How Sonequa Martin-Green became the first black female lead of Star Trek: ‘My casting says the sky is the limit for all’

We talk to the cast and visit the set ahead of Netflix’s all-new reboot, ‘Star Trek: Discovery’, with each episode rolling out as a weekly episodic show

Star Trek pioneered diversity long before diversity was a hot-button issue. When the series first launched 51 years ago, its original crew featured black, Asian and, yes, females actors – not merely as eye candy – among its cast.

But an all-new reboot, Star Trek: Discovery, goes boldly where no Trek has gone before by placing two women of colour in command of a starship: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actress Michelle Yeoh and Walking Dead’s Sonequa Martin-Green.

Trekkies have always been a passionate crowd, although even Star Trek: Discovery’s genial show-runner Aaron Harberts was caught off guard by the intensity of the internet trolls and haters. “It’s our job to reflect the world we live in; a world where more than half the population are women. Quite frankly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” argues Harberts when The Independent meets him and his cast.

If Yeoh brushes off the pressure – after all, the Malaysian martial-arts dynamo has quietly been shattering glass ceilings for the past four decades – then much of the burden falls to Sonequa Martin-Green taking centre stage as Trek’s first black female lead.

“My casting says that the sky is the limit for all of us. I think what we’re seeing now in our media is this push to diminish and to devalue and to make people feel that the sky is not the limit for them, that they are meant for the ground,” says Martin-Green, a force of energy so bubbly and exuberant, its hard to imagine she was chosen to play a human raised as a Vulcan. Not only chosen, but actively waited on; production halted until her Walking Deadcontract ran out.

“So having me as the first black female lead of a Star Trek just blasts that into a million pieces. I am eternally grateful that the diverse casting of our show means that we are now a part of the conversation and hopefully a part of making the world a better place, as cliché as this sounds. Because I really believe it and think its vital for us all right now,” she says, the spectre of Trump lurking unspoken.

Not that she views her casting as a triumph for women alone. “I think it sends a message to any minority group that’s been disenfranchised. We all benefit when we can see a picture of ourselves in a position of leadership and I think that goes not just …

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