Star Trek: Discovery Michael Burnham Role Led Sonequa Martin-Green Down “Quantum Mechanical Rabbit Holes”

Sonequa Martin-Green plays Captain Michael Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery, and playing the super-intelligent Burnham required Martin-Green to go down a lot of scientific “rabbit holes.” Star Trek: Discovery season 5 premieres Thursday, April 4, on Paramount+. In Discovery‘s final season, Captain Burnham leads the USS Discovery on an intergalactic treasure hunt while encountering new enemies Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) as well as a new Starfleet ally, Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), who is no fan of Burnham.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s world premiere was held at SXSW with cast members Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, David Ajala, Mary Wiseman, Blu del Barrio, and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise promoting the final season. At a panel following the premiere, Sonequa Martin-Green was asked by host Scott Mantz how she was able to memorize Captain Burnham’s techno-babble. Read her response and watch the video of Star Trek: Discovery‘s SXSW panel below:

Well, oh my goodness, there’s so many things I can say about that. Big ups to these two [Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise] and the rest of our writers… We affectionately call it techno babble, science speak, and space talk. These are the three names we’ve given them. And it’s always life or death circumstances and stakes. But what I love about the way it’s written is that you can grab ahold of it really easily… Because it’s all that story, all that richness, all that life is the subtext… And I think all of us [actors] sort of do this, but I have to know at least a little bit of what I’m saying… And that did take me down into a lot of quantum mechanical rabbit holes and astrophysical rabbit holes. And then, 45 minutes later, I’m like, ‘I gotta get outta here!’

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 streams April 4 on Paramount+