Christina Chong talks role in upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The Star Trek franchise has been around for over 50 years. The franchise is getting a new spin-off with the upcoming Paramount+ series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. We had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the series stars, Christina Chong.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a prequel to the series Star Trek: The Original series that will follow the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. The series stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn and Christina Chong. Ahead of its premiere on May 5, the series has already been renewed for a season two.

If you don’t know Christina Chong or her story, it is highly inspirational. Chong’s work ethic stems from watching her father work low-wage jobs in restaurants that often only immigrants are willing to take on. She began performing at three years and has not looked back.

Her career has spanned being on hit series like Netflix’s Black Mirror and BBC America’s Doctor Who and starred in films like Johnny English Reborn and Tom & Jerry: The Movie. Over the last decade, she has spent so much time fighting uphill battles that she wants to share her stories of rejection, personal development and overcoming adversity to attempt to help others.

Hidden Remote had the pleasure of chatting with Christina about her career, dealing with rejection, and her upcoming role in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

Check out the video version of the interview here.

Christina Chong talks about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Hidden Remote: What made you want to become an actress? 

Christina Chong: It was always my dream was always to do musical theater. But I was more of a dancer than I was anything else. I was a teen and I was cast as Anita in West Side Story. And so I thought, who I could maybe do you know, acting things. I loved the acting parts. Then I got cast in a musical, Aida, written by Elton John and Tim Rice and I was told that I was cast because of my acting. So I was like, Oh, okay. And I was looking at the leads. I was like, huh, quite like what you guys are doing.

HR: You play La’an in the upcoming CBS series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, what attracted you to this role?

Christina Chong: I’m gonna be honest, because I wasn’t. I wasn’t a fan before. Right? Obviously, I am now, but I hadn’t ever watched a full episode of Star Trek, I’d seen bits on TV, but like, I didn’t know, I was like, okay, Star Trek. And then it was only after getting the role that I realized I was so lucky to be a part of this world. And, you know, I had seven pages of dialogue. I had no idea I knew I was going to be chief of security but didn’t really know what that would entail in the Star Trek world. So it was kind of like jumping off the cliff. Cool. Let’s do it. But this amazing parachute came out. And I was like, oh, this, this, this arc is incredible.

She gets to do so many things. She gets to wear so many different costumes. She gets to play with all the different characters. She has relationships with all of them because she’s security, right? She’s everywhere. She can be anywhere she gets to go on all the missions. And she has this kind of link to some dangerous people. So you know, it was all like a massive gift and completely unexpected.

HR: You’ve spent some time over these last few years rediscovering not just Christina as an actress but Christina the person, what made you want to do that? 

Christina Chong: You know, coming from a Chinese father and an English mother, throughout my childhood, being made to feel not good enough and made to feel less than lived within me. My self-growth kind of started when I was quite young, like, 2010. I started to like working on this stuff because I wasn’t getting the roles. I wasn’t, my dream felt so far away from me, you know, it’s like, how do I get that dream? How do I make that a reality in my life? And so, whenever I feel some kind of anxiety or pain or obstacle in my life, that is what encourages me to grow and understand it and understand myself to get over the side of it so that I can get to the dream, you know. But the funny thing is, the funny thing is that I have learned is that actually, the journey is the thing, it’s the journey, it’s not about getting from A to B, it’s about enjoying the moments, right. And all, you know, all the big philosophers have all said the same thing.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022.