[ Street Noises ]
- [ Horn Honking ] - [ Chattering ]
[ Horn Honks Twice ]
[ Knocking In Rhythm ]
[ Knocks In Rhythm ] [ Laughs ]
What's--
[ Laughing ]
Where have you been?
You look so cute in that box. I'm so hot in here.
Come on. We're supposed to be doing an interview.
I brought my air-conditioned box...
'cause I didn't know how long you'd be.
How handsome. Bill in a box. You could market it.
How are you? Just add water.
Which we've done. Oh, boy, sweetheart.
Oh, I am so hot just waiting for you.
[ Laughs ] What does that mean? That's what they all say.
Kate Mulgrew. Where to begin?
Kate is a thoroughbred.
She comes on. She's one of the most professional actresses...
that I've ever worked with.
She is a real force.
I'd be sitting in my trailer. Kate Mulgrew would walk up--
Bang, bang, bang! "Robbie, what are you doing?
Come on. We got to get to work. Let's go, go, go!"
She was extraordinary.
I'm William Shatner,
and this is The Captains Close Up with Kate Mulgrew.
But I love to work on this stage. It's great.
The stage is good. This is lovely, isn't it?
How many seats do you think? I don't know. The capacity looks to be about 125.
That's all? Oh, but how do you make money with 125 seats?
It's not about money. [ Laughs ]
[ Shatner ] Audiences may know Kate best..
from her memorable portrayal of Captain Kathryn Janeway...
of the starship Voyager.
But her real passion begins and ends in the theate,
where we'll find out more about the force...
that is Katherine Kiernan Maria Mulgrew.
So you gave a reading.
Yeah. What's--
Why?
You've put my hand to the fire now, aren't you, Bill?
Because this theater is famous for that.
It supports new plays, new playwrights.
We did it upstairs to a very glum,
if not altogether bleak, audience.
A glum and bleak audience listening to you read?
They did not respond to this. Yes, yes.
- What do you mean upstairs? - Upstairs is where you do some of the readings.
This is the theater itself. This is the theater proper.
It's very avant-garde down here, Bill.
What does that mean? I know what "avant-garde" means.
It means that none of the traditional rules apply here.
They're trying to break them, in fact, and create their own.
It's famous for that.
Some of the stuff that comes out of here is pretty wild and pretty magnificent.
Kate, who are you?
If I could answer that question, I don't think I'd be sitting here opposite you.
That's funny. I'd be on a mountaintop in Tibet.
Well, wait a minute. You're a mother.
I'm a mother. I'm a sister.
I was a daughter-- a devoted one, if I may so myself.
I love to laugh. I love to read. I love to travel.
Although one can't keep up with the likes of you.
You like to cook? Love to cook.
What do you cook? Unparalleled fried chicken.
- Unparalleled-- - And the trick is lard, corn oil and butter.
Then you know what my friend did? What?
Took the skin off the chicken. That's the worst thing you could possibly do.
I said, "What are you doing? Why don't you just slap me?" Right. Or put ketchup on it.
Oh. Don't say that. A lot of people love ketchup.
I can't stand it when people put ketchup on a steak or a chicken.
[ Chuckles ] Stop. Or they don't know anything about it.
Don't you make a discrimination...
about a person who destroys your handiwork?
Don't you say, "Well, that's not too cool. I don't like that"?
I say that about my acting.
I've been acting for over 35 years.
If that is erroneously or wrongly criticized,
if the wrong condiments are poured on that,
I really resent it.
- What do you do when you get bad reviews? - I'm devastated.
- Are you? Really? - Oh, yeah. Devastated.
I react badly to criticism.
All actors do.
We're insecure about that, aren't we? What about Olivier?
There was Olivier, at the height of his career,
absolutely frozen to the point where he couldn't go back onstage for five years.
What was he thinking about himself?
If I can hazard this-- and I don't mean it...
in a-- in a, uh-- a critical or harsh sense--
He was only thinking about himself.
Who gives a damn if I fail or succeed?
It doesn't matter. We're all gonna die.
It's when you put that much importance in who you are.
- It doesn't matter. - So wait.
