Celia Rose Gooding didn’t know she was auditioning for Uhura

Celia Rose Gooding currently portrays Cadet Uhura on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Though only twenty-two years old, Celia Rose Gooding already has a Grammy award and has earned a Tony nomination for her work on Broadway as Frankie in the musical Jagged Little Pill. The actress with the powerhouse pipes is also extremely talented on the television screen as viewers of the new Trek series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are learning with her portrayal of Cadet Nyota Uhura. And though Gooding has the acting chops that have already begun to transform Uhura into a fan favorite, at first, the actress didn’t know she was auditioning for such a major role on the series.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gooding said that she didn’t know she was auditioning for Uhura until she booked it. But the character description really got to her. Uhura was described as a “bright, young prodigy who is deciding whether or not the place that she’s in is where she wants to be right now.”

Celia Rose Gooding put a lot of pressure on herself to measure up to Uhura.

Gooding felt that a lot of Uhura’s story mirrored hers, but she was incredibly overwhelmed at playing this character at first.  She wanted to measure up to who Uhura was and who she ended up being. Then she reminded herself that she didn’t have to step into Lt. Uhura’s shoes, a character with the knowledge that Nichelle Nichols has as the character Gooding is playing has no knowledge of that future yet.

Though Gooding is playing an iconic character, fans knew little about Nichols’ version of Uhura because she wasn’t given much to do during the run of Star Trek: The Original Series. Her parts in the movies added a little more to the character, but Gooding will be taking Uhura all the way from the beginning of her journey in Starfleet. This Uhura we’ll get a chance to know, and when we rewatch The Original Series again, we’ll see a combination of Gooding and Nichols who together make up a beautiful, confident, take-charge woman.