During an interview with ComicBook.com about her role in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Kate Mulgrew was asked about the possibility of a live-action return to the role of Admiral Janeway in Star Trek: Picard following a season two reference to her character by Seven of Nine.

Star Trek fans would be aware that she is currently reprising her role as Kathryn Janeway in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.

Though an admiral now.

And also voicing an emergency holographic training version of herself.

In response to the Picard question she replied:

Well, I think Picard is done, unless I'm quite mistaken. I think they've finished, but it's not likely that Janeway will show up on Picard. But who knows what will happen to her in the future? There seems to be, as I said to you earlier, a tremendous resurgence here, a rather vital one. So for the first time, I'm actually looking at it with new eyes. I wonder what would happen if Janeway were to come back to live-action.

Filming for Picard's third and final season finished in March so she's right about that.

Though she also doesn't flat out deny appearing in Picard and we're all familiar with casting secrecy shenanigans.

Given her infamous mistreatment of Jeri Ryan - who is confirmed to be in Picard's third season - on the set of Star Trek: Voyager it would be historic for these two actors to be re-united.

Maybe some other iteration of Janeway is more likely.

We suggested that her animated presence in a recent Star Trek commercial was unusual given Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Anson Mount (Captain Pike) and Sonequa Martin-Green (Captain Burnham) appear as themselves the actors and not in Starfleet uniform.

Why animated Kathryn Janeway rather than Kate Mulgrew?

Was this another instance of Hollywood rejecting an older female actor who had put on weight?

If Kate's response here made without reference to that ad is to be taken as an absolute truth - which it might not be - then perhaps she chose to be animated.

When asked about her future in Prodigy she answered without giving anything away.

There are many more surprises in store, so I have to be careful. She is an admiral, but she is capable of surprising even herself, and what is coming will be entirely unexpected and will then turn into something pretty wonderful, taking this into an altogether new season for Janeway in her several incarnations.

The first ten episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy are available now on Paramount+, Binge and Foxtel Now with the remaining ten episodes expected to release this year.

Season two is also in the works.

The first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard are available now on Prime Video and the third is expected to release next year.

[ Main Image: Star Trek Voyager - Jeri Ryan, Kate Mulgrew & Robert Beltran. Credit: Paramount via IMDb.com. ]

References

Lovett, Jamie (June 12, 2022). Star Trek's Kate Mulgrew Comments on Possible Live-action Janeway Return: "I'm Actually Looking at It With New Eyes". ComicBook.com.

Monfette, Christopher [@cwmonfette] (March 8, 2022). And that’s a wrap on Season Three of #StarTrekPicard. Twitter.