Janeway's relationships with the crew are of great importance to Mulgrew. "I see the show as a compelling family drama--this is a family on the ship," she states. "I would make those people and the complexities and nuances of their relationships interesting, real, and compelling." For the actress, the science fiction aspects of Voyager are only successful if the storytelling is involving. She rattles off connections which she thinks the audience would like to see developed. "My history with Tuvok - why this strong allegiance? Let's have a couple of episodes delineating the importance of this relationship, so much is unspoken. And I'm drawn to some of them simply by virtue of the chemistry between us. I cannot be in a room with Ethan Phillips without wanting to go places. I love Roxann, I love her intensity, I'd like to mix it up with her a little bit more. This company's terrific." Mulgrew is aware that there is a great deal of fan enthusiasm for an attachment between Janeway and Chakotay, especially in the wake of the second-season episode "Resolutions," in which the two were stranded together for months. Asked whether she favors a romance between the captain and first officer, she insists, "I'm not going to jump into bed with him." But she also stresses that nobody has lobbied more strongly than herself for a "deep and important" relationship between Janeway and Chakotay. The actress thinks the writers should "maximize" this relationship instead of reducing the committment to standard television sex. "She's the captain of the ship, she's got to be that first, but at this point, it would be quite acceptable to see Janeway and Chakotay alone more often. And what happens then?" she wonders. "What kind of tenderness, what kind of tension, what kind of stammering? What kind of touch that doesn't complete itself, but longs to? Let's see them completely united on the bridge, and then let's see them not united in private, but let's make sure that their allegiance is to one another. It's terribly important to me." She describes the bond between them as "slow and deep-moving, the kind of connection between two people that cannot be interrupted by anything on the outside because those two people would not allow it to be so." "He truly is my anchor, in many ways, and I think vice versa, so we must maintain that," she adds. Yet she does not want the oppositions between Janeway, a Starfleet captain, and Chakotay, a Maquis warrior, to be cast aside. "I'd like to see not the friction, not the conflict, but the essential differences between Chakotay and myself explored and personalized," Mulgrew suggests. "What would happen if he countermanded my orders? Let's just say I'm indisposed for some reason, Chakotay has a very difficult call to make, he makes it, but in essence it's countermanding Starfleet orders. I think it could be a beautiful and exciting exploration of that dynamic between us." Mulgrew, the mother of two teenage sons, declares that she believes it is possible "to raise Voyager to a critical level that Star Trek has not seen before." She limits her convention appearances in order to stay focused on performing: "I don't view myself as a celebrity, I view myself as an actor, so to go to a convention is difficult for me," she admits, confessing that when she gets to one, "it's incredibly uplifting to be unconditionally accepted like that. I would like to have a very rich and interesting conversation with the audience." "But I find that I'm tired by the end of them, and then there's a Monday morning 4 a.m. call and nine pages to shoot," she notes of the full schedule which keeps her from attending as many cons as some of her peers. She says that dedication to her role keeps her focused when long days of filming and barrages of publicity occupy nearly every waking moment, keeping her from her boys and her large extended family. The actress' mother, Joan Mulgrew--one of Kate's biggest fans--says, "I think that Katie could have done anything that she wanted to do--she was always a very, very strong person." An avid reader, the younger Mulgrew is famed for her dinner parties--executive producer Rick Berman loves her Mexican dishes, and old friend John De Lancie, who plays Q on the Star Trek series, says that she's a wonderful entertainer. She is also actively involved in charity work, in particular with Incarnation Children's Center, a New York residence for children with HIV and AIDS, and Sojourn, a California center for battered women and children. In the past, her fan club has raised funds for U.C.L.A.'s English department and for the Starlight Foundation. The actress sounds unconcerned about being typecast from playing a Starfleet captain: "If anybody's got to have a legacy, I don't think Captain Janeway's half bad." Clearly thrilled to be considered a role model for girls, she urges the young women in her audience, "Be passionate about whatever it is you choose to do. It's what Joseph Campbell means when he says, 'Follow your bliss.' Make sure it's bliss you're following." Is there anything she wishes she could tell her own younger self? "I would urge her to put her ego aside, to learn the beauty of failure," muses Mulgrew. "It's been a problem for me all my life--I don't like to fail, [but] you can't learn anything if you don't fail. So to embrace failure, and to understand that it is inherent to the evolution of a creative self--I would say to be more driven towards the absolute crystallization of the art rather than what it promises." "I'd like to walk away from this in a few years and have women say, 'You know, she did something--she did something to me.' That's the key here," concludes Mulgrew.by Michelle Erica Green
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