-: Qapla'
-: I'm Mary Chieffo, and I play Chancellor L'Rell
on Star Trek: Discovery.
The first time I really came in contact with Star Trek,
I was always aware of it peripherally,
but I went to see the 2009 reboot, that now our helmsmen,
Alex Kurtzman, was a part of.
I distinctly remember seeing it.
It was with my best friend Remy and my dad.
And I'm a big sci-fi, fantasy person in general,
and so were they.
It was a Friday afternoon right after school,
and I was like, just blown away by the chemistry
of the characters.
And you could just feel the nostalgia and the chemistry.
So I got super sucked in and then my dad was like,
"Well, if you like that,
"we should watch the original films."
And so I watched the original films and saw some
of the TOS episodes, but then smash cut
to actually getting this role.
That's when I went back and started watching
all of the shows chronologically
within the actual timeline,
and then every Klingon-centric episode.
So I have, I can officially say,
I've watched every episode in Star Trek
that has ever featured a Klingon ever.
And then I also got really sucked into Deep Space Nine.
So I watched pretty much, I think the last
three or four seasons just in totality,
because I was like, "I gotta know what happens!"
But I did really resonate with the character
of Grilka in Deep Space Nine.
I just really loved, there was,
it was a comical kind of story where Quark
accidentally kills her husband in a bar fight,
and she ends up having to marry him in order
to maintain her house because the Klingon patriarchy
doesn't accept a woman as the head of her house.
And then through a fun sequence of events,
she ends up being able to ascend and become leader
of her house, which is a big deal.
And I was watching that during the first season
of filming Discovery.
And what's so interesting is that I started talking
about that on panels a bit,
and then we were still filming at the time.
And then that, that kind of parallels L'Rell's journey
in a lot of ways, is that like she thought
that she had to kind of be on the sidelines
and let other men take the forefront.
And then by the end, greatness is thrust upon her.
I do like telling that story because I think it's neat
to see a story that was one episode of Deep Space Nine
become like this whole arc
that's very paralleled in our own Discovery.
There've been so many powerful, incredible moments,
but I think the two that really stand out in my mind
are the two moments where she's stood in front
of the High Council and made speeches.
So in the first season,
that was an entire entirely in Klingon
and I was on a rotating platform and just
in this green screen and had to deliver
this huge Klingon speech.
So that was just a tremendous undertaking,
and Rea Nolan, our dialect coach,
it was just such a group effort to make this speech work
and let it be, you know, the powerful thing
it had the potential to be.
But then I kind of really loved
that we got to take that bit further
in the "You may call me mother" speech.
That was extremely powerful,
because when I read that speech and knowing
I got to say it mostly in English
was exciting, but also this moment of archetype,
that was what was really powerful about that speech
to me is that there was something so Greek,
so Shakespearian, so, so empowering.
And now that the episode is aired, to have so many people,
particularly women, resonate with her embracing
the fiercer title of mother and the self-sacrifice
that L'Rell has always embodied,
like taken to the next degree of her literally sacrificing
the man that she loves and the child that she loves,
even though she doesn't actually kill them.
The metaphor of releasing them into this pit of abyss
is just pretty intense.
And when we filmed it, that was also green screen,
and I was the only actor there.
Everyone else had been wrapped,
and the entire crew was kind of on the sidelines,
so I really had this audience
that I was kind of speaking to,
and there was such a reverence from the entire team.
And Olatunde, who directed that episode,
shot that so beautifully,
and you could just feel the shot,
that opening shot over my head.
You could feel it being awesome.
Like I was just like, "Here we go!"
And so that will just always have a really special place
in my heart.
And you know, I love me,
love me some Shakespearian speeches, so.