Mary Chieffo played the Klingon L’Rell over two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, with her character eventually rising to lead the Klingon Empire. The actress returned to the franchise for this week’s episode of Lower Decks, “A Farewell To Farms,” bringing a flirty Klingon energy to the new character K’Elarra. TrekMovie spoke to the actress about her return as well as getting her thoughts on what’s going on with the Empire.
So you are back, but now a new Klingon character. Did they give you much backstory for K’Elarra?
Yeah. I mean, through the scene itself, I think they give some fun subtextual backstory. And then I just got to kind of fill in from there. Obviously, she’s very very inspired by these great TNG-era lady Klingons. So it really was just this great fusion with a little more Mary. Obviously L’Rell has a very different dialect, which is so great and cool, but I just got to be a bit more of a Mary flavor of Klingon.
You mention TNG Klingons and there did seem to be some Suzie Plakson [K’Ehleyr] in there, was that one of the influences?
Yes. Yeah, I would say the Duras sisters, K’Ehler, and Grilka are kind of my main ladies of inspiration. I rewatched a few clips of them as I was prepping, and then let that all go and tried to make it my own. But, yeah, absolutely.
Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner, Mary Chieffo as K’Elarra, and Jon Curry as Ma’ah in Lower Decks (Paramount+)
How familiar were you with Lower Decks and the character Ma’ah? As you were jumping in on an ongoing story?
I’m a big fan of Lower Decks and so I was very thrilled to be able to be a part of it. And with Ma’ah, I thought those previous episodes were so fun and great. It was exciting to be asked to jump in – in any role – but to get to be a lady Klingon with his continued story was super awesome.
I know you took being a Klingon very seriously and did a lot of research and even learned the language. So looking at this episode as a whole, did you have any favorite bits of Klingon culture they were exploring?
I really, really love the opening and just this kind of more peaceful, farm life. It’s just a fun cold open and there is still aggression there, but we get to see this other energy of the Klingons. And that’s been a big thing for me out of the gate, how can we show different elements of the Klingons. Of course later in the episode we get some more classic TNG Klingon intensity and violence. But I really love that we get to see both. I’ve always say that Klingons are not a monolith, and getting to see different sides is great.
And then with K’Elarra specifically, she was inspired by so many of these iconic women from these previous shows of that era. And it was fun to just get to play it, with the mating rituals, sniffing and throwing things. I felt like every moment I had in that scene was an homage to something that had come before, but still unique to these particular circumstances. And then, of course, having the brother kind of butt-in as this was happening was just very fun, great humor.
L’Rell was a very serious character and, as Klingon culture is important to you. For this episode they – lovingly – but pointedly had some fun with some of Klingon tropes, like so many rituals and … uh, what Mariner said about your outfit. How did you feel about that and was there any part of you that was like, ‘Hey, don’t make fun of Klingons!’
I’m into it. I think that’s exactly the beauty of Lower Decks. With comedy, there is punching up and punching down, or punching forward. And don’t punch down. And I feel that Lower Decks doesn’t punch down. They just LOVINGLY embrace this era of Trek, and make fun comments on it. Yeah, the “boob window” and all of that, it’s stuff that we know. I think it allows folks to feel a sense of like community around “Yeah, I get that reference.” I love a good inside joke. I think that the beauty of what the show does. Were it a different show and that kind of humor were happening on a show where that wasn’t the vocabulary, I might be like, “Hey, hey!”
Jon Curry as Ma’ah and Mary Chieffo as K’Elarra in Lower Decks (Paramount+)
In getting to that right balance, when you were recording for Lower Decks, were you giving them different takes, more flirty, more aggressive?
I really feel that the scene was written in such a great, fun way that instinctively I jumped in. I worked with [producer] Brad [Winters] primarily, he was definitely very encouraging of the direction I was going. But yeah, what’s aggressive and what is sexy? That was the biggest thing that we just played with, because that is innately the Klingon experience. It’s kind of both. So we would do takes that were more gritty and intense and then do the more lighter, sultry version. And I got to do a lot of fun sounds. It was a really fun time in the booth.
I know you have wanted to return as L’Rell, but there is also a tradition of actors playing different roles in live-action Trek. Given a choice, would you prefer to play L’Rell again, or a different character in a different Star Trek?
Great question. I think storytelling-wise, as you literally witnessed out the gate from the beginning of Discovery, L’Rell has just been a character that is very near and dear to me. Yes, very intense circumstances. But I would always love to return to her story, just find out a bit more about her chancellorship. Certainly, simultaneously, I would also love to just keep exploring different characters, different species. I’d love to something like a Vulcan, that’s just so in contrast to what I did as L’Rell. It would be very fun. To me, any and always that I can stay involved with Trek. Just the fact that it is a franchise that allows me to be active in other communities that need assistance right now – the queer community being one that I’m also a part of and it has opened so many doors in ways in which I can add a little bit more of a voice or advocacy for certain things. So I’m just grateful that it’s a franchise that allows me to hopefully get to have more fun performing, but beyond that, to really uphold the ideals of Trek in the in the strange world that we live in right now.
Mary Chieffo as L’Rell in Star Trek: Discovery “Through the Valley of Shadows” (Paramount+)
Klingons were such a big part of Discovery up until your last episode in the season 2 finale and once they jumped into the future they were essentially absent. Now there is a new show – Starfleet Academy – set in that future. So as someone who has put a lot of thought into this, how do you envision the Klingons in the 32nd century?
I think I would be interested to see – I really loved the exploration of Tenavik and the energy of those Klingons. I would be curious to see – we still are the aliens that we are, a love for battle that I’m sure it would be very difficult to shake no matter how many centuries you go forward – but I would be interested to see if there was a bit of an evolution for them. If anything, I’ve always felt that the reputation of the Klingons versus the reality – that they are very honor-centered, but some have given us a bad reputation in how we are so brutal. But perhaps overall as a society, maybe we has evolved to be more peaceful, or I don’t know if peaceful. And then there is technology, as we did make more progress than the Federation in certain ways. Yeah, the possibilities are endless, I love the question, my brain is going all over the place.
As we wrap up, are there any other projects you want fans to know about?
I do have something that just kind of has existed for a bit that I always encourage people to download an app that I created called Iago The Green-Eyed Monster. The short version of describing: it is based off of this reinterpretation of Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello, where she’s now a modern, slightly dystopian-world military woman. And the app itself was something that we worked on with Verizon, who wanted to showcase their 5G network. They knew I had this concept, because we had worked in the past on it and I ended up crafting this song called “Green-Eyed Monster” with my co-creator Josh Nelson, and basically the lyrics are derived from the Shakespeare text. And we won a Webby Award!
Mary Chieffo on the Red Carpet during the Season 2 Star Trek: Discovery premiere (CBS)
You can keep up with Mary on her Instagram and her official site.
The fifth and final season of Lower Decks debuted on Thursday, October 24 on Paramount+ in the U.S. and internationally. New episodes of the 10-episode-long season will drop every Thursday on the service leading up to the series finale on Thursday, December 19.
For more, check out our NYCC interview with series creator and showrunner Mike McMahan.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
NOTE: Interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
