Wilson Cruz (‘Star Trek: Discovery’): ‘You never know where you’ll see us again. It’s ‘Star Trek,’ so keep hope alive!’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“We’re going out on a high note. It’s a great season and we had a lot of fun making it,” declares Wilson Cruz about saying goodbye to “Star Trek: Discovery” after five seasons. For our recent webchat he adds, “These people are in my heart forever. I don’t want to start crying at the beginning of the interview, because that’s too much. The camaraderie and the bond with these actors has been life-altering. That part is really heartbreaking. It’s bittersweet that it’s over, but we say this all the time; it’s ‘Star Trek.’ You never know what’s going to happen, and this season has been so well-received both by the viewers and by the critics. You never know where you’ll see us again. It’s ‘Star Trek,’ so keep hope alive!” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
SEE Exclusive Video Interview: Jeff Russo (‘Star Trek: Discovery’ composer)
The fifth and final season of “Star Trek: Discovery” opens with Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery navigating the complicated politics of a newly re-formed Federation over 900 years into the distant future. However, they soon stumble upon an age-old mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to uncover an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. Cruz co-stars as Dr. Hugh Culber, the Discovery’s senior medical physician, and one-half of the first openly gay regular character couple in a “Star Trek” television series alongside Anthony Rapp, who plays the ship’s chief engineer Paul Stamets. The series’ swansong season also co-stars Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman, David Ajala, Blu del Barrio and Callum Keith Rennie, with Emmy nominee Alex Kurtzman (“Star Trek: Short Treks”) and Michelle Paradise serving as showrunners.
The series’ final season sees the Discovery on a cat-and-mouse chase around the galaxy, on the hunt for clues to find what a mysterious, ancient race of proto-humanoids (the Progenitors) left behind. By the third episode of the season, the crew travels to the Trill home planet to uncover a pivotal clue, and to do so, Dr Culber volunteers to undergo a ritual that allows the consciousness of a centuries-old Trill named Jinaal to be transferred to his body for a limited time. Cruz shines in the episode, embracing a rare opportunity to play a completely new character for an episode. “They gave me free reign,” Cruz reveals, admitting that it “was a blessing and a curse, because I need parameters, I need some boundaries to work within,” he smiles. “They were like ‘no, whatever you want, whoever you want this to be.’ I tried a version of it in the in the read through at the table read, I tried a version at home by myself. None of it quite worked, and I had a week and a half, maybe 2 weeks, to come up with it, while we were still shooting the first two episodes. Those who know me know that I was a neurotic, anxious mess for about a week and a half, including my cast members who got tired of me,” he laughs. “I knew that the first scene that we were going to shoot was the reveal of Jinaal. I wanted an authentic response from David Ajala and Sonequa Martin Green, Blu del Barrio, and everyone in that scene. We do the scene and I’ll never forget looking at Sonequa and David’s faces and understanding in the moment that I nailed it. They could not have looked at me more strangely if I had asked them to. So then I felt a real sense of relief,” he says. “When your team says go big and you’re allowed to do it and it works within the story, there’s not much that’s more fun than that, for an actor.”
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