Kate Mulgrew stepped into the captain’s chair on Star Trek: Voyager more than 30 years ago knowing the role carried expectations far beyond an ordinary television lead.
Captain Kathryn Janeway became the first woman to command a Star Trek series as its central character when Voyager premiered on January 16, 1995. The franchise had shown female captains before, but it had never built an entire series around one.
“It reshaped my life,” Mulgrew told PEOPLE at the Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame’s 34th Anniversary Gala on September 29.
More than three decades later, Mulgrew says some of the most meaningful responses have come from women who tell her Janeway helped expand what they imagined for themselves in science and technology.
Mulgrew Says Janeway’s STEM Legacy Became ‘Deeply Significant’
Kate Mulgrew Says ‘Unprecedented’ Role as the First Female Captain in ‘Star Trek’ Completely ‘Reshaped My Life’ (Exclusive) https://t.co/x796mCDfmG
— People (@people) October 4, 2026
Janeway was more than Voyager’s commanding officer. The character came from a science-officer background, and official Star Trek material has continued to identify her as one of the franchise’s prominent scientists as well as one of its captains.
Mulgrew told PEOPLE that Janeway’s effect on women in STEM had been “absolutely, deeply significant.” She also said the character challenged assumptions among men who had previously viewed both Star Trek and science as primarily male territory.
In a 2022 interview connected to Star Trek, Mulgrew said women working in STEM had approached her and told her that Janeway helped reshape their goals and the direction of their lives.
‘Voyager’ Was Built Around the Gamble of a Female Lead Captain
Janeway was not the first female captain ever seen in Star Trek, but she was the first woman to captain a ship while also serving as the lead character of an entire Star Trek series.
StarTrek.com’s own retrospective describes Voyager as the first time a woman occupied that central position. The franchise later grouped Janeway with Benjamin Sisko as two captains who expanded who could lead a Star Trek show during the 1990s.
Even before the series premiered, Paramount promoted that change heavily. An original 1994 press release announcing Voyager emphasized the arrival of the franchise’s first female lead captain.
Kate Mulgrew, however, was not the first actress cast. Geneviève Bujold originally took the role but left after only a few days of filming, with contemporary reports citing the demands of episodic television. Mulgrew stepped in afterward and ultimately made Janeway the character audiences knew for seven seasons.
Producers Wondered Whether Male Viewers Would Accept Her
Mulgrew has said that the production spent considerable energy worrying about how a female captain would be received by the existing audience.
In a 2026 interview with TV Insider, she recalled the central question as whether a woman could be as acceptable to male viewers as James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard.
Mulgrew said that concern showed up during the first season through repeated attention to her appearance, particularly her hair, while she was trying to establish Janeway’s command style.
Eventually, she pushed back. “Please stop fooling around with my hair and let me find this woman,” Mulgrew recalled telling the producers. Her priority was discovering what she called the source of Janeway’s authority.
She believes audiences gradually stopped treating gender as the central issue. In that same interview, Mulgrew said men slowly accepted her simply as their captain once the character had time to establish herself.
Janeway Still Defines Mulgrew’s Career More Than 30 Years Later
“People always lead with Captain Janeway, whatever the conversation is,” she told TV Insider. Even after her extensive stage career, her Emmy-nominated work as Galina “Red” Reznikov on Orange Is the New Black and decades of other television roles, Janeway remains the character most closely attached to her name.
Mulgrew has also returned to the character instead of leaving her entirely in the 1990s. She voiced Hologram Janeway and later Admiral Janeway in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy, introducing versions of the character to another generation of viewers.
The association can sometimes feel larger than the acting job that created it, but Mulgrew now describes that permanence as a privilege. She told TV Insider that learning how much Janeway meant to women in STEM has been “amazing and deeply gratifying.”