Star Turn

Sonequa Martin-green Shines in Star Trek: Discovery

- John Griffiths

Superstar date: September 24, 2017. That’s when Sonequa Martin-Green, already famous for playing defiant Sasha Williams on The Walking Dead, makes her debut as the hero in fall’s most-touted new television opus, Star Trek: Discovery. The prequel comes with intimidating cred: esteemed co-stars (Michelle Yeoh, Doug Jones, Jason Isaacs, Mary Wiseman, Shazad Latif, James Frain, Anthony Rapp, and Rainn Wilson) and wowza special effects.

Even more notably, as Michael Burnham—the First Officer of the galaxy hopping, peace-defending spaceship U.S.S. Shenzhou—Martin-Green is making history as the first woman of color to top-line the high-flying sci-fi franchise since it first aired in 1966. Another Trekkie-stirring first: The woman happens to count a certain Vulcan named Spock as a brother!

Such hubbub is compounded by the fact that Martin-Green, 32, and actor-husband Kenric Green welcomed son Kenric Justin Green II in January 2015. Carrying a big-budget show while tending to a child and a cultlike fan base? You’d normally have to go to Venus for that kind of pressure.

Yet on a humid summer day in San Diego, the deceptively diminutive (5´ 4 ½) actress definitely has her head on straight just ahead of the cast’s appearance at ComicCon. As funny, open, and self effacing as her new TV alter ego is earnestly determined, Martin-Green—born and raised by her seamstress mom and steelworker dad in what she calls “the quintessential Southern town” of Russellville, Alabama—is having fun. “I’m diving right in,” she says with an easy, infectious laugh.