Next up in our series of roundtable interviews for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is our Number One, Rebecca Romijn! When I was invited to these roundtables, I was especially excited to see Rebecca on the list. I am a longtime X-Men fan, from comics to the 90s cartoon to X-Men: Evolution to the live-action films. I love Rebecca as Mystique. Needless to say, the fact that two of my biggest fandoms get to overlap here totally makes my day.
Rebecca is no stranger to genre work. Aside from her stints in the X-Men and Star Trek franchises, she’s voiced Lois Lane across numerous Superman, Batman, and Justice League animated films. She was a series regular on The Librarians and also starred alongside fellow Trek actors Paul Scheer (Andy Billups in Lower Decks) and my Captain, Kate Mulgrew (Janeway in Voyager and Prodigy) in the Adult Swim short series, NTSF:SD:SUV.
Make it so, Number One
Rebecca Romijn has a unique role in playing Una Chin-Riley aka Number One. The role was originally performed by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, in the original, unaired pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Cage.” After the studio rejected the original pilot, the character was scrapped because studio execs (and according to Gene Roddenberry, many women in test audiences) didn’t respond well to a female first officer. Majel would go on to play many different characters, including Nurse Chapel in The Original Series, Lwaxana Troi in The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, and would voice all the Starfleet computers from The Original Series to Enterprise.
Playing a role originated by the First Lady of Star Trek is a big role to fill, even if that role only lasted for a total of 14 minutes prior to her reintroduction on Star Trek: Discovery. In my opinion, I love what Rebecca has done with the character, but I’ll let her speak for herself. Check out this roundtable interview with Rebecca Romijn!
Thank you to Paramount and ViacomCBS for inviting Fangirlish to participate in these interviews! Thanks also to Rebecca Romijn for consenting to the interview and for her thoughtful responses. I’m so excited to watch you on my screen again this year.
Stay tuned to Fangirlish for all your Star Trek news, reviews, and information. We’ll be sharing more roundtable interviews with the rest of the cast of Strange New Worlds soon.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on May 5, 2022, on Paramount+.
