WARP FIVE: Gillian Vigman on the Cerritos' Cantankerous Chief Medical Officer

Welcome to Warp Five, StarTrek.com's five question post-mortem with your favorite featured talent from the latest Star Trek episodes.

In the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos is tasked with addressing with "subspace potholes" (subspace rifts) that's been causing chaos in the Alpha Quadrant. Unfortunately for Dr. T'Ana, the Cerritos' Caitian chief medical officer, that means she's often pulled away from serious work to handle tasks like "undercover plastic surgery" for missions on pre-warp planets as seen in "" or dealing with Lieutenant j.g. Boimler's over the top attempts to curry favor with her in "" while the rest of the senior crew deals with two warring civilizations aboard the ship.

StarTrek.com had the opportunity to talk with Gillian Vigman about cursing up a storm in her voice recording sessions, her relationships with the Cerritos' crew, what she loves about Dr. T'Ana, and more!

On Making First Contact

Like many fans across several generation, Gillian Vigman discovered Star Trek as a kid, not through any specific intention, but that there was always reruns of on-air, noting, "I watched [Star Trek], not religiously, but enough that when it was on, I was like, 'Oh here it is.' I grew up in New Jersey in the late '70s, early '80s, and it was always on."

Vigman was thrilled to discover she landed a role on a Star Trek series following an audition where the project wasn't revealed. She shares, "I'd gone to the callback and I got the role. Then, Mike McMahan sat me down and showed me the picture of the original animation of [Dr. T'Ana's predecessor]. When I saw what my character looked like, I nearly pissed myself because I was dying laughing. I thought, 'Oh gosh, if this works, this series is going to be hilarious because it honors and respects the universe and the original show. It flips it on its head, and makes it hilarious without making fun of it. It makes light of what they took so seriously, but they do it in such a way that their information is so spot on."

On Dr. T'Ana's Radically Vulgar Candor

The Cerritos' chief medical officer has been a cathartic and cool experience for the actress. Detailing what it's like to work on Star Trek: Lower Decks, Vigman states, "Specifically, I get to swear up a storm, beyond all belief. And it can be real filthy. Just a little about me, I love swearing. I try to keep it in control sometimes. So getting to go do this, to go work on the character, it's like a big cathartic, beautiful, therapeutic session for me. I walk out [of the recording session], and I'm like, 'Woooo, that felt good!'"

Adding, "They'll be like, 'Okay, Vigman, go crazy. She's about to fight,' for example Boimler, 'I want you to go in this vein.' And I'll just go crazy and say the most filthy things, using verbs that are not used in appropriate ways, while giving some cat noises of efforts to really drive it home. It's so much fun to do that."

"In general, their scripts are so well crafted in terms of how they see their storylines," Vigman continues. "It's really more with off-the-cuff and riffing when it comes to the nasty things I saw. Especially with their very medically-involved [dialogue], I can follow it and be repulsive."

On Portraying Dr. T'Ana

Dr. T'Ana's crusty disposition and lack of bedside manner makes her a fan-favorite character among fans across the franchise.

So most of the bridge crew, Dr. T'Ana is definitely a fan favorite, because of how cantankerous she is, because she's of very few words. But once she gets her words out, they make an impact.

Caitians first appeared in by way of Starfleet officer M'Ress who served upon the U.S.S. Enterprise, who had a sultry soothing voice thanks to Majel Barrett. The decades since, their appearances have been largely unnamed and unheard, until Lower Decks came along. Dr. T'Ana's arrival allowed expectations of the Caitian species to be adjusted.

"I love that you get to see that she's so cantankerous," says Vigman. "She's so ornery and so salty. But there is, I would assume, this part of the Caitian, and the idea of cats in general. We love cats because they listen, they love, they purr. But they can go from being ornery and mean to being loving, and all you want to do is pet them and have them next to you."

"They're very straightforward," she continues. "If they don't like the way you've touched them, the way you look at them, the way you move, they're out. They're like, 'F you. I'm not interested.' And I love her personality; it's mixed with her true earnestness for the work she's doing. And if she sees behavior that is not in efforts towards what she's trying to accomplish, she'll call bullshit."

"She loves Tendi because Tendi is intellectually curious, and finds joy in the same thing that Dr. T'Ana finds joy in," explains Vigman. "When Boimler tries to ingratiate himself [in 'Gods and Angles'], he does it in what seems like such a false way, and she's like, 'Go F yourself. I'm not effing interested. You piece of... I'm not going to play your games.'"

Vigman delights in the fact that Boimler learns the hard way that Dr. T'Ana isn't just about swearing, but that she "finds real joy in the research she does, the surgeries, finding vaccines, or the ways to solve the symptomatic problems from a biological virus."

On Who's Allowed in Her Inner Book Club

It's only when Dr. T'Ana gets to do work she's proud of — an extremely unique way of removing a lightning bolt from Boimler's bottom — that will get her clout in the medical community that garners Boimler the two things he was after — a nickname from the good doctor and an invite to her book club.

"She's quite cerebral; she's a sexy, cerebral Caitian," muses Vigman on the facets of Dr. T'Ana's personality. "But she doesn't F with her book club. You don't F with her book club."

Elaborating, "She has custom picked people that will be as solidly into what they're reading. I mean, they're probably boozing. She's throwing back a cocktail or two. But she takes her book seriously. If you don't finish them, you're effing out. We don't want you in here. So how dare you try to get in a book club if you have no real genuine interest. And she has very genuine people in that book club. I mean, there might be some real weirdos in that book club, but I think these are people that read for reading's sake, and they want to talk about the book. And then she'll go find Shaxs later and turn them into a scratching post on the Holodeck."

On T'Ana and Shaxs' Secret Sauce

As for the the final thing she loves about Dr. T'Ana, Vigman shares, "She's also weirdly sexually open, which I find awesome as well. She's unflappable, and she does have a heart of gold. She can be hurt, but it takes a lot to get there."

What makes Shax and T'Ana work? According to Vigman, "Obviously, they're very physical and they're very open in their physicality. There's some BDSM stuff going on here. They're not afraid; they have a very explicit relationship. What I love about that is this is a lot of how she expresses herself. She's a Caitian of few words. Many purrs and angry meows, but she expresses herself cerebrally through the work she does, and then she has to let it all out physically."

"And she has found the perfect specimen in Shaxs," Vigman continues. "They're both weird and physical, there's a major attraction. They have found that they're on the same page about it. I think it's awesome. And she's found the perfect partner in Shaxs, who clearly wants to play the same. Sometimes I think he's a little bit scared by her games, which I think she loves. I think she likes that she can scare him a little bit too."