Women of Voyager out of Uniform

Listen, if you aren’t watching Kathryn Janeway’s background facial expressions to stuff The Doctor says during conversations with people then you are seriously missing out because she’s comedy GOLD

Like every time The Doctor pats himself on the back she’s just rolling her eyes and exchanging knowing looks with Chakotay and I love it. She’s the perfect captain to be dealing with this arrogant, salty, lovable asshole of a CMO. 

Honestly though, Kate Mulgrew is so insanely good at background acting. Even when her character isn’t in focus, she is still acting and doing it so well. I think this is one of the reasons Janeway feels like such a real character; she’s consistently characterized and acted even when you aren’t supposed to be paying attention to her. if you pay attention to what she’s doing in the background, she’s always doing something; sometimes she’s turning to look at the characters having conversation in the foreground as she leaves a room, or she’s throwing a look at Chakotay while aliens are talking to another character and she smells bullshit, or she’s patting someone on the arm while she’s in the background of a scene in the dining hall. I just think Voyager did such a good job of using characters in scenes where it makes sense to have them in the background, even if they aren’t the focus of the scene, and Kate’s acting choices in the background make it even better.

Re-blogging this love letter to Kate Mulgrew.

One of my favorite instances of this has to be in The Cloud, at the start of the episode where she begins her desperate search for coffee:

Harry: hey so I’ve been putting in a lot of good work, extra hours, and efficient results lately. so ive been thinking maybe I could get a promotion?

Janeway:

Harry: yes ma'am

Star Trek: Voyager S3E12: “Macrocosm” “The Janeway Gun Show”