Star Trek: Voyager debuted 30 years ago this month, and it’s a kick to look back at the show’s earliest days. For example, the Voyager cast are the old-timers now, as Enterprise, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Prodigy, Lower Decks, several feature films, and now Section 31 have all followed. But, when Voyager started, “typecasting” was still very much a thing, the notion being that acting in a Star Trek production could lead to trouble landing subsequent roles after a series ended because the public and entertainment industry so strongly associated an actor with their Star Trek role. More than just about anyone other than Patrick Stewart, Voyager star Kate Mulgrew has avoided that fate.
“This is such a great job and, for me, Janeway is such a great role that even if a stigma were attached to it later on, that would just be tough luck," Mulgrew told me in 1995, during an exclusive first-season group interview with the entire cast conducted for The New York Times Syndicate and Starlog. "I’ll deal with that when it comes... We all are, and it’s just part of the deal. Like Tim (Russ has) said, I think we all knew that was part of the package when we signed on to do the show.”
Mulgrew forged her own path post-Voyager with a wide variety of roles in an array of stage and screen projects. Right after show ended, she returned to New York City to star in Tea at Five, an acclaimed one-woman show that cast her as Katharine Hepburn. She lent her voice to the video game Dragon Age and later headlined a British production of the stage show The Exonerated.
And so it went, with Mulgrew appearing in multiple episodes of the television shows The Black Donnellys, Mercy, Warehouse 13, and NTSF:SD:SUV, as well as the stage productions of Iphigenia 2.0, The American Deam and the Sandbox, Equus, Antony and Cleopatra,. She won an Obie award for her turn in Iphigenia 2.0 and, through her work during that period, from 2006 to 2010, proved herself adept at comedy and drama and everything in between.
Beginning in 2013, Mulgrew gained a whole new set of fans with her very un-Janeway-like role as Red, a tough, gruff, and powerful prisoner in Orange Is the New Black. The series ran for seven seasons, earning numerous awards and nominations. It was a shock, and a thrill, to see Mulgrew with bright red hair and swearing like a sailor in a Russian accent. Her subsequent credits have included the stage shows Somewhere Fun, The Half-Life of Marie Curie, and The Beacon, as well as numerous voice acting jobs (American Dad, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bubble Guppies), and such live-action series as Mr. Mercedes, The First Lady, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Flowers in the Attic, and Dope Thief, a crime drama that will debut in March 2025. She has also published two memoirs, Born with Teeth (2015) and How to Forget: A Daughter's Memoir (2019).
Fortunately for Star Trek fans, Mulgrew has remained an active part of the Star Trek universe since Voyager ended. She regularly attends Star Trek conventions and voiced Janeway for the games Star Trek: Legacy (2006) and Star Trek Online (2022), and the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy, which ran for two seasons between 2021 and 2024. She also has participated in the upcoming documentary, To the Journey: Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager. Chances are that she's felt comfortable returning to Star Trek and Janeway given her success in so many other projects and roles.