Making his way down the press line at San Diego Comic Con, the newest member of the Star Trek: Discovery cast hears my name and laughs with pleasant surprise.
“Your name is really Kirk?,” says actor Anson Mount, who takes over the role of Christopher Pike in the upcoming season of Discovery. “Wow! You got lucky, man.”
We both laugh as this Kirk speaks with ‘Pike,’ both of us happy to explore the legacy that Star Trek: Discovery is upholding with the re-introduction of Captain Pike to the television side of the Trek franchise.
In a gracious gesture during the Discovery Hall H panel last week, Mount made a point to acknowledge that Chris Hunter — the son of original Pike actor Jeffrey Hunter — was in attendance.
“Handsome Anson,” as he’s been nicknamed by his fellow Discovery castmastes, is very relaxed but clearly aware of the responsibility that’s been placed upon his shoulders to successfully play this character. I asked him if he’s channeled any of Hunter’s performance from “The Cage” into his take on the Enterprise captain.
“You know, I’m completely open to the fact that I like to steal from other actors,” Mount said. “But, for some reason, I didn’t feel right about [doing] that for this role. I’m figuring this character out as I go, but we’re all going to figure him out as we go.”
Discovery is set a few years after the events of “The Cage,” where viewers first met the world-weary captain; little is known about Pike’s time aboard the Enterprise after that point.
“He serves in the larger scope of the Federation,” the actor continued. “We are going to get to know this character better, but we’re all working in the dark a little bit. With each episode, he gets fleshed out more and more for me. It’s going to be fully fleshed out more than it ever has been in the past, and I can say that for sure.”
The importance of taking a character who quite literally launched the Star Trek saga and bringing him into the modern franchise isn’t lost on Mount, who started watching the world of Starfleet at a young age.
“It’s not lost on me,” he said. “I’ve been watching the show since I was eight years old. It feels like he HAS to have a great part. He’s Roddenberry’s original face of Star Trek, so he has to be the embodiment of optimism and the gut instinct for the greater good.”
I agreed emphatically with Mount, sharing with him my own thoughts about Pike, a character I always found to be tough, but possessed with the right ideals to represent the Federation.
Mount nodded back and added to my comments with a slight smile: “…and that’s Discovery.”
If you’ll be at the big Las Vegas Star Trek convention starting this week, Anson Mount will be appearing on Sunday with the bulk of the Star Trek: Discovery cast. Hope to see you there!