Stacey Abrams may be running to become Georgia’s next governor, but on Star Trek: Discovery she answers to “Madam President.” The gubernatorial candidate (and self-professed Trekkie) dropped by Thursday’s season 4 finale of Discovery, playing the Earth’s commander-in-chief.
In perhaps an allusion to the politician’s own aisle-crossing agenda, Abrams’ United President tells Federation President Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal), “United Earth is ready right now to rejoin the Federation, and nothing could make me happier than to say those words.”
“We always knew that Earth [to the Federation] returning would be a big, big moment, and coming into Season 4, we knew that was going to happen in the finale,” Michelle Paradise, the Paramount+ series’ executive producer and co-showrunner, told Variety. “As we started to look ahead to the finale, we realized we are going to need a face for this moment, someone to represent Earth. When the time came to start talking about the president of Earth, it seemed like, ‘Well, who better to represent that than her?’”
When Paradise texted executive producer Alex Kurtzman with the idea, his enthusiasm was evident. “The number of exclamation marks that came back was just phenomenal,” she told the outlet. When the pair approached Abrams about the gig via Zoom, her only request was that she not be spoiled beyond her character’s need-to-know. “She was very specific about that,” Paradise said. “She wanted to be able to just watch it and enjoy when the show finally came out. So, yeah, we avoided all the spoilers.”
Abrams, who hosted a Star Trek-themed virtual fundraiser for victorious Senate candidates Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in late 2020, filmed her cameo in Toronto last August. “We spent so much of our time fanning out and pretending to be cool in her midst,” star Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays USS Discovery Captain Michael Burnham, told Deadline. “She’s a legend in the making and a civil hero, and she was an absolute delight to work with…and she whipped out some acting chops too! It was an honor for me as a Black woman to stand with her in the story.”
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