Kate Mulgrew on Playing Theresa in ‘Dope Thief,’ Her Co-Stars, & the State of the Industry

Kate Mulgrew is most known for playing Captain Janeway, the first female Captain of a Starfleet in the long history of Star Trek. While she continues to take part in the world of Star Trek, she has greatly diversified her resume with shows like Orange is the New Black, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and now Dope Thief, where she plays Theresa, the surrogate mom to Ray (Brian Tyree Henry), who is a junkie who steals from dope dealers with his best friend Manny (Wagner Moura). Theresa could not be further away from Janeway, but Mulgrew proves that the genius of acting is being able to play a wide range of characters. Her Theresa is an eccentric and original creation. One that is deserving of Emmy voter eyes. 

In our conversation, we discuss her performance, her co-stars, the chances for Dope Thief to get a second season, and the state of the industry at large.

The Contending: I wanted to express my love for The Man Who Fell to Earth and my heartbreak over its cancellation after just one season.

Kate Mulgrew: I was about to do something pretty interesting if we had been optioned for a second season. But nobody was more disappointed than (show creator) Alex Kurtzman. He poured his heart and soul into it. The business is changing, David. It’s just not the way it was when I was young, or even when I was middle-aged. I’m sure you sense it. I don’t know what’s going on, but nobody seems to know where they are. Nobody’s comfortable, nobody’s situated, everything’s shooting far away. LA is no longer the mecca. It once was. It just isn’t. Paramount is standing there fallow. Nobody shoots in LA, and therefore, all those people who work on technical crews are out of work unless they are willing to travel to Toronto or Vancouver. The Man Who Fell to Earth was shot in London.

The Contending: I felt similarly about Tokyo Vice, that it’s a great show, and it wasn’t allowed to breathe and move forward. There’s a lack of patience that exists now.

Kate Mulgrew: Do you think that also has to do with the excessive amount of content? 

The Contending: It reflects the amount of content and our attention spans. We, as a society, have a harder time sitting through a show, and The Man Who Fell to Earth asked something of you that was unusual. When I talked to Alex, we were nerding out over the Bowie references and everything else. It was fabulous. It didn’t occur to me when I was interviewing him that there wouldn’t be a second season. 

Kate Mulgrew: Too Expensive, they said. But everybody says it’s too expensive, and meanwhile, they go off and spend $400 million on Mission: Impossible. I don’t understand it anymore, but it is what it is. Dope Thief is another absolute case in point. We shot it in Philly. We got a tax cut in Philly. Philly is exactly where Dennis Tafoya set the story in his novel. We had a ball. I don’t remember the last time I felt such joy in a partnership as I did with Brian Tyre Henry, playing my son. But this, too, is hanging in the wind. I don’t know if it will see another season. I think it’s doubtful.

The Contending: I was thinking about how you created Theresa, because she could have easily been just annoying, but you made her eccentric, lovely in certain scenes, and a bit of a crank, too.Was all of that on the page for you, or did you have to buff it a little bit? 

Kate Mulgrew: Peter Craig is a genius. And Theresa sprang from his pen, so she was on the page. I’m an old-school actor. When it’s on the page, I can manage just about any depth. But he did ask me to go Delco (slang for Delaware County, PA). I’m the only one he asked. I guess he knows that I have a propensity for accents or that I’ve done a number of them over my career, and I said, ‘Let me give it a shot.’ It’s the hardest accent I’ve ever done. But once I studied assiduously with a coach for weeks before we went into production, I then found the rest of Theresa. From her hair to her nails, which were acrylic. To her vulnerability, which I think was very much in place. Hence, the eccentricity to which you refer.

