The Let’s Play Podcast

Episode 3: Michelle Hurd

Raffi on Star Trek: Picard

Transcript

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

Michelle Hurd [00:00:00]  When you see yourself part of society, you realize that you are here. You're valued. You can do whatever you want.

[Intro music]

Verta Maloney, the*gameHERs [00:00:16] Welcome to Let's Play by the*gameHERs. A podcast hosted by actress Kylie Vernoff. Fans know Kylie best as the fiery Susan Grimshaw in Red Dead Redemption 2 and Miranda Cowan in GTA V. Our series features some of the most informed and exciting people in the gaming industry today. Kylie and our guests discuss careers, gaming and so much more. If you like what you hear, be sure to check out thegamehers.com website to hear exclusive bonus material from each of our guests.

Kylie Vernoff [00:00:49] Hey, everybody. I am so excited for you to hear this interview today. I talked to my dear friend, the truly magnificent actress Michelle Hurd. Michelle has had a prolific career appearing on literally dozens of hit TV shows, including Daredevil, Ash vs. Evil Dead, The Glades, and Blind Spot. But these days, she's known best for her riveting portrayal of Raffi on Star Trek Picard. We're old friends catching up. So you may hear a tiny bit of colorful language, but Michelle has always been an inspiration to me, and I can't wait to share her with all of you. So let's get right into it.

Kylie Vernoff [00:01:29] Well, hi, Michelle. Thank you so much for making time for me today.

Michelle Hurd [00:01:33] Hello, my friend. It's so nice to hear from you. I love talking to you. This is great.

Kylie Vernoff [00:01:37] I love talking to you, too. So for people who don't know, I've known you since college which is a reasonable amount of time now. And, Michelle, I am going to gush about you a little bit because I will never forget the first time I met you. Yeah. You were a T.A. in a movement class. Do you remember that room with the big ballet bars and all the mirrors?

Michelle Hurd [00:02:02] Absolutely. Was that Bill Finley, William Finley's class, maybe?

Kylie Vernoff [00:02:07] Yes, it was. And you were the T.A. and I remember seeing you. And just first of all, just your physical beauty just was, just arresting.

Michelle Hurd [00:02:18] Oh, you're so kind.

Kylie Vernoff [00:02:24] People know you know you have this incredible physical strength and physical agility. And you held all that strength and beauty in a way that I had not seen from someone my age before.

Michelle Hurd [00:02:36] Oh, wow. That's that's such a beautiful thing to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Kylie Vernoff [00:02:40] Yeah. And then I got to know you. And besides all that physical beauty, you had this just enormous talent, but also your loyalty to the work, your fealty to and the fierceness with which you defended your choices, your acting choices and your choices in life. You've just always been so aspirational to me.

Michelle Hurd [00:03:05] That's so kind. And it's really quite a beautiful thing to hear from someone else about you and your impressions and when you were young, because, you know, I don't think I recall projecting that. I think I was just, you know, a New York kid that just got out of being such a little punk delinquent in Greenwich Village, New York, and decided to start focusing on the things that she loved and tried to make a strong stance in them focusing and working towards her goal. So I really appreciate you saying that. That's a beautiful look back. It's funny because I was doing some cleaning up at my house the other day and I was going through, I guess, school reports, you know, from one year. And like, I went to a private school from 1st to 12th grade. St Ann's in Brooklyn Heights.

Kylie Vernoff [00:03:50] Oh i didn't know that.

Michelle Hurd [00:03:51] Yeah. Which is a very, you know, sort of progressive school, you know. No grades, written evaluations. You're on a first name basis with your teachers. Sort of develops these sort of independent debating, debatable people. You know, we love debating. But what I loved was I was looking at some of the written reports and almost every single course, every single teacher... and so this is this out there for the kids who don't get the A's... it was every single one, they were like, you know, Michelle, Michelle just doesn't seem interested in this subject. When she is interested, she contributes to the class, you know, wonderfully. But when she's not, she seems to just hunker down into her own space. And if she's not interested, she doesn't engage. And I thought, wow, in almost every single course. And and I had to make a big decision, you know, and I didn't have this sort of  window into the future. But I remember when I auditioned for Boston University, I was making a choice to become more engaged and more focused and more committed to what I wanted to focus my life on. Acting. So it's kind of an interesting little trip down memory lane.

Kylie Vernoff [00:05:05] Yeah, I will say that by the time I encountered you, you seemed like someone who knew what her calling was, was passionate and committed to it, and was also willing to bring everyone along if they were equally as dedicated. And actually maybe that last part isn't right, because I actually think that you were always someone who was accepting of mistakes. I felt like I could fuck up a little in front of you and still have a place at the table.

