'Star Trek: Discovery': Rainn Wilson Talks Reinventing Harry Mudd

The first chapter of Star Trek: Discovery featured a handful of returning characters from Star Trek: The Original Series and the scoundrel Harry Mudd was one of them.

Now, in a new video released by CBS, Star Trek: Discovery guest star Rainn Wilson reflects on how he landed the role of Mudd.

"I love the character of Harry Mudd," Wilson says. "I remember him so distinctly from seeing him at age 7, so the idea of resurrecting that character, retooling him, reinventing him, rebooting him was just a dream come true.

"Sure enough, it paid of great because five months later I just got a phone call and they're like, 'Hey, do you want to play Harry Mudd in a couple episodes?' and I was like 'Hells yeah.'"

Wilson explains his process for finding his own Mudd, which involved revisiting "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd," the two Original Series episodes where Roger C. Carmel played the character.

"The first thing I did was look at the two episodes that Roger Carmel had done as Harry Mudd on The Original Series," Wilson says. "I wasn't looking so much at like gestures or so much how he placed the character, just the role the character played in the telling of the story. So dastardly, charming, moving the plot forward, having some secrets, a little bit con man, a little bit merchant, just kind of got that general feel and tried to bring that to my version of Harry Mudd."

Wilson so loves playing Mudd that he actually revealed his idea for how to launch a Mudd spinoff series in a previous interview.

"This is what I would like to see in season two, episode four or so: They bump into Mudd, he's got a merchant ship, he's got a crazy crew on the merchant ship, and he's getting into all kinds of trouble traveling around the galaxy trying to do little dealsm," Wislon said. "And, boom! We've set ourselves up for a spin-off show. The Harry Mudd spin-off show. That would be my ideal."

Star Trek: Discovery returns to CBS All Access on January 7, 2018.