She loves Raymond (Brian Tyree Henry). She knows that he’s in trouble. He is supposed to be out painting houses, but he’s not painting houses. He’s getting dope, and she knows he’s getting it. She’s trying to force an intervention, which I think is very funny. But she loves him deeply. I was in the life, Ving Rhames, who played Bart, my ex-lover was my pimp once upon a time. I was his girl, but I was one of his girls. I was his top girl. I’m very familiar with the dark side of life, very familiar with how difficult it is to survive on the street. So that when Bart was sent to prison and left this eight-nine-year-old kid behind, I just looked at the kid and I said, ‘Man, it’s up to you, kid, but we’ll do better together than you will alone.’ Come with me. The rest, as they say, is a love affair. Manny (Wagner Mours) has Sherry (Liz Caribel Garcis), and Raymond has me, Theresa. Later on, he has Michelle (Nesta Cooper), but I’m the one he is trying to protect from these bad guys. 

The Contending: You mentioned that you had a great working relationship with Brian, and I thought that Dope Thief him a chance to show all of his skills. He’s one of the best actors working, to be perfectly honest.

Kate Mulgrew:  I gave him the performer tribute at the Gotham Awards the other night. He asked me to present, and it was with the greatest pleasure that I did. I know when I’m working with somebody who’s a master, I know it. This guy is exquisite, exquisitely calibrated. Those were the words I used. He knows it, and then he throws it, and the rest is the game on. When I’ve got that energy in the room, anything’s possible. This is not an actor who has to look at his mark and figure out where the mark is. Instinctively, he knows, and already he’s assessed the set, he’s assessed the situation he’s in. He is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I think he’s gonna have a stellar career. 

The Contending: He’s got this thing he does where he will slide and raise his eyebrows and look up from below. It’s so charming and catches you off guard in some strange way. You can’t teach that. 

Kate Mulgrew: You can’t teach it. There are many things you can’t teach an actor with his instinct. Namely, the vulnerability. I said to this group at the Gotham Awards that everything is anchored by his vulnerability. Every choice he makes, that’s where he comes from. That’s how he lives. Even his rage emanates from a deep vulnerability, which I think he plays so beautifully, unlike anybody else.

The Contending: You also got to work on the first episode with Ridley Scott.

Kate Mulgrew:  Sir Ridley Scott. 

The Contending: Sir Ridley Scott. I thought the pilot was just pounding right into where it needed to go. It’s my favorite of his recent work.

Kate Mulgrew: What a lovely thing to say. And it was great fun to work with him. He shoots with six cameras. Six operators on a very small set. I don’t know how they did it. I couldn’t track. I’ve never had that luxury before. And he was shouting things through a megaphone phonically to me. ‘Go get the SNS and then blow out the candles, and then kiss him. Kiss him now. Now get the puppy, pick him up. It was just going that fast. Furious heaven for an actor like me, I’m an actor of facility. Brian is the same. We like to move fast. 

The Contending: I have been a big Ving Rhames fan for a long time and I do not feel that in the last twenty years he’s had access to some of the of roles he had when he was younger. He deserves that because he is that good. You didn’t have a lot of scenes to build the background that Theresa and his character (Bart) have. How did you map that out so that people would believe you instantly as a couple?

Kate Mulgrew: We’re two older actors. We’re very settled in our respective skins. He has a natural intensity. He just let it rip. So was it’s not oh my god, Bart’s coming home. It was Bart’s home now, and I’m gonna make the zucchini souffle. When you work with an actor of his intensity and his history, it’s pretty much right there on the plate for you. 

The Contending: Theresa has this instinct for mothering. She has it with Ray, of course, but she also has it with Manny and even Manny’s girlfriend, Sherry. There’s a great little scene between you and Sherry that reveals her desire to take care of others, regardless of their background or how she may feel about them on a particular day. How did you layer that into the performance?

