middle of Season 1, Anson and I both started seeking out the comedy bits because we reminded each other that the original series was funny – those guys were having a lot of fun together! I think we were taking it a little bit seriously at first, and then we started going “oh, no, no, no, we've got to lighten this up. The Enterprise is a sexy, fun ship of all the ships, and the original series had a lot of comedy in it.” So, we started looking for some of the comedy, and digging for that, and that started to get really fun.

AM: What I learned on Hell on Wheels is that, you know, when you do something like action adventure, it's really easy to get too deliberate. You’ve got to know when to play the front foot and when to play the back foot, so that you're giving people some comic relief, so that you can come in and stab them in the back when you need to [laughs]. And also, just because it's a tremendous amount of fun, both for the audience and for the performer, to find a lighter moment.

You’ve both spoken a lot about the writers having an open door policy in terms of actors’ suggestions. I was wondering if there’s anything we’ve seen so far that’s come from those conversations – or anything that we’re about to see?

RR: The Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover episode came from fans, that came from the Trekkies wanting that crossover to happen. You know, it's, it's such an incredibly large community to be a part of, a culture to be a part of, the Star Trek family. And I think it's great that, you know, the Trekkies are heard, and we take requests.

AM: We've had a tremendous amount of fun. You know, before Season 3 started getting scripted, Akiva called us all and said, “think about genres you haven't done that you want to do”, just as a jumping off point.

RR: Did you pitch any?

AM: I’d started keeping a list!

RR: Me too! I pitched a couple myself.

Any you can share, or…?

RR: No! [laughs]

AM: What’s funny is that, by the time it came to pitch, they were already doing a couple of things I'd thought about.

You’ve spoken a lot about how important the writers are, and mentioned how much you missed them on set when filming through Covid. I was wondering what your thoughts were on the current WGA strike and a potential SAG-AFTRA strike – and, in particular, since it’s a little Star Trek-ish, the concerns about generative AI in the creative industries?

AM: I was telling Rebecca the other day, I think that when your organisation’s response to the WGA is to say “no, we will not discuss limitations on robots taking your jobs,” that's not a very good look. It doesn't really instil a sense of collaboration and camaraderie, and a willingness to make a professional situation work. So, I personally, I don't feel – I've been wrong before! – but language and story and human behaviour are all evolving with culture, which itself is continually shifting and changing. I really don't believe that we're ever going to be able to get rid of, or would want to get rid of, the puppet master. I think that the people that are signing the checks might want to get rid of them! But I don't think it's going to be possible at the end of the day, because the two things are just going to be so completely divergent.

RR: What he said!

Finally – and you’ll have been asked this before, but I’m hoping my approach is sufficiently outside the box to get a good answer – I’ve heard that episode 9 is, apparently, a very intriguing and unusual one. Is there any kind of maybe cryptic hint or tease you can give us about the episode – not a spoiler, of course, but something we just won’t understand for another eight weeks or so?

AM: Oh, God.

RR: Boldly explorational.

AM: Yeah, there you go. Boldly exploration. Explorational.

RR: Easy for you to say.

Okay… thank you.

RR: You're like, I don't know what that means! You said cryptic. 

No, I don’t – but I will in eight weeks! 

RR: That's all I'll give you.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 is currently airing in the UK on Paramount+, with new episodes available every Thursday. You can read more of our coverage of Star Trek here, and find more of our interviews here.

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