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Star Trek: Khan Star Wrenn Schmidt on Finding Marla McGivers' Voice

Wrenn Schmidt (For All Mankind) spoke with Bleeding Cool about her role as Marla McGivers in Star Trek: Khan, Khan-Marla naunces, and more.

While Ricardo Montalban made Khan Noonien Singh into arguably one of the most charismatic and dangerous villains of the Star Trek franchise, the unsung hero that helped make him a legend wasn't necessarily William Shatner's James T. Kirk as he had plenty of villains throughout his run during The Original Series and the subsequent films, but TOS guest star in season one's "Space Seed," Madlyn Rhue, who played historian Lt. Marla McGivers. After getting enthralled by the 20th-century tyrant, she helped Khan stage a mutiny on board the Enterprise before her guilty conscience allowed Kirk to retake it. Accepting exile to Ceti Alpha V instead of a Federation court-martial, McGivers joined Khan in Star Trek: Khan.

From The Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer, who co-wrote with Trek creatives Kirsten Beyer and David Mack, Star Trek: Khan bridges the story between Khan and Marla as the two develop feelings for one another amidst a thriving but dangerous planet, long before the cataclysmic event that would shift the planet's orbit into a desolate wasteland triggering a series of misadventures that ultimately cost Marla her life. Subsequently, Khan would blame Kirk for her death in TWOK. Filling that gap for the late Montalban and Rhue are Naveen Andrews and Wrenn Schmidt, both not strangers to hit franchises like Lost and For All Mankind, respectively. Schmidt spoke to Bleeding Cool about how she got involved, filling in the space that would fill Khan's heart with vengeance for the 1982 film, since the character was killed off-screen before the film; being a "history nerd" herself, working with Beyers, and bringing nuance to the role.

Star Trek: Khan Star Wrenn Schmidt on Telling Marla McGivers' Story

What intrigued you about Star Trek: Khan, and how'd you get involved?

Marla, Marla Marla. I find her fascinating, also the scripts were exciting. Watching that first episode ['Space Seed' was] the only time you see Marla and Khan together; I was totally captivated by the whole thing. It was remarkable to see that tiny bit of their origin story, and then to realize the Star Trek universe hadn't yet explored that relationship. Those were all the initial points of excitement for me, and the actress who played her, Madlyn Rhue, her performance was extraordinary. It was fascinating because I was getting so many different things from what was happening. I don't know, it never felt like it was a stereotype of what a woman falling for a powerful man. It seemed to be so much more than that. I don't know how she did that, but it still blows me away thinking about it. Those were the initial interests, and then the more I got involved and read the scripts, I thought, "Wow! This is such a cool story."

With Khan, I feel the character endured through generations, and I always thought he was a complete character when Marla was involved. Even when we had 'The Wrath of Khan,' he was doing it for her. How does it feel to bring more nuance to the character as Marla in this project?

Really freaking cool. I'm in awe of how just in that one episode, these two iconic characters were created, and then having that giant jump between that moment when they first met, and then we have 'The Wrath of Khan.' It seems to me like such fertile ground to explore who those people are and what happened in between, and one of the things that I love about the writing and working with Kirsten [Beyer], who was the writer in the sessions when we were recording, was getting a sense from her. The writing was about how much distance is traveled between that initial meeting [in 'Space Seed'] and 'The Wrath of Khan,' and I'm excited to see what Star Trek fans think of the whole story. I also hope they make this into a (full) series. It's such an interesting story; it fleshes out who Khan is and how he became the character you see in 'The Wrath of Khan.'

How did you prep for the role? Is it something that you did on your own, as far as you want your own incarnation? Did you take inspiration from the 'Space Seed' episode, or was there something that you had, in addition to inspiration-wise from external sources, that helped realize your version?

In some ways, being a history nerd [laughs] helped me out. I was a history major in college, and so there's so much about the character in our show that felt almost like it was a part of me, in a way. Being fascinated with history, being fascinated with the events of history, and how something came to be, or an understanding even of an event or a leader, was always something that I loved.

I connected with that right away, and then it was just a ton of hard work. I'm used to working on television shows or films, or plays, where there's this whole period of time where you're working on something, whether you're in a rehearsal room, doing it on stage, or shooting something over a period where you've got two scripts you might be working on at the same time. It takes a month to shoot those two scripts versus this, where there were these nine episodes [in 'Khan'] that were all incredibly intricate and loaded with information. I recorded all my stuff in three days, in like three to four-hour sessions, so it was a lot of prep work to be ready to go into the booth, and then a fun collaboration with Fred [Greenhalgh], our director, and Kirsten working through things.

Did you also work with Nicholas and Dave, or was it exclusively with Kirsten on the writing side?

It was just with Kirsten on the writing side. She was the writer who was present when we were recording, but I'm hoping that there's some kind of event or something where I get to meet everyone who was involved. You can tell it's a complex show, that there has been so much work behind the scenes to get these scripts to the place that they were in when we got to go to a recording booth.

The premiere episode of Star Trek: Khan, which also features the voices of Sonya Cassidy, Tim Russ, Olli Haaskivi, Maury Sterling, Mercy Malick, Zuri Washington, and George Takei, is now available with new episodes on Mondays through November 3rd.

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