Kate Mulgrew: It is too bad that they had to cut. Peter came to me immediately. He called me first. I was the subplot in the eighth episode, and he cut the whole thing because there was no time. The juxtaposition, I think, with the darker drama that was going on didn’t work symphonically, there was a whole subplot where Sherry and I are caught in the storage unit, and they come after us, and they get my dog and I start to beg, and I start to scream, and I fall to my knees, and Sherry’s there, and it was quite lovely. Liz Carrabelle is another gem. If I can just shout this out. What a beautiful young actress. Hispanic, with those beautiful ice blue eyes and that mop of black curls, she was a joy. I got to know her a bit outside. We had dinner a couple of times, and she’s full of life. Highly intelligent, she’s very dimensional and I think a great actress. I wish somebody would just take a look at that performance and pick her up and give her her own bloody series.

The Contending: WC Fields said never act with children or dogs. Shermy seems to be a reflection of Theresa to a degree. 

Kate Mulgrew: He is an absolute reflection of Theresa and Sir Ridley, who had no interest in the dog whatsoever, because he was working with six cameras and doing his thing, chose this huge dog. I think it was a German Shepherd bounding about. I said, ‘Sir Ridley, no.’ I want a hairless creature, so tiny in dimension that you can hardly recognize it as a dog. It should hardly be a dog. He said, ‘Do what you want.’ I got to choose Shermy. It’s a relationship. This is the child she never had. This is her raison d’être. He needs her in order to survive. He gives her a purpose. Shermy and Raymond. Equal measure. 

The Contending: A lot of the scenes with Ray and Shermy are almost like a buddy comedy to some degree.

Kate Mulgrew: I think that Raymond knows that he has to look after the dog for me or I’ll kill him. It’s that simple. So he does the best he can with Shermy. It’s funny to see the two of them. 

The Contending: Your performance is a balancing act between a certain amount of power, a certain amount of loving nature, and a person of a certain number of years who doesn’t have time for bullshit. How did you juggle that? 

Kate Mulgrew: You just articulated it, and you articulated it very well.You don’t juggle it, you are it. I have to go to work on the first day with a fully formed character. There’s no way I’m going to develop her over six or eight episodes. She’s gotta be ready when somebody says action. I just believed that she had lived a very difficult life. But there had been love, and she leads with that. She leads with her love for Bart. She leads with her love for Raymond and her love for Shermy, and she’s addicted to her lotto tickets, and she drinks a little bit of schnapps, and she smokes, and she does all those things. She’s fully knowledgeable of what is going on around her, and she’s unafraid. This is a woman who is fearless. She runs out in the rain with that zucchini soufflé to tell him that she loves him and she knows she’s not going to see him again. It’s tough stuff. It’s in Theresa from the beginning to the end. 

The Contending: This is why I love actors. I consider actors to be magicians. You  unzip your Kate Mulgrew suit, and then you step into the shoes of different people over and over again. I’m doubting that Theresa is a hell of a lot like you. It just fascinates me. I’m still a kid at heart. I talked to Anthony Boyle for Say Nothing a week ago. I thought the same thing, talking to him. He can play anyone.

Kate Mulgrew: Say Nothing was terrific. I read the book five years ago, and when I saw it, I thought it was wonderful. This is true stuff. 

The Contending: In one year, he played a real-life Bombardier in Masters of the Air. He played John Wilkes Booth in Manhunt and Brendan Hughes in Say Nothing. Those three people are not alike in any way. I don’t know who this guy is when I talk to him, which is great. How do you, when you’re playing a character who may not be a lot like you, how do you access them? 

Kate Mulgrew: You steal from your own coffers. But you’re stealing. There’s no question you’re stealing. There’s a part of me that saw something new, something I understood about Theresa, and I put it in the vault. Then I unlocked it when I got the part. What would it be like to be an old whore? What would it be like to love this way? This black boy? What would it be like to have lived, so on the razor’s edge all of these years?Part of that resides within me, so I just steal from those pockets. Enhance them. Hone them, and then I can articulate them. 

The Contending: You mentioned something there when you were discussing Ray being black, and then Manny and Sherry being Hispanic. I don’t trust people who say they don’t see color because it seems like it’s a statement you have to make about your virtue.