You don't put that importance on yourself? I don't think so.
Let me be honest. It's changed. It was more important when I was a young actress.
I've evolved. I hope I've matured a little bit.
It's not as important as it once was.
But I've taken my moments. I've had my babies.
Well, you got married and stopped. You were a housewife for years.
I was not a housewife for years. Shame on you.
- I don't mean that as a derogatory-- - I never was a housewife.
What are you talking about? You were a cook, a mother,
a lover, a wife. Yes. Yes.
You were a politician. But I worked throughout it.
I was the breadwinner.
[ Girl ] My question is-- What made you wanna be an actor in the first place?
What's your name? Arianna.
Arianna, how old are you? Eleven.
Well, I'm gonna tell you a little story, Arianna,
because I was gonna guess that you were about 11. [ All Laughing ]
[ Mulgrew ] At 11, in my little Catholic school,
the nun said to me, "Katie Mulgrew, you write wonderful poetry,
but I think what you should do is get up in front of the school...
and recite the poems that you have written."
So I went home, and I said to my mother,
"Mother, Sister Benedict thinks I'm writing beautiful poetry.
She wants me to recite it to the school."
My mother said, "This poetry? This poetry is dreck." [ Audience Laughs ]
"I'm gonna give you a poem called 'The White Cliffs' by Alice Duer Miller...
about a love affair in World War I."
I was 11. This is my mother.
My mother, smoking, glass of wine--
"All right, kitten, go on. Go on. I'm listening." [ Inhales, Exhales ]
"'The White Cliffs of Dover' by Alice Duer Miller.
I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover, I saw--"
She said, "You're not gonna be a poet. You're gonna be an actress."
[ Applause ]
[ Woman ] Whatever Kate wanted to do, she was gonna do it.
There just was no ifs or ands or buts about it.
I remember very early Katie announcing to the family...
that she was interested in becoming an actress,
and my mother instructed her to get a dictionary.
And my mother told her to open the dictionary to the word "discipline."
My mother said to Katie, "Once that definition becomes meaningful to you,
then you have a chance of being an actress."
[ Man ] The thing I remember about her...
was she had that great diction and that great interpretive read on everything she did.
[ Mulgrew ] "Of course I feel badly for Jack.
But he was just an acquaintance, not a lover or anything like that.
I like older men anyway. How old are you, Mr. Coate?"
[ Shatner ] By age 17,
Katie packed up and left the family farm in Dubuque, Iowa...
and headed to the Big Apple, where she studied at New York University...
and at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
It didn't take long for young Kate to land her first big television role...
as the strong-willed Mary Ryan in the ABC daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope.
At the same time, Kate could also be found...
on the theater stage, portraying Emily...
in the American Shakespeare Theater production of Our Town.
At the age of 23, Kate was lured to Los Angeles...
by NBC's president, Fred Silverman,
who cast her as the lead in Mrs. Columbo...
and then in Kate Loves a Mystery.
Although neither show was a huge success, Kate was,
and would continue starring and guest starring...
in a variety of television, theater and film productions over the next several years.
But in 1995, Kate would get a call...
to audition for a new television series...
that would ultimately reshape her career and her life.
[ Mulgrew ] I thought Star Trek was a little bit of a joke...
before I was hired to play Captain Janeway.
I remember I was at a wedding once and somebody said, "That's Patrick Stewart."
I said, "Who's Patrick Stewart?" He said, "The Star Trek captain."
I said, "Star Trek. Isn't that a cartoon?" "No, it's a series."
So when it came about for me, I was very relaxed in the audition...
'cause I thought it was nothing.
This is nothing. It's just--
And then it, of course, changed my life.
But from the very moment I stepped on that bridge,
I thought, "You better be excellent."
We got word that Kate Mulgrew was cast.
And from the moment she stepped on the bridge, we could all relax,
because Kate is a natural leader.
We had an actress who wanted to be there,
was immaculately prepared every day.
Just has a, um, a take-charge element in her personality.
I'm reay easy to get along with most of the time.
But I don't like bullies, and I don't like threats,
and I don't like you, Cullah.
