Star Trek: Why The First Actress Cast As Captain Janeway Was Replaced By Kate Mulgrew

Booking a role doesn't guarantee an actor has ownership of it. Take Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) from "Star Trek: Voyager" for example; the sci-fi icon bore a different face than the one fans are familiar with for exactly three days of filming — the first three days. Before Mulgrew made the captain's chair her own, Geneviève Bujold was cast in the role. According to "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek," a behind-the-scenes compendium written by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, Bujold's recasting followed a series of contested conflicts.

"On the first day, I got calls from [pilot director Winrich] Kolbe ... saying that [Bujold] was having trouble with her lines. She felt that she couldn't memorize seven pages a day," executive producer Rick Berman explained. He then went on to list a series of minor squabbles involving Bujold and various creatives attached to "Voyager," one of which culminated in the actress asking how she could be expected to cooperate with a director she didn't know.

Berman added that he was the one to finally tell Bujold that they had to part ways. While he notes that he was levelheaded throughout the interaction, he admitted to experiencing a certain vindictive pride, seemingly regarding the company losing time and money over a casting decision he did not agree with in the first place.

Rick Berman's issues aside, some of the parties involved in the early days of "Star Trek: Voyager" offered Geneviève Bujold the benefit of the doubt, and others even defended her. Actor Robert Beltran, who notes that Bujold's casting partially inspired his decision to join "Voyager," said, "It didn't seem like [Bujold] was happy to be there ... Maybe she was starting to realize the limitations of the possibilities of what she could do with so many hands on her character ... they weren't going to let her play [Janeway] the way she wanted to play it."

Additionally, supervising producer René Echevarria praised Bujold for her talent and professionalism, going so far as to compare her work to William Shatner's on "Star Trek: The Original Series." Regardless of talent or professionalism, the demands placed on a lead actor in a long-running television series are best suited to an individual who enjoys the material, and Bujold simply didn't enjoy being involved with "Star Trek." Executive Vice President of Paramount Television Tom Mazza phrased it best when he said, "It was like divine intervention because it really didn't work for both parties." 

Conversely, the bond between "Star Trek: Voyager" and actress Kate Mulgrew worked out for everyone involved. She helmed the USS Enterprise for seven successful seasons. To this day, "Voyager" is still considered one of the strongest installments in the entire "Star Trek" franchise, and, to some degree, that must be thanks to the right Captain Janeway making it on board.