Star Trek: Voyager actress Kate Mulgrew would love to return as Captain Janeway in a Star Trek movie that would team up most of the existing captains. This would be a pretty damn momentous moment in the franchise, but the chances of it actually happening are close to zero. Fortunately, then, I think she might have been joking when she brought it up.
The story comes from her appearance at the Star Trek: Destination convention in Birmingham, England where a fan asked her if she’d ever play Janeway again. Here’s how she replied:
“Shatner, Stewart and myself in some sort of movie – I’d love to do that. So the answer is yes,”
That’s a pretty big ask, Kate. Stewart’s busy making his own much-heralded return to the franchise with the as-yet-untitled Picard TV show and Shatner has stated he doesn’t want to be involved with Trek at all anymore. Also, this is a bit of a subtle burn on Avery Brooks, who played Captain Sisko on Deep Space Nine – why can’t he be involved, too?
That said, while Janeway isn’t the most loved Captain around, her story was left open. After successfully bringing Voyager back to Earth, she was promoted to Vice Admiral and given a plum job at Starfleet Command. Her last on-screen appearance was in Star Trek: Nemesis in which she ordered Picard to go on a diplomatic mission to Romulus and sarcastically remarked that he gets all the “easy assignments.” Nemesis is the current end of the Trek timeline, with all the recent series taking place before it. But, with the Picard show set twenty years after that, we may just get a bit of dialogue that hints as to what eventually became of Janeway.
Either way, it’s not like Mulgrew’s star is dimming. She played a key role in Orange is the New Black for which she was nominated for an Emmy and provides voices in various cartoon series. She also narrated a completely insane documentary called The Principle that aimed to prove that the Earth was at the centre of the universe, but claimed she was misled as to what it was actually about.
As for her idea for this Star Trek movie, like we said, it probably won’t happen, but we can still live in hope, right?