Michelle Hurd [00:05:34] Yes, absolutely. I think that the most powerful thing that we all can do is learn from mistakes. And how wonderful it is to try to fail, you know, to try to do something and not succeed and then go, huh, that didn't work, let's see, how can we do that again and try to get what I want this time or achieve farther this time or be heard clearer this time. I think that's the most informative times, really.

Kylie Vernoff [00:06:02] Yeah. So tell me about this whirlwind of press that you're on right now, what is that like? Have you done anything this intense with press before?

Michelle Hurd [00:06:13] No. You know, it's crazy. It's a crazy little adventure that I'm on. And I'm so very thankful and grateful. I've been doing this, as you know, for almost 30 years. And, you know, I'm really just so humbled and so thankful. I'm grateful. I mean, Star Trek Picard with Patrick Stewart is a gift that a woman of a certain age could only dream of. I mean, they are rolling it out. You know, we're on CBS All Access in the states. In Europe we're in Amazon Prime. And so while we've been in Europe, Amazon has been taking care of us. And we've had a huge, beautiful premiere in London and Berlin where they welcomed us with open arms. We've gone to the comic-cons in in Italy, and Lucca, Italy and in Paris and in San Paolo, Brazil. It's just been a whirlwind fairy tale.  But what I wanted to say is that, you know, for these 30 years of doing all the different types of work I've done on stage and television and film, whether it's a guest, a day player, a recurring character or a series regular, I've always entered my medium, whatever stage that is, the exact same way. Completely committed to doing the best I can, trying to be as generous as I can to every actor and person I interact with. Always acknowledging that it takes all of us to make a, you know, to do the project that we're focused on. I've never sort of gone, oh, well, I'm number so-and-so on the list. So now I'm, you know, (MIMICKING POMPOUSNESS). It's never been that and I owe that to my parents for grounding me and, you know, really spreading the beauty of what art is from acting to dancing to singing to going to a museum and seeing paintings and sculptures and going to the theater here in New York, you know, it takes a village to create beautiful pieces of art. And it's just such a, I hate to say satisfying, but it's such a lovely rewarding experience right now to know that I've never puffed up. I've always been sort of grounded in the fact that I walk on set now and I work with Sir Patrick Stewart. It's a real blessing, too, and a truth that if you do your work, it will come.

Kylie Vernoff [00:08:46] Yeah, I was thinking about that. I was thinking about what an incredible thing this must be to have the, you know, the classical training that you have, all of your television experience and all of it. And to have it sort of culminate in this. I mean, it's Sir Patrick Stewart. And I think I saw you say in an interview about how, you know, you're a procedural girl, that you come from that kind of television and you thought that was the place to tell these gritty stories. But how now you're finding that this place in sci fi, it's really the place to be for real storytelling.

Michelle Hurd [00:09:23] Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, I don't think I realized that, you know, and I love sci fi. I love sci fi, like science fiction, science fantasy, you know, all of that. But for majority of my life, I've been a procedural girl. I've done like five shows with Dick Wolf, you know. I mean. I've always thought, you know, this is how you push the agenda. You know, we're really serious, where it's very contemporary. You could look out your window and you would see the same thing that we're seeing on television.

Kylie Vernoff [00:09:51] Right, it's right in front of the headlights.

Michelle Hurd [00:09:53] That's right. Exactly. And, you know, I always joke with my agents that whenever there was a part like an option, you know, whether it was to wear heels or carry a gun, I would choose the gun every time. And I'm like, I'm the boss, the cop, the this, the that. And I didn't realize that until I got this job that the real stories of humanity are told under the awning of sci fi. You know, you can get away with talking about immigration. You can get away talking about discrimination, inclusion, exclusion, other isms, all those things by just having the character be blue or, you know, hairy from head to toe or, you know, whatever disguise or, you know, character creation that the writers have to have dawned. And that ability lets us tell a story, get behind the person's exterior, seeing their heart, seeing their perspective, understanding their value. How valuable they all are to life in general. To sort of be once again at this time in my career to have that full understanding and then to just sort of wrap my arms around and go, oh, this is I'm an actor and an activist. This is what I've always meant to be. I'm supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be telling these stories. Sci fi, it's one of those things that we could actually probably get all the kinds of Republicans and Democrats all together. Different faiths, different, you know, eating habits. You can get everybody together to talk about something they watched on sci fi, and it can unite. You know, art is powerful that way.

Kylie Vernoff [00:11:46] I was reading that your show has adopted the Vulcan philosophy, the IDIC. Right? Infinite diversity. Infinite combinations. That's so beautiful.

Michelle Hurd [00:11:59] It's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. When I was at the L.A. premiere, that was the first time that we as a cast got to see the show. They did three episodes. It was like a two hour movie over at the Cinerama Dome. I mean, it was crazy. Iconic. It was amazing. And, you know, from almost the first few, 