Kate Mulgrew:  Then they must be blind. It’s so silly. Of course, there’s color. He’s black and I’m white. It’s thrilling. That’s what Peter Craig hit with this: Wagner Moura is Hispanic. Sherry is Hispanic. Theresa is white poor. She’s white trash from the wrong side of the tracks. You know that Raymond is black, and that Bart is black, and that’s the other part of that story. For some fascinating reason, Peter Craig can diversify and integrate in the same exact moment. Colorblind is not the word, but you don’t care because you’re so into the story. 

The Contending: My theory on Dope Thief is that Dope Thief  is a love story between two friends. Who love each other deeply, but maybe aren’t all that great for each other.

Kate Mulgrew: Of course not. We start out understanding that danger is not only imminent, but constantly in play. So far, they’ve been lucky, but every scam is a risk. And then Raymond decides to take the tip and Manny doesn’t want him to take the tip. Manny knows you can’t go outside Philly to this little place called Sinking Spring. We don’t know what we’re gonna hit. And then you see the rest. It’s extraordinary. The special effects on that blow-up up I thought, were amazing. Yeah. Then to see Marin’s character deal with that, she gets caught in the throat with the bullet, and how she survives, and how she comes through.I loved everybody from Brian to Wagner to Marin to Liz, a wonderful cast, to Dustin Nguyen. It was a joyful experience, David. It really was. 

The Contending: I’ve had eyes on Marin Ireland for a long time. I thought this was the best thing she’s ever been given, and she just nailed it. It was nice to see. 

Kate Mulgrew: I think she’s got a big career ahead of her. I think she’s great. But nobody’s as great as the writer. Peter Craig is unsurpassed in the world of television. He understands the dimension of acting. He understands that we think and act on 10, 15 levels at once. He’s a Jacobean writer. He’s terrific. I really loved him. 

The Contending: I was doing a little research on you and I found a quote that stated while you are really proud of being the first female captain in the long line of Star Trek series, that there was a little bit of a cage that comes with it, where people see you in this iconic sort of way. I imagine that doing stuff like this, and The Man Who Fell to Earth, your stage work, and Orange is the New Black bring a certain level of satisfaction.

Kate Mulgrew: I’m not stupid. I understood the enormous value of Star Trek and its popularity, but I could not have foreseen what it would do to my life. It just shifted everything. She was iconic beyond expression as the first female captain of a Starship. That stays with me wherever I go. I suppose if I have to say to you that I’ve had to fight a stereotype, it’s a pretty marvelous stereotype to have to fight. Why would I argue with that? It’s been an altogether privileged career in that sense of the word. I think I helped women, particularly young women in STEM. That is in itself, incredibly gratifying. 

The Contending: There’s nothing wrong with having a signature role. Most people would kill for one.

Kate Mulgrew: I suppose they would. Yes. And I’ve had two or three But my obit will be Janeway. Yes, it will.

The Contending: Let’s not hurry that writeup. Summarize where Dope Thief is on your personal pantheon for work that you’ve done. 

Kate Mulgrew: It’s very high. It’s extremely high. First of all, I go back to joy. Letting go of my vanity, and giving it my full heart and my kind of intense focus was nothing but liberating, and every day was happy. And I haven’t had that in a long time, David, because you’re up against a lot of egos in this business, and often the strain shows. In this case, everything came together. It was led by Peter Craig, who is, I think, incomparable as a writer, and then helmed by Brian Tyree Henry, who is at the beginning of what I think is going to be an extraordinary career. I got to play with him. I thought it was rich. I thought it was deep. I thought it was funny. I thought it was sad. I thought it was great. These were real people living in real time, and I wish we could have another season, but that’s in the hands of the gods, right? 

The Contending: No matter what happens, at least we have this one wonderful season.

Kate Mulgrew: Yes, we do.