Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ season 2 crossover episode with Star Trek: Lower Decks sparked a real life friendship between Celia Rose Gooding and Tawny Newsome. Gooding plays Ensign Nyota Uhura, who helped welcome Star Trek: Lower Decks Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Newsome) and Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) to the USS Enterprise. Strange New Worlds‘ comedic crossover directed by Jonathan Frakes was a smash hit with critics and audiences, and one happy result is Celia Rose Gooding and Tawny Newsome became actual besties.

Awards Radar interviewed Celia Rose Gooding about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, where the Grammy Award-winning actor spoke effusively about her friendship with Tawny Newsome. Calling Newsome “the love of my life,” Gooding explained how her real life friendship with Newsome reflected how Mariner helped inspire Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ crossover episode, “Those Old Scientists.” Read Celia’s quote below and check out Awards Radar‘s full interview in the link above.

I think Uhura and Mariner, their relationship was so… I don’t know. It reminds me of how I love Tawny Newsome. Tawny Newsome is the love of my life. I love her so much. And so to get to work with her and really have a very honest conversation, it felt at times very much like Celia and Tawny talking as opposed to Uhura and Mariner, just because she was someone who I talked to a lot about just showing up in this franchise and how to be a person in Trek.

I don’t know if I really ever expressed it to her as specifically as I will try to now, but she really just uplifted me in a way that made me feel so safe and so supported, and gave me such freedom to try new stuff and really take big swings comedically. I consider myself to be a really dramatic actor. And the comedic moments find them when they can, but I think, when it comes to me, the comedy has to be in the writing. And because we have such a stellar writing team, it worked out so well. But yeah, that scene when we’re in Uhura’s quarters and she’s opening up to Mariner saying that, “I don’t know what the future version of me is doing, but I am barely holding it together.” And Mariner is the one who teaches her how to relax and exhale and let her, at the time, very short hair down and take a little bit of pressure off herself.

And that gave Uhura permission to move to a version of herself that is, again, more recognizable. I think the Uhura that generations of Trek fans have gotten to know and love is somebody a lot more relaxed than the Uhura that we’re seeing today. And she’s a lot more carefree, a lot more joyful, a lot more… She flirts with life. And I love that about her. I can’t wait to bring more of that to my Uhura as time goes on. But I think Mariner is one of the first people in canon that we’re seeing really just feed and uplift Uhura’s joy and uplift her confidence, which is something that she desperately needed more of in that season. And so, to be able to do that with somebody as just awesome as Tawny Newsome, it just felt real good. It felt really, really good.

She is just a wonderful person and a wonderful actor and a wonderful medium and person and friend. And so, to be able to play opposite her and to really just be poured into by her, it felt very good for the character and for the greedy actor that lives within me. It was great. And Frakes is such a wonderful director. The three of them, Jack, Frakes and Tawny, they brought such a lightness and a… Ooh, come on language, find me. They just brought such a air of positivity and lightness and joy and ease to the room that was so necessary because they’re sandwiched in between.

Source: Awards Radar