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.”
