Comic-Con may be over, but our Star Trek: Discovery coverage continues today with another interview with new cast-member Anthony Rapp, who takes on the role of Starfleet scientist Lietuenant Paul Stamets in the upcoming series!
TrekCore contributor Sam Darragh of the Trekkie Girls was our roving reporter at Saturday’s press junket, and she connected with Rapp to chat about his character and his desire to connect with fans via Twitter and on other social media, and his understanding of fan passions ahead of the new series.
TREKCORE: You seem very engaged with fans on social media, which we’re all very grateful for. You seem genuinely proud to be part of the ‘Star Trek’ universe. How much does that mean to you?
RAPP: It means the world to me. I feel like this experience is all ‘bonus round’ experience, because I had a genuinely peak experience in my mid-20’s when I got to be a part of [the original Broadway cast of] “Rent” — and that was in the early days of the internet. I was, uh, I met people through AOL chat room and message boards!
You know, it would be a little harder to really participate in message boards these days. I wouldn’t be allowed to, because of any chance of spoilers or whatever, but I do visit them, and I’m so curious, always, about the opportunity as artists that we have to interact with our audience.
We are all human beings on this planet, and we are all passionate about things we’re passionate about. And as a fan myself of many things, I follow things on social media, so I’m really happy to — and honored that people are interested in interacting with me on Twitter and Instagram and stuff like that, and to get to share glimpses [of the show].
And we’re going to get to share more now, we’re going to be a little more public about some stuff.
TREKCORE: We look forward to it!
RAPP: It’s been really, really gratifying to get to see the enthusiasm, and even — I understand there’s skepticism, understandable, we get how passionate people are, and that they don’t want anything to be ruined, so they feel protective.
I get that. I fully know that that’s the case, and I pledge from my heart and soul that we are doing our very best to bring this, the most full life that it can be.
We’ve only gotten a brief glimpse of Rapp in Discovery so far, appearing in just a few frames of the Comic-Con trailer alongside Rekha Sharma’s Commander Landry, escaping in a shuttlecraft with Cadet Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Commander Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green).
While we know he’s an astromycologist – an expert in unearthly fungus – and that he works in the Discovery engineering section with Tilly, but past that our information of Lt. Stamets is limited… but that will soon change, when Star Trek: Discovery debuts September 24.