Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a dream come true for star Anson Mount, and it’s a role straight out of his childhood.
“Star Trek was my make-believe game when I was 8 years old,” Mount said. “I think about that, and it makes me strangely emotional that I am now still playing the same make-believe game.”
Mount stars as Captain Christopher Pike, the charismatic and sharp-minded leader of the USS Enterprise, exploring “strange new worlds” with a sense of humour that’s infectious.
“Every day there’s a moment where I would look around and think, I cannot believe that I’m on Star Trek, much less the Captain of the Enterprise. Our sets, they’re 360 [degrees], so you literally feel like you’re in Star Trek.”
He added that playing the Pike is “the longest a job has ever remained surreal to me.”
Fate, third acts, and proper horror
Pike stands out in the Star Trek universe because of one unique detail: he knows his fate. One day the character will face a tragic accident that’s going to leave him scarred, and yet, Pike keeps going afterwards.
“I’ve certainly never played a character, nor do I know of another character, who knows their third act,” Mount said. “It’s almost a thing that shouldn’t happen in storytelling, right?”
“Really, I think we start asking questions about what is the nature of fate when it’s intertwined with other people’s fates and can those be extricated from one another, and why, and when,” Mount said.
At the same time, season four features a clever mix of storytelling that includes more genre-hopping, similar to how previous seasons included a musical episode, and so much more.
One standout in the season is episode two, “The Griffin Incident”.
“It is proper horror,” Mount said, “and one of the things I love about that episode is the lack of resolution. We made the decision we’re not going to tie up any loose threads, and we’re going to leave you in the most horrific place possible, which is asking a lot of questions. It felt like the perfect ending.”
The real star of the show and storytelling genres
For fans, it’s easy to see Mount as the star of Strange New Worlds, but he sees it differently.
“Our goal… was to bring Star Trek back to planet of the week, big idea of the week,” he said. “The Enterprise is the lead of the show and the guest star is the planet… [Star Trek] is flexible enough now that it can be a lot of different things.”
Alongside playing with genre, “musical, horror, situation comedy, murder mystery; that’s never the goal itself. It’s just the vehicle to get to whatever strange new world is inside of the character in question.”
“Our musical episode was for an episode we had where there was going to be a lot of emotional transition. You can go one of two ways; you can disguise that and camouflage it as something else, or you can fully embrace it and go whole hog. The musical allowed us to do that, and get really emotional.”
“It’s an idea that had no business working,” he added with a smile.
Life off-camera
When he isn’t navigating space, Mount has spent his time filming the series in Toronto mostly with his family. He welcomed two daughters during the production of the series, and laughed that he “didn’t get out much.”
Even though he said that he didn’t get to see a lot of Toronto, he did have one favourite spot: “Blueblood Steakhouse is fantastic. Amazing atmosphere, amazing steak, amazing bourbon list. I really enjoyed going to that place.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres July 23 Paramount+, and new episodes will stream weekly on Thursdays, with the finale on September 24. Watch the full interview above.
Photos by: Jan Thijs/Paramount+
