Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Anson Mount on Trek's Mandate To Reflect Reality and Explore Humanity

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will treat fans to the adventures of the Enterprise crew under the command of Capt. Christopher Pike in the years before Capt. Kirk's five-year mission. While Star Trek: Discovery fans met Pike, played by Anson Mount, in that show's second season, Pike in Strange New Worlds has changed after the vision he had at the Klingon monastery on Boreth. The time crystals there revealed to Pike his future. He saw the moment his career will end due to the accident first mentioned in the classic Star Trek episode "The Menagerie." ComicBook.com spoke to Mount and asked what it's like playing a character who knows his fate and whether it's affected him personally at all.

"I'm a fairly practical actor," Mount says, "I think I spend more time thinking about how can I bring my life experience into my work rather than worrying that my work is going to affect me. I think that the great American myth of actors is that we are some sort of shaman that channel alternate personalities, and we can be affected greatly by our work and it's just bull**** to be honest."

"But to answer the other part of your question," Mount continues, "Pike's very clear vision of his future is something that we wanted to face head-on and make a part of the development of the show rather than just kind of, 'Oh, that's a difficult plot point, let's just steer around that.' Really, what does it do to a person, particularly a leader who's in charge of hundreds of lives that serve under him? Can you be an effective leader? Is this going to affect your judgment in any way? So, it's a big part of season one."

But Pike isn't alone in leading his crew. He again joins his co-stars from Discovery's second season, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. We also asked how this trio of leaders differs from the classic Kirk-Spock-Bones dynamic from the original series.

"The most obvious difference is that we have a woman involved in a leadership position," Mount says. "I think that's important. And not just a woman who is there to serve the will of the captain but is an integral part of decision making. Rebecca has done an incredible job carrying on a role that was first established by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry."

"But in terms of the triumvirate of us," he says, "I'm very lucky that Rebecca Romjin, Ethan Peck, and I, we have pretty much the same sense of humor and we generally enjoy being in each other's company. And so a big part of the fun of the show for us is to get up and go and hang out and shoot the s***, cut up, and play in the sandbox together. So it hasn't been too difficult to figure out how to portray camaraderie when you have partners like that. 

Of course, there's always the added pressure of expectation with a Star Trek show. The franchise made its name by creating sci-fi short stories reflecting our present day. Mount says everyone involved in Strange New Worlds has been eager to lean into that aspect of Star Trek's legacy.

"I think a TV series, maybe at its best, can serve as a metaphorical platform to talk about other stuff that's happening right now, and I think you saw a good dose of that in the first episode," Mount says. "I was very pleased with this network and with our leaders at Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment for having the guts to go there. I think that Star Trek has a mandate to do that."

He continues, "I also think that we as artists have a mandate too. I mean, I think at a certain point you have to decide if Carl Sagan was right. Are we made of star-stuff? I think it's pretty clear we are, and that's just another way of saying we are the universe experiencing itself, right? And I think that as artists part of our mandate is to shepherd along that sense of discovering what it means to be human, what it means to be in this world, what it means to be in this universe, and if we can do even just a bit of that in the show, I will feel a sense of accomplishment."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on Paramount+ on May 5th.