Celia Rose Gooding Talks Moving Uhura Closer To TOS For ‘Strange New Worlds’… And ‘Star Trek: Year One’

The third season of Strange New Worlds wrapped up earlier this month, around the time Celia Rose Gooding attended Creation’s STNJ: Trek To New Jersey convention, where the actress talked about what’s next for Uhura, her Star Trek origin story, and more.

Arcing towards TOS Uhura for SNW, leaving room for Year One

Uhura has been one of the core Star Trek: The Original Series characters that are also primary characters in 

Strange New Worlds—like Spock, played by Ethan Peck. Earlier this year, Peck talked about his performance becoming more like original Spock actor Leonard Nimoy’s as the series progresses through the fourth season and into the fifth, which is currently filming. At STNJ, TrekMovie’s Laurie Ulster had a chance to ask Celia Rose Gooding if they too were doing the same with Nichelle Nichols’ performance as Uhura, which they thought was a “fantastic question” and confirmed they have collaborated with Peck on just this thing:

“Yes, Ethan and I talk about it all the time… I love the idea of having somebody like him to go through this journey with because Spock and Uhura are such iconic characters. And to be able to lean on him and just ask him for advice… Yeah, I think the goal is to get as close to the original iterations of these characters as possible. I think because of the nature of how much of these characters existed in 

The Original Series, I think that I have a lot more freedom to sort of let her be whoever she ends up being, and I don’t feel a need to really commit to an idea of who this character is, because she was so underutilized in 

The Original Series. And ultimately, yes, my goal is to get there, but I think my goal is to get there and then respectfully take it even a couple steps further.”

The six-episode fifth season will wrap up with James T. Kirk’s first day of command, but the executive producers have also been hyping a potential follow-up series they call 

Star Trek: Year One, which would carry on the story showing Kirk’s early command, which would include Uhura as part of the crew, naturally. Laurie followed up on her question about arcing her performance to ask how they would handle it if Year One became a show. While noting that they “had no idea” what was going on with the series besides “hearing that there was hubbubs and murmurings of a sort of post-Strange New Worlds/pre-TOS show, the actress did talk about how Uhura could evolve in such a show:

“I think to sort of speak to my original point of just taking baby steps and not jumping the gun, so we can really flesh out every pivotal moment in this character’s life that gets them closer to 

The Original Series. And whether that all happens in Strange New Worlds… I think that it would be great to get almost there in Strange New Worlds just to leave a little room for [

Star Trek: Year One], and just get there step by step-by-step. I don’t want to rush anything.”

During this discussion, Celia also went on a fun tangent to talk about working on the bridge with Ethan Peck and needling him with high-pressure comments during downtime, like “You’re Spock and I’m Uhura,” to get in his head. They added, “I love him so much because I am one of the youngest in the cast. I love being able to have, like, younger sibling energy and just be annoying.”

Breaking out of “good girl” Uhura; wants to sing a certain song

In the penultimate episode of season 3 (“Terrarium”), Uhura fudges some numbers to help convince Captain Pike to keep the search going for a missing Ortegas. When a fan asked about this during the panel, Celia talked about how much they enjoyed stretching the character:

“I was really excited by the idea of doing something so out of character. She’s a good girl. She a bit of a goody-two-shoes. And so to see that challenge in the way that it was. Her dishonesty was for a reason that is so integral to her as a person. She’s someone who loves her community. She’s someone who will do anything for the people that she loves. And I think as she continues to get more and more comfortable with her permanence on the bridge, she can do things that she may have not done in season 1… I love the idea of people challenging themselves by being true to themselves. It is such a beautiful human complex and contradiction. I love contradictions. And so I was really grateful for that. And the resolution, I think was really satisfying because we see her growing into a version of herself that is recognizable.”

Naturally, there was a lot of talk about the musical episode (“Subspace Rhapsody”), which Rose Gooding saw as pivotal to the character, along with relishing a chance to sing and draw on their background as a (Tony Award-winning) Broadway performer. When asked by a fan if they have something they really want to do as Uhura, they had something very specific in mind.

“I would love to sing ‘Beyond Antares’ in the port galley at some point.”

The actress is referring to a song performed by Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in the TOS episodes “Conscience of the King” and “The Changeling.”

Mom knows (Trek) best

The actress was asked about the process of landing the role for 

Strange New Worlds and releaved that none of the audition scripts ever used the name Uhura; instead, the character was named “Yuboa” [that’s our best guess at the spelling] for secrecy. Celia was actually glad, as knowing it was such an “iconic!” role would “have got in my own head” and blown the auditions. However, it appears their Trekkie mom (actress and singer LaChanze) sussed it out, as Celia explained:

“My mom is a huge Trekkie… and she was like, ‘Who?’ And I said, ‘Yuboa,’ and she was like, ‘Are you sure you read that right?’… And I was like ‘It wasn’t Uhura, Mom. It’s the communications officer of the USS Enterprise, you know, “Yuboa!” My mom’s like, ‘Okay, come back to me in like two weeks.’ Yeah, she was right. Moms always are.”

After landing the part, mom played a key role in helping her prepare, as Celia explained:

“My mom popped the biggest bowl of popcorn we could possibly fathom, and we watched almost the entire first season of 

The Original Series in the span of three days. And that was all I watched of The Original Series, because it became very clear to me that I’m watching my future, and no one should be allowed to know what the future holds. So, I did a little bit of research, but enough for me to know her physicality and her body posture and like how she carries herself. But not enough to memorize the person she becomes.”

“Anything that I do is going to be just a little gay”

Speaking of season 1 TOS episodes, a fan asked Rose Gooding about a particular moment in “Naked Time” when Sulu (under the influence of an inhibition-freeing virus) brandishes a sword and grasps Uhura, saying “I’ll protect you, fair maiden,” to which she replies “Sorry, neither,” a rather risqué comeback for 1966 TV. This fan felt an affinity with Uhura in the scene, admitting they had a “tongue-in-cheek woefully misinterpreting” viewpoint “to mean Uhura is non-binary, like me.” As Rose Gooding identifies as “a queer and non-binary person,” the fan asked for Celia’s thoughts on this interpretation, and the actress ran with it:

“I welcome it. I don’t think—truth be told, and this is my opinion, and I’m allowed to be wrong, and you can disagree with me, and we can still be friends—I don’t think anybody in the future is cis or straight. I could be very wrong. Straight people, cis people, y’all have a place in the universe. I’m grateful. We need somebody to repopulate the Earth. However, I think that there’s so many more pressing issues in the future than gender and sexual identity that we just sort of be who we are and touch on who we want just do whatever feels good with consent. So yeah, I bite. I’ll take it. I mean, anything that I do is going to be just a little gay, so… yeah.”

At STLV in August, Rose Gooding talked about how they “would love to see more” LGBTQ representation on Strange New Worlds.

More from STNJ

We have more from Creation’s The STNJ: Trek to New Jersey 2025 event, including Gates McFadden and Kate Mulgrew, so check out our STNJ tag for more.