Celia Rose Gooding Reads You Loud And Clear
On Star Trek’s 60th anniversary, Strange New Worlds’ Uhura reflects on her place in the saga.
For the past six years, Celia Rose Gooding has been a bowling ball. Or the bumpers that keep said ball from landing in the gutter. Or, maybe, both? The actress is trying to describe the task of playing Nyota Uhura, the communications officer of the starship Enterprise — but it might be just as tricky as taking the baton from Nichelle Nichols, who originated the character in Star Trek: The Original Series. Gooding’s version of Uhura is much younger and more inexperienced than the character most have come to know and love. Across four seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, she’s guided Uhura on the path towards her set future. But she also can’t act like that future is set.
“It is important for me to continue to keep her in the lane of her destiny… addressing her story page by page and trying not to think too hard about the legacy she’s inheriting, because she doesn’t know it,” Gooding tells Inverse. “I’m keeping it from falling into the gutter, but I’m also trying to get it down the lane.” She takes a beat from this heady analogy to laugh. “And I’ve immediately lost myself with this metaphor. I don’t know where I was going.”
“In the first half of this season, you get genre whiplash in a really beautiful way.”
Gooding can be forgiven for getting lost in the weeds. The concept of Trek has always been an unwieldy one, and it doesn’t get much wilder than Strange New Worlds. One minute, the Enterprise crew is grappling with a Trolley Problem of prehistoric, intergalactic proportions. The next, they’re discovering a newfound immortality because… they’ve been transformed into puppets. There’s not always time for Gooding and the cast to really reckon with the legacy of this prequel: they’re adjusting to the same “genre whiplash” fans are undoubtedly experiencing week to week. But with the end of Strange New Worlds on the horizon, Gooding’s earned some introspection.
Uhura is coming into her own in Strange New Worlds Season 4.
“The Season 4 finale is a huge turning point to get Uhura closer to who she has always been, who she’s always been, who she’s meant to be,” Gooding says. “And I do think Seasons 4 and 5 are some of our strongest.”
Strange New Worlds will end with its fifth season, effectively filling a canon gap before The Original Series. The significance of that isn’t lost on our Uhura, especially on such a momentous year. “This is the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. And our contributions… I think they’ve been a really nice honoring of what Trek has always been. But we’ve also been able to expand and push the boundaries of what Trek could be.”
More than ever, Strange New Worlds is pushing that boundary — but with the endgame in sight, it behooves the series to be bold. With the franchise hitting a major milestone, Gooding sits down with Inverse to talk creative risks, Uhura’s future, and honoring Nichols’ legacy.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Strange New Worlds Season 5 properly feels like a grab bag: You really don’t know what you might get from one episode to the next.
No, it’s exactly as you said — and it’s in our show name. We are exploring strange new worlds. Every episode is something different. We’re exploring new genre styles. I think in the first half of this season, you get genre whiplash in a really beautiful way… I don’t know, for me, my favorite episodes of Trek have historically been the holiday episodes, or the complete genre changes. I’ve always been the most excited by those deep genre swings, so the fact that we get to do it on our show — I know for some people it can be a little disorienting just how diverse the season is. But I think we’re paying homage to what Trek has always been.
You also get so many opportunities to play in different fields as an actor. I’d be drooling. You get to be a puppet!
Yeah! And for the puppets to be made in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop? It’s so iconic. I grew up watching The Muppets. I grew up watching Sesame Street. And so to have a bit of my likeness in that sort of world… selfishly, I think it’s really cool. And it’s still Star Trek. We’re still trying to save the galaxy. We’re still trying to protect the Federation. We’re not just being puppets for puppets’ sake. It is a very Trek story. It just so happens to be delivered in this very silly, funny, goofy way, which I think is delightful.
We’ve met a new side of Uhura in each episode of Strange New Worlds.
You’re kind of looking at all this through the rearview now, since Season 5 wrapped filming. How has that been feeling?
It feels different every day. I think I am, of course, always going to miss going to work on that set. I think that just the place that the show found me in my career was so unique and so special.
I booked Trek in the middle of the COVID shutdown of 2020. This was my first gig when I was allowed to perform again. This is what I returned to. And so the fact that that chapter is closed and we’re almost six years away from that now, it feels very nostalgic… Looking back on it and having it be my rearview mirror, I think where Trek lives in me is so present. The shooting experience, yes, that is behind me — but my place in Trek, my purpose in Trek, my donations to the franchise with my ability, those are never going to leave me. It’s eternal and will always be a part of me, so I am glad to have this opportunity to get to reflect on the show and celebrate it. I’m so fortunate.
“The person that Uhura was in Season 1 I think, would’ve folded immediately.”
You’ve spoken a lot about bringing your version of Uhura closer to the one fans know: the calm, collected diva that we see in The Original Series. At what stage of that transition would you say we’re at in Season 4?
We’re like 60 or 70% there, I think. We still have a bit of a way to go, but I think we’re much closer than we were in Season 1. I think in Seasons 4 and 5, she’s really put to the test. She faces a lot of challenges in these upcoming seasons that I think are… they’re canon events, both literally and the sort of memeified version of a canon event. You see her having a lot of experiences that establish and really ground her in the person that we know she’s going to become, especially at the end of this season. The Season 4 finale is a huge turning point to get Uhura closer to who she has always been, who she’s always been, who she’s meant to be.