You can try and stop us from getting to the truth,
but I promise you, if you do,
I will respond with all the unique technologies at my command.
Janeway out.
Captain Janeway is a wonderful creation. Yeah.
And exemplifies much of what you do. Absolutely.
I've never once been embarrassed by any aspect of her.
And I've never had that relationship with the fans that you've had.
To me, they're direct reflection of my work and my credibility.
So I really have great-- great respect for them.
They edify me, you know. It-It works both ways.
There's a very delicate balance of actors that work well in Star Trek...
that have sort of-- a bit of a theatrical quality.
I think there's a reason that so many people in Star Trek...
come from the theater world,
and I think it's because that's where the best training is.
[ Man ] She's a very accomplished stage actress herself.
She's naturally predisposed to like other theater actors.
There's a chemistry and a perfect combination...
that Patrick Stewart had, that Bill Shatner had.
It takes a discipline that most actors that just do film do not understand.
All of them, you know, I think, have had--
And when it's worked well--
And Kate had all those things. She had all of them.
I also am a stickler for knowing my lines perfectly.
But you see me between takes...
going like this, you know, and putting my glasses on and reviewing my lines.
She never needed to do that.
So I don't quite know how she did it.
But no matter how late she got out the night before,
she came the next day knowing the day's work.
Star Trek requires iron constitutions, which we all have.
We are built like steel.
I mean, I stood on my feet 18 hours a day.
And people think that we're having these lovely breaks.
It's 18 hours.
You're lucky to go to the john, right?
You get 20 minutes for lunch, and that's it. Exactly right.
I learned that I can work without pause...
for almost seven and a half years at a very high level.
[ Dawson ] The first time I met Kate...
was walking from the makeup trailer to the soundstage.
And she was about to do her final test for the captain.
I thought it odd that we would be testing a captain when we already had a captain.
That's when I kind of was realizing that there was something going on.
Before Kate was hired, we had another captain--
Geneviève Bujold.
Who was Janeway for a period of two days, and then she quit.
[ Shatner ] And is a distinguished Canadian actress...
who had done marvelous work both in Canada and in the United States.
And she was there two days, and the story I heard was--
Not quite. She was there a day and a half.
- About a day. Yeah. - About a day.
And she said to the producer, "I cannot endure this one moment longer."
[ French Accent ] "But surely you're kidding.
I mean, I can't do-- Who works like this is insane, for 18 hours.
I have a young son. I have a life."
And she left. She left.
This is an examined woman who knew this was not for her.
And saved everyone the agony, the money, the time,
the terrible complications of having staggered through of another couple of weeks...
and making it really impossible. But I have never heard--
Yeah. Excuse me.
- Anybody walk like that? - That's right.
I think-- I don't know-- that it was just clear to her,
after a day, no.
Seven years of this. 'Cause it's a seven-year deal.
What was she doing the day before? Wasn't she learning it?
I think that Geneviève Bujold...
is a great artist of the other school.
- More delicate. - I don't know more delicate.
But she's used to shooting two pages a day.
I think she was thinking that there would be time to rehearse it on the set.
They didn't say you got to appear at 6:00 and, uh,
we don't know when you'll quit. I had no idea, Bill.
- Maybe you were apprised. - Well, of course.
I was shot out of a cannon.
[ Man ] I saw Geneviève Bujold once.
She passed by me, and her eyes were glazed, and she was like--
I said, "Hi, Geneviève, and she was like, "Hi."
Um, I think-- I think she realized...
she probably didn't wanna be there.
The scene that Geneviève left was the scene that Voyager takes away from Deep Space Nine.
And Captain Janeway walks around, sits on the chair,
and she looks at the camera, and she goes, "Engage."
The way Geneviève Bujold did it-- She sat down on the chair,
closed her eyes and said, "Engage."
She whispered it, at which point everyone on the set, the crew, were freaking out.
"Oh, my gosh. That's so not captain-like."
I wanted to be on the show because I love Geneviève Bujold. She's a wonderful actress.
But then Kate came on, and it was seamless.
We were shooting the same scene, and everyone is on pins and needles--
"How is she gonna do this? How is she gonna do this?"
She comes around. She talks to me. She goes, "Thrusters ready, Mr. Paris?"
And then she sits down, and she looks at the camera, and she goes, "Engage."
And we were all like, "Thank God. We've got a real captain now."
Warp six. Engage.
I did a feature film with Richard Burton.
It may well have been his last. I did Tristan and Isolde.
They re-entitled it Lovespell here for marketing reasons.
We had a lot of time together in Ireland-- three or four months...
living in castles.
And I said, "Who was the best you've ever worked with?
Yes, who was the best?" I think we were having a little whiskey.
- Of course. - He said, "Ah, Katerina, let me see."
And he talked about Elizabeth Taylor, of course. He was mad about her.
He said, "The very best was Geneviève Bujold.
- No. - And I said, "How?"
He said, "We did a little picture called Anne of the Thousand Days.
And Elizabeth was coming to visit me.
And I was sitting in a chair next to Geneviève.
And she saw Elizabeth Taylor arriving out of the corner of her eye,
and she whispered, not directly to me, but almost to herself,
"Now I'm going to give her an acting lesson she'll never forget."
- [ Chuckles ] - And he said, "And she did."
Wow.
[ Dawson ] It's hard for people who aren't in the business...
to understand that working an eight-hour day is not even a half day for us sometimes.
We're beginning the second half of our day at the end of that.
Things were not real smooth in her personal life.
She was going through a lot of stuff,
especially when we started the show.
[ Wang ] She was juggling a lot of stuff--
dealing with an ex-husband who wasn't really cooperating basically.
And spent a lot of time talking about juggling our lives and the show--
making it a good show but not neglecting what we had at home,
which is why we do this all, really, ultimately.
It could have been a much rockier start for all of us...
had she not been of the temperament that she is-- very strong.
[ Mulgrew ] You know, my boys were nine and 10 when I became Captain Janeway.
Boys don't care. They want their mother.
I have regrets.
I think that my relationships were secondary to my career.
And in a couple of cases, I regret that.
That's a terrible emotion, isn't it?
Regret? No. I think it's a deeply human emotion.
I don't trust people who don't have regret.
I didn't say it wasn't deeply human. I said it's terrible.
I'll tell you this.
Uh, I think there's a moment when you have to walk away.
You can walk. You can get in a car, drive away,
and I did neither.
When you get in the car, where are you driving to?
Well, I would go to my child who was in pain.
- Who was in pain. - Yeah, there was a serious thing going on.
- Tell me about it. - I don't wanna talk about that.
Go around it, but give me the emotional--
The gist of it is this. Uh--
It's a harrowing thing.
It's urgent to the moment.
Hospitalization is imminent.
Uh, the father is, I think, out of town.
I need to go.
So a producer is saying to you, "You can't go."
Essentially that's it.
"If you leave, it's gonna cost us $250,000."
"How are we gonna do this?" "How are we gonna do that?"
"What do we tell Business Affairs? What do we tell Public--"
I would say that there is nothing quite like that excruciating feeling...
of pressure.
Both sides coming in.
And I am this creature in the middle.
And so what happened that day in my life...
- was nobody got anything. - Wow.
It wasn't easy being the first female captain in Star Trek.
There've been a bunch of males before you.
[ Dawson ] I think that Kate really broke the glass ceiling...
in terms of captains, obviously.
The biggest thing for Kate was the responsibility...
that there were young women...
who were gonna look at her performance and this character...
and that that might change their lives.
And I think she really believed it...
and felt the responsibility of that, more than anything.
[ Woman ] When Kate Mulgrew came on as Captain Janeway,
that was it for me.
There are so little really great female role models out there,
and she proved to be the best.
She was strong and resilient...
and totally committed to getting her crew home...
at the expense of sometimes herself and her life.
I know women look up to her, especially, because she is that role model for us.
I mean, working for 20 years, and we're friends-- very good friends.
Her core is a really strong woman.
Nothing can put her down.
She's just the kind of woman that's really--
I wanna be like her.
I'm a retired Supreme Court justice...
from the state of Nevada.
I was a judge for about 20 years.
