Star Trek: Kate Mulgrew Nearly Turned Down Prodigy Return

The modern age of Star Trek has seen plenty of returning stars, including almost the entire crew from Star Trek: The Next Generation returning in Star Trek: Picard's final season. However, one Star Trek star nearly passed on the offer to reprise their iconic role. Kate Mulgrew is back as Kathryn Janeway, both in hologram form and flesh and blood, in Star Trek: Prodigy. The series will make its international debut (10 episodes are already available on Paramount+ in the United States) in a few days. In a new interview, Mulgrew confessed that she was apprehensive about the idea of reprising Janeway when the producers approached her about the possibility a few years ago. 

"They approached me first in 2019, I think," Mulgrew told RadioTimes.com. "Their idea was, you know, her mentorship would bring in the older audience, and then they would take their children as a consequence. Oh, yes, I had hesitation – I have to be frank about that – because it just lives within me. At no point does it subside or abate. It's always a sort of constant, and is a very significant part of my professional life. And so I thought, 'Wow, do I want to do that?' I started to talk to my friends and my counsel about it, and everybody said, 'You're crazy if you don't think of bringing this to that terribly important demographic – the children.' How is it that we've managed to leave them out? I don't know. Do you know? Nobody's going to grasp this philosophy, this ideology, more readily than the little sponge-imagination of the five-year-old, six-year-old, seven-year-old child."

Speaking to ComicBook.com ahead of Prodigy's streaming debut, Mulgrew commented on how this new role affects her legacy as Janeway. "Well, it's a further enhancement of that legacy, isn't it?" she said. "Because who better than this young demographic to carry the mantle and what better mantle to give them than that of Star Trek?"

During a TCA presentation, Mulgrew expressed her excitement about the return. "I am delighted to be back playing her, I love her. When a character defines a part of your life, you are in turn deeply grateful, which I am," Mulgrew explained. "She has never left me and I am thrilled to be back and to be introducing this to children."

Star Trek: Prodigy is currently on hiatus. The series will return with the remaining 10 episodes of its first season on Paramount+ later in 2022. A video game and toy line are also in the works.