Anson Mount OF ‘STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS’

ON PARAMOUNT+

You’re the only guy who has played both the Marvel universe and played the “Star Trek” universe. When you were Black Bolt, you weren’t even allowed to talk. And now you’re a guy that talks a lot. Can you compare the experiences?

Yeah, there are two, sort of, big premade fandoms and universes that you kind of have to find your footing in. I tend not to think about genre too much. Now, there are definitely tricks of the trade in all of them. But the rules for acting and scene work, engagement, they always have to remain grounded in the same truths. ... They were both personal for me because I grew up a Marvel fan, I grew up a “Star Trek” fan. But there was something about “Star Trek” that was so far off the radar for me. It wasn’t even on my bucket list. I just never thought I would end up captaining the Enterprise. It’s insane

when you think about it.

You’ve been Pike for a while. Are there things you want to do with him along the way that maybe you’re getting to do here that you didn’t before?

I think that the writers have already done a magnificent job of establishing this Captain as being his own iteration of what a Starfleet Captain should be, independent of all of the other Captains we have had so far in canon. (For) Pike ... humility is a big

part of his character.

But also, I find it interesting. I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that his father was a science teacher and a scholar of comparative religion. So, the exploration is a big, big, big deal with Pike, that spirit in us that whatever it is that makes the majority of the people on this planet look at spending billions of dollars on NASA and say “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” that thing that made us want to see what’s past the next horizon.

And are we going to continue to be searchers or are we going to be conquerors? And the moral implications and the moral questions that go along with that.