Patrick Stewart’s Advice To Kate Mulgrew Will Make Any Star Trek Fan Cry
Unlike in Deep Space Nine, Captain Picard never really intersected with Captain Janeway in Voyager…in fact, they wouldn’t interact onscreen until her cameo (as an admiral, no less) in the film Nemesis. However, that doesn’t mean the man behind the Enterprise captain didn’t influence the spinoff in a very profound way.
Only one week into the production of Voyager’s first season, Patrick Stewart told Kate Mulgrew that if she did it right, her time on Star Trek would become the work she is proudest of in later years.
Kate Mulgrew On Star Trek Voyager
Even though Patrick Stewart shared this particular wisdom with Kate Mulgrew so early into Voyager, she didn’t reveal what she had shared with him until after her own show had ended.
She herself pondered the wisdom of his words when shooting the Voyager finale “Endgame,” an episode in which she had a major influence on the overall direction of the story and what happened with both “our” Captain Janeway and the bitter Admiral Janeway who travels from the future.
While Stewart’s words had been guiding her for years, recalling them during the production of the series finale was enough to bring her to tears.
The Proudest Of Any Work
What, exactly, did Patrick Stewart tell Kate Mulgrew that would so significantly shape her view of Voyager’s final episode?
She recalls the veteran Shakespearian telling her “If you do this well and approach it with vigor and discipline, this will be the work that will make you the proudest of any work you will do.”
Stewart certainly took his own advice (more on this later), and as the curtain began closing on Voyager, his words of wisdom helped put things in perspective for Mulgrew.
Took It To Heart In Endgame
Long after Patrick Stewart gave her this advice, Kate Mulgrew revealed that those words affected her in a big way while filming “Endgame.”
She said “That’s exactly how I felt the last days, with tears running down my cheeks…I remember thinking how foolish Human beings are.”
It’s A Moment
Star Trek as a franchise and Voyager, in particular, had explored how our perception of time is relative. And she discovered this for herself while shooting, coming to the revelation about making the show that “We think it’s long, but it’s nothing.”
Belatedly, she realized that “It’s a moment,” but the fleeting nature of production didn’t keep her from feeling “very proud” about everything they had accomplished.
Patrick Stewart Returning To Picard
Knowing what Patrick Stewart told Kate Mulgrew actually helps answer the lingering question about why he would reprise his most famous role for three seasons of Picard.
When he first announced his return, many fans wondered why he would want to return to this franchise after bowing out nearly two decades earlier with Nemesis.
Sure, that movie was a critical and commercial failure, but it seems like Stewart came back because he took his own advice, realizing how proud he was of the work he had done before and how eager he was to return to a role that would define both his life and career.
Kate Mulgrew In Prodigy
Of course, fans now know that Patrick Stewart’s advice still resonates with Kate Mulgrew: after all, she made her own return to the franchise, resurrecting Janeway for the surprisingly excellent animated show Star Trek: Prodigy.
Thanks to the return of characters like Chakotay and the EMH, that show is shaping up to be the closest thing we may ever get to a Voyager reunion (although that sweet conversation between Tuvok and Seven of Nine at the end of Picard was a great treat).
Her appearance in Prodigy is further proof that the talented Mulgrew never stopped approaching this sci-fi franchise with more vigor and discipline than can be found in the entirety of the Delta Quadrant.
