ACTOR EXCLUSIVE
Sonequa Martin-Green on her journey to Star Trek: Discovery’s final season
The inevitable question: what did you steal from the set?
I got my name plaque that goes on the back of your cast chair, and they also gifted me with my producer’s chair as well. So I have both things!
Was there a moment when you felt the show had arrived, or did you have that from the start?
To be honest with you, no, we did not have it from the start. We had a troubled start. From what I understand, every iteration has a challenge before them at the beginning. I do believe that we were kind of on wobbly legs. We were walking with purpose and intention and passion, and trying to walk with excellence as much as we possibly could, but we were still wobbling. We really were.
I feel personally that we found our distinct identity in season three when we separated from the timeline, when we jumped ahead past where any Trek had ever gone. We were able to establish ourselves in a new way at that point. I really appreciate where we were placed. I appreciate all those connected tissues, but I also appreciate that we were able to build anew, because I believe every Trek has a responsibility to do that.
If you want to hold true to the essence of Trek itself then you have to keep pressing forward. You have to keep encouraging people to look forward, look forward, look forward. So I feel that we really sunk into who we were supposed to be by season three. We built off seasons one and two. I even love how we stay connected, even through seasons three, four and five – we never lost it. We never lost where we came from. But we also found so many new things. We found new life.
How do you feel about your part in history – or is it just a job?
Oh goodness no, it couldn’t be further from just a job, it’s on the opposite end of that spectrum. Honestly, I can’t take full credit for it. I believe that God blessed me with this and the blessing is multi-layered. I praise Jesus for it, because even now I am learning.
I am learning more of how it impacted me, personally. Every day I feel like another layer of understanding comes to me, or I drop to a deeper level of understanding about what it is and what it’s meant to me, and how it’s changed me, and how it’s matured me. I do look back on it now in this more complete way than I did when I was in the midst of it, because I had an understanding when I was doing it. But, as you know, when you’re in the midst of it, your experience is different than when you’re looking back with that 20/20 hindsight vision.
There is no part of my life that was not touched, t
