Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Celia Rose Gooding on That Momentous Meeting and Uhura's Past

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 6 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Lost in Translation." Read at your own risk!]

Star Trek fans have long been accustomed to the image of Enterprise stalwart Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) as the ship's communications guru, deftly sorting through all manner of messaging to ensure a clear dialogue between Starfleet and the cultures it encounters. But "Lost In Translation," the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, cleverly turns that established notion on its head, when the still-wet-behind-the-ears officer becomes the conduit for the messages, rather than the messenger.

Along the way, Uhura has to face down twisted, horrifying realities that reflect darker truths about her own personal journey, which results in her forming her first tentative ties with the young officer fated to become her future captain, James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) – spiced up by the never-before-depicted-in-canon first meeting between Kirk and eventual closest friend, Spock. 

Prior to the actors strike, actress Celia Rose Gooding joined TV Guide to reflect on what the episode meant to her, particularly in the way it filled in many blanks in Uhura's past, which are only now being explored after the character's 50-year-plus existence. And yeah, that Kirk-Spock canon-kicker had her geeking out, too.

Gooding explained that she especially enjoyed digging into "a lot of uncharted territory for this character, really showing some more of the darker feelings that come with just being a person, being affected by other people, processing what the effects of those relationships are."

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"Especially after the events of Season 1, I think it's important for us to see how Uhura processes these big, big, high stakes, deep traumatizing moments, and not doing the typical TV thing of, 'Oh, a really scary thing happened last week. Anyway...'," she chuckles. "We don't do that with this arc within Uhura. We talk about it, and that is so important and so special."

She's pleased that especially in this iteration of Star Trek, which deftly toggles between episodic plotlines and overarching storylines, events tend to stick and have ongoing repercussions. "As an actor, it's incredibly satisfying to know that we're not going to just time-jump and skirt over the messy stuff and the sad stuff," Gooding says. "No, we're going to talk about it. And we're going to get into it because it's important for people to see that from her so that they can garner even more understanding and respect for the lieutenant that she grows into and people love."

"Doing something so gritty and doing something so intense was incredibly difficult in the moment, but so rewarding after to know that all of that work is for a story that is so necessary," she adds.

Gooding says it also has special significance for her to know the show's creating defining moments, as when Uhura introduces Paul Wesley's Kirk to Ethan Peck's Spock, something that will resonate deeply with longtime fans of the franchise.

"We have a pretty iconic moment between three pillars in the Trek franchise," she says. "The meeting at the end of my episode with Kirk and Spock and me being the one to introduce 'Spirk' to one another… I felt the weight of millions of eyes on this moment being like, 'This is it, this is it, this is it, this is it!' And especially after having to shoot such an emotionally challenging and exhausting episode, to finish it and wrap it up with such a beautiful, important, impactful moment in canon, it was like the cherry on top."

"It made it all so worth it to have a hand in this incredible moment that is canon forever now," she continues. "People will always know that Kirk and Spock met after Kirk helped Uhura through this incredibly traumatic experience after the loss of her family and the loss of a loved one. Not to toot my own horn, but 'Spirk' kind of met because of my own stuff. Not to make it entirely about me, but it was really, really, really exciting! And the impact of that moment has not left me."

Coming into the second season, Gooding says the enthusiastic response from critics and viewers in the series' first season was a thrill, especially after the cast and crew had already returned to craft a fresh slate of episodes well before the impact of the debut season hit.

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"Without the knowledge of how far we knocked it out of the park that first season, I can only speak to my experience: It felt almost…not unearned, but just because we didn't know how people were feeling about Season 1 until it came out, and then we'd already been in the middle of shooting by that time, when Season 2 started, I still had that feeling of, 'What's going on? Do people like it? Are we wasting our time?' I wanted to know 'cause I'm so feedback-hungry! I wanted to know what people were thinking and what people were going to be thinking."

"And so walking onto set with a season of this character under my belt, I still had a sense and the energy of 'I'm still getting to know this person. I'm still getting to understand what makes her tick and what makes her ick.'" Gooding says. "And just every day on set was another opportunity to approach these relationships and this character in a brand new way – in a Strange New Way, if you will – and to have an incredible cast of incredibly talented people and an incredible crew of talented individuals, a writing team of stars, a group of showrunners who just love and support us so much. It felt really, really good. And I know we're going to feel that way when Season 3 starts up."

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.