Military women that I know who are captains, majors, generals...
have all felt that she had that right balance.
When you see women doing professional roles on a television program,
people, they don't realize it, but over time, that's changing their perspective...
on the outlook of the world.
[ Shatner ] After seven successful seasons of Voyager,
Kate continued in television...
but also found her way back to her first love-- the theater.
Kate took on a role that, whether she knew it or not,
she had been destined to play her entire life.
Tea At Five, a one-woman play written by Matthew Lombardo,
was an intimate look at the life of Katharine Hepburn.
Kate had, for years, been compared to the legendary actress,
and her tour de force portrayl would earn Kate critical acclaim...
as well as a Carbonell Award for best performance by an actress.
[ Horn Honking ]
[ Shatner ] You used the word "breadwinner."
Yeah.
Overrated.
[ Scoffs ] Not at all.
You were the breadwinner for your family. I know.
I could have taken a different kind of job that would have paid less...
but sufficiently. You weren't sure of that.
Our nature of our work is unsure, is precarious.
And here you have a contract with a popular show, and you're on that show,
and you're saying to yourself, "There's nobody here who's gonna support me...
if I don't have this job, if I fail.
Nobody's gonna support me.
I'm supporting not only me and my children...
but a whole skein of other people."
- That's true. - That's a huge force, Kate.
It is a huge force. But I think we must be very careful.
Now, I'm gonna be strong about this 'cause I've thought it through.
We are in a greedy-- [ Chuckles ] well-oiled business,
and you know it.
When it comes to episodic television, show me the money, baby.
'Cause if there's no money, we don't do that kind of work.
We don't do that out of love.
This is where we go for love.
Hollywood, episodic television, is where the money is.
So it's about a kind of greed, isn't it?
Part of what you said is true. There's money there.
- But, hey, you did some good acting. - Yes, that's true.
Some good work. Got well paid for it.
Doesn't that put to lie the statement you just made? No.
I would not have done that for no money.
But I do this for no money. Do you understand the difference?
- Right. I do, but-- - And I did this when I was young for no money.
And I've continued to do it all my life for no money.
We knew she would be successful, 'cause she was driven.
[ Man ] I can see her back there at Derby Grange.
She had that modified version of Shakespeare,
and she's reading Shakespeare to me, and I'm, like, 16 years old.
Visiting her over there, and she's reading this part...
back by their barn out there at Derby Grange,
and I thought, "She's really committed to this whole thing."
So when she moved to New York, it was no doubt that she would land work as an actress.
We got a couple of members of Kate's family here.
Mm-hmm.
I want them to ask some questions as well. Kate, introduce us.
Bill, it's my great pleasure to introduce you to my youngest sister.
I'm one of eight children
This is Jenny Mulgrew, my beloved youngest sister,
and her daughter, my goddaughter, Michaela,
otherwise known as Cookie Beck.
Cookie? Cookie. And she is a real cookie.
- Let me take it from here. - Yeah, you do--
Jenny, I want you to ask your sister a question...
of something you've wondered about.
Wow. You're not making this very easy on me, are ya?
[ Laughs ] Let me think about that.
Because I could pretty much ask her anything, and I have.
I suppose, Katie. Let's turn back the clock.
If you had to do it all over again, would you?
And if not, what would you do?
I would change my relationship with my daughter.
And I would change my relationship with my sons.
[ Jenny ] Well, naturally, we all would, um, fix the things...
that we regret and wish that never were.
- Exactly. - But my question is--
In the event that you had to do it all over again,
would you still be the actress that you are,
or would you have done it differently, do you think?
Oh, I can answer one thing.
And I've given this great thought,
so I can answer it with some confidence.
I would not have gone to Hollywood as young as I did.
I would have stayed in New York.
I said no to Mrs. Columbo, to Fred Silverman, when he offered it to me.
I said I'm too young. I'm an actress in the theater.
I've trained to be in the theater.
I've been offered Desdemona, and I wanna stay.
He said, "I'm gonna make you an offer you must accept." And he did.
- And you accepted it? - Yes, but I've regretted that.
It didn't go well. Well, no.
It staggered. You're right.
It had three incarnations.
What do you mean? It was Mrs. Columbo.
Then it was Kate Loves a Mystery, and then it was Kate Columbo.
He kept trying. Mm-hmm.
[ Mulgrew ] I think he kept trying because he knew...
that I'd given up my whole life to go out there and do that...
and that I had resisted it initially.
So the irony is it didn't work out the way you thought it was going to work out.
And I was terribly happy that it didn't work out. Right.
But did you remain in Los Angeles as a result of--
- I fled. I came right back to New York. - You fled.
And what do you think happened the minute I landed?
I was offered a movie.
And out of that came a miniseries which shot in Ireland.
So what happened was film shaped my career instead of the theater.
- So by the nature of the decision you made... - Uh-huh.
not to play Desdemona, to go with Fred Silverman,
changed your entire life.
Yeah. Yes, I would say it did.
- And if the nature of your regret has any value, - Mmm.
it would be had you remained true to your ideals,
at that moment, your life would have been different.
And again, we're talking about that curious reaction...
that we both had in our respective trailers...
when pressure was applied to us to do something.
I felt the same pressure about Mrs. Columbo.
Because it didn't just come from Fred Silverman.
It was coming from my agent, from my lawyer, from everybody I knew.
"You're crazy. You're crazy. You're crazy. You got to do this.
It's gonna open up your career."
But my best instinct was saying, "Baloney."
[ Picardo ] I remember the last day that Kate shot--
working alone, on a bridge, with a stripped-down crew...
and just doing some quick inserts...
and quick pops for little moments on the bridge.
And the moment she did the last one,
it was like, "Cut. Okay, that's it."
And they were just pulling the set apart around her.
There was just, like, no acknowledgment of the moment.
No flowers sent down from the production office.
No thanks for seven years of leadership.
No this or that. Just, "Cut. That's it.
Please get off the chair so we can hit it with an ax."
And she looked a little shell-shocked and confused and sad.
And I saw her on stage and saw these things playing across her face...
and stepped out and gave her a big hug,
and that was really the moment where...
Voyager came home.
[ Shatner ] Kate Mulgrew is an American classic,
a unique combination of talent, grace, strength and vulnerability.
Kate continues her exceptional journey...
in theater, television, film and in life.
I think when I was young,
acting was, for me, the great escape.
Although I took it very seriously.
As I've evolved,
loved and lost--
but loved--
I see that what's really interesting to me and important to me in life...
is human relationships...
beyond this-- certainly beyond this.
I suppose I wish I could say otherwise, but it's not true.
Not fame, not money, not even the craft itself...
is more important to me than the people that I love.
And that's where I've come to.
I suppose that was always me.
But it takes some years of feeling...
the deep strains of love.
It's the only mystery...
that-- that is infinitely important.
Nothing else matters to me, really,
and I don't think-- I think nothing else really matters, period.
All the rest of it shall pass away,
but love endures in a curious way,
in whatever way you wanna, um, put it.
But for me, that's where I am.
There is no question. People come first.
[ Sam ] I think her principal kind of influence was my mother.
My mother basically encouraged her to do the thing that she loved.
She gave her the confidence that she should be able to go out and achieve it.
My life has been greatly influenced by the strong women in my life,
and Katie is right at the top of that.
[ Hemmer ] But I think she's accomplished a great deal...
not only in television and in motion pictures...
but in her personal life with her dedication to the Alzheimer's Association.
I think it's very inspiring.
And I think she's really a woman of principle and great character.
- What a wonderful interview you have given. - Thank you.
What an honest, straightforward-- as you are--
Irish girl.
Thank you. You're tough, but you're always fascinating.
Come here.
I love you. You're fantastic. You too. You too.
Closed-Captioned by Captions, Inc., Burbank, CA
They never really let Kate's character have any strong romantic interests.
She had to be kind of the tortured loner female captain...
of the starship Voyager,
taking its long 75-year journey home...
without a date.
[ Man ] That relationship between Janeway and Chakotay that could have been...
but never could be.
[ Laughing ]
One question for all of you out there.
Who would've run the damn ship? Right?
Commander Chakotay, in my bedroom, now.