Time is such a funny thing when you talk about Star Trek because we play with time a lot. But I think in the grand arc of Uhura’s life and journey thus far, with my contributions to her, we’re not all the way there yet — and it’ll be up to fans to decide if we get to the full 100%. People have been so warm and receptive and open to what I have to offer this character. And I’m so honored because it means a lot to me. I know she’s precious. She’s a beloved character in the franchise. To truly be establishing canon for her and to put her through these tasks and hurdles, it’s all a collaborative effort and collaborative journey to getting her to a point where I think the fans will recognize not only who she is, but how she got to this point.
Strange New Worlds Season 4 takes some wild swings, but Gooding says they’re “paying homage to what Trek has always been.”
She really is put through her paces this season. Uhura goes from being tortured in the Casablanca episode, to raving, to taking on a mentee who is just not having it at all…
To that point, I think Cadet A’Sha, played by Bianca Nugara, she’s such a sweetheart. A fabulous actor. I had the best time working with her. But something about that relationship — the person that Uhura was in Season 1, I think would’ve folded immediately… The thing that is so classically Lieutenant Uhura is her ability to smile and maintain joy in these really dark, troubling and challenging times. [A’Sha] really is a challenge of confidence. It’s a test of her ability to maintain pride and maintain hope and maintain excitement.
I think Uhura’s relationship with Cadet A’Sha establishes the beginning point of a pattern that we see in The Original Series. While it is very challenging what Uhura has to go through in Strange New Worlds, she gets that practice so that in The Original Series, it’s not effortless. It gives a little bit more depth and a little bit more root of, “This is something that she had to fight for at one point.” And now that she has the practice, it can all look easier in TOS.
Nichelle Nichols remains a North Star for Gooding’s Uhura.
We’re in a time where Black heroes are kind of dwindling in other franchises, and fans are saying, “Where are the Black people in these shows? Where are the Black women?” I’m wondering how often you’ve thought of that lately, especially in the context of Star Trek.
I think about it all the time. I mean, Black representation is so important to me, especially for our women and our femmes. Black femininity and the multiplicity of Black femininity and just how different it can look… I think the diversity of Black women’s experience is really underprioritized in our industry. And I am really proud of being a part of the change that I want to see in the world and in our industry.
Uhura, she is so infinite. Uhura has always been a beacon and a sort of champion of Black representation, especially Black representation in sci-fi action-adventure… While she’s just a girl and she is just one girl, I think that what I’ve been able to do with her is show off just how diverse our experiences are and just how many different sides exist in us.
“I’m just really down for the showcase of Black multiplicity. We have so much within us. We contain galaxies.”
We still have a long way to go in the grand arc of just how many different types of us get to tell our own stories. I think that we still have a long way to go in just what stories we’re allowed to tell, what sides of us we’re allowed to show off. We still have a lot of work to do, but I think that Nichelle Nichols’ legacy has been a really spectacular showcase of what can be when we’re allowed to soar.
Given the sociopolitical climate of the 60s, Black women were not really allowed to do much. We weren’t given the room and the breadth and the space that I have now — I’m standing on the shoulders of such a hardworking woman who had to face challenges outside of just what the task was at work at any given moment. She also had to sort of carry Black female representation on her back. She was the first of a kind. It is not lost on me the gift that I have, even though we are in America in 2026. I still am at a point of incredible privilege. And I think about the importance of honoring Nichelle, but also honoring Uhura, and honoring myself, and honoring all of the women who see themselves in her.
“I’m standing on the shoulders of such a hardworking woman,” Gooding says of Nichols’ Uhura.
That’s the beauty of what Strange New Worlds gives someone like Uhura: she fits so well into all these genres.
As Doechii said, “I’m everything.” I listen to a lot of Doechii; I think Uhura in Seasons 4 and 5 is incredibly Doechii-inspired. Uhura is not just one archetype. She’s just not one thing. She is a student, but she’s also a teacher. She’s a person who has dealt with an incredible amount of grief, but she is overflowing with love. She is confident but also, she can be kind of shy. She can be steadfast, but also a little insecure. I’m just really down for the showcase of Black multiplicity. We have so much within us. We contain galaxies. And I’m just really excited to use Uhura — well, it’s behind me now, but I’m just really excited that I was able to showcase our multiplicity through a character that is so beloved and so trusted and so celebrated. It’s an incredible opportunity that I have to use the platform that Nichelle built to just continue to showcase what we’re capable of.
Speaking of Nichelle, we do see you in the Season 4 trailer with Uhura’s traditional haircut…
When they showed that at Comic-Con, that was the first time I’d also ever seen it. I was like, “Oh... alright. What am I allowed to say? What can I talk about?” It’s out in the open. The cat has never even been in the bag.
Not at all.
No, I am really excited for people to see how close we get to TOS. We do it in a really tasteful, unexpected way. There’s still so much about that episode that is unknown, so I don’t want to talk too much about it. But yes, I do have on that beehive at some point. Who knows [why]? We just have to watch and find out.
