Movies - TV
How Anson Mount Got Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Greenlit
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
"Star Trek" head honcho Alex Kurtzman recently told the Los Angeles Times that "Strange New Worlds" would never have come to be without Anson Mount as Captain Pike.
Although it was his idea to put Captain Pike into the second season of "Discovery," it was writer and executive producer Akiva Goldsman who saw the possibilities for the character.
Goldsman pointed out that there was a potential five-to-seven-year-long stretch of Pike's story that could still be explored in the "Star Trek" universe prior to the Kirk years.
While Goldsman was happy to delve in, Kurtzman wanted to be more cautious and knew that if anything could be considered with Pike, the perfect actor needed to be located first.
Kurtzman had been unfamiliar with Mount’s work, but when he watched "his taped audition it was that wonderful moment where you go, 'That's exactly the person we're looking for.'"
"Everybody loves Pike because he's the kind of leader you want, definitive and clear but open to everyone's perspective and humanistic in his response," he concluded.
On "Strange New Worlds," Mount’s version of Pike is relaxed and friendly as he gently gives orders and secretly whispers "I love my job" to his closest colleagues.