Why Star Trek: Voyager's Original Captain Janeway Left, According To Garrett Wang

"Star Trek: Voyager" was a big deal when it debuted on January 16, 1995. It was the first "Star Trek" show to premiere after the conclusion of the mega-hit "Star Trek: The Next Generation," leaving many Trekkies to opine that it was forced to "stand on its own," so to speak. The new series starred Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway, the commander of a Starfleet vessel, the U.S.S. Voyager, which found itself whisked across the galaxy by a godlike alien. "Voyager" followed its leads as they began their trek back home to Earth from there, a journey that would seemingly take them 70 years. The show was unique in the "Star Trek" canon as it centered on a Starfleet vessel that didn't have any Federation backup and only encountered aliens that had never heard of them.

Mulgrew took to her role well, infusing Janeway with a lot of fascinating contradictions. The character was protective of her crew and eventually started to think of her co-workers as a family, but she was also a low-key authoritarian who insisted on her personal rule of law, even if her decisions entered morally gray areas (which they often did). Many Trekkies liked Janeway because of her resolve, though, and she eventually returned to the franchise in the film "Star Trek: Nemesis" and the animated series "Star Trek: Prodigy."

Trekkies will be able to tell you, however, that Mulgrew was a last-minute replacement. Canadian actor Geneviève Bujold was originally cast as Captain Janeway and was considered quite a "get" at the time, as she possessed a gentle, intense theatricality that the show's producers felt would add prestige to "Voyager." In the end, Bujold only worked in front of the cameras for two days before quitting in a huff. Many have seen the leaked footage of Bujold online.

Actor Garrett Wang, who played Harry Kim on "Voyager," remembered his experience working with Bujold during her very brief stint on the series while appearing on the "Delta Flyers" video series in 2020. Bujold, it seems, confided in Wang when it came to her reasons for departing the show. It appears she simply didn't trust anyone involved in making "Voyager."

Watching Bujold's footage, one can see that she might not have worked out. Bujold is a classically trained actor used to working on the stage and in films, having collaborated with notable directors like Alain Resnais, Brian De Palma, and David Cronenberg. She was no stranger to mainstream blockbusters either, having also appeared in films like "Earthquake" and Disney's "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark." She even had a few TV gigs in the 1960s in her native Canada, but had only done TV movies since then. "Voyager," it seems, was a massive TV production that moved at lightning speed, and Bujold couldn't catch up.

Wang recalled Bujold being antisocial on the "Voyager" set, often running out of the room in between takes and not doing much interacting with him or any of the show's other cast members. Curious about her thoughts regarding the series, Wang said he had to intercept one of her evacuations just to ask how things were going. He recounted the following interaction:

"[S]he looks at me and, in her French-Canadian accent, she said, 'I feel as if I cannot trust anybody.' And I said, 'What? You can't trust anybody?' 'Yes, when I first agreed to take the role of Janeway, I tell the producers that I want to have no nonsense with my hair. I want my hair down, I don't want it up. I don't want a lot of makeup ... I want her to be Captain first and a woman second.'"

It seems that Bujold had spent some time developing Janeway into a character she was comfortable playing, but that the show's producers had kept changing her looks, altering her hair and makeup to get it "just right." Bujold hated that so much time was being spent on her character's appearance, feeling it was interfering with her acting.

Wang saw how upset Bujold was, and understood that she felt betrayed. He continued:

"Literally, she was very set about it. 'This is what I will do. I have a very clear picture about [how] I will be Captain Janeway.' And then she said the producers agreed. 'They agreed with me, but then before we start filming, they change everything.' So, she felt she was kind of given a certain leeway to do what she needed to do [to] prepare herself to be Captain Janeway, and then it was taken away. It was like, 'Sorry, you can't do all the things that we agreed to.'" 

An article in TV Guide in 1994 also related a moment when Bujold became angry at an on-set photographer who was seemingly taking photos of her butt without asking. The photographer said he was getting images for a potential Captain Janeway action figure, but the incident made Bujold uncomfortable. She left the set after two work days, after which Mulgrew was called in to take her place. Mulgrew had a lot more TV experience and took to the fast pace right away. Given how often Janeway's hair changed throughout "Voyager," she was also clearly okay with whatever the hair-and-makeup department wanted.

Bujold hasn't worked on a TV series since her involvement with "Voyager." Her next two movies after that were 1996's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" and the celebrated 1997 indie film "The House of Yes." Wang, meanwhile, would later appear on the animated show "Star Trek: Lower Decks," playing Harry Kim and dozens of his duplicates. They both seem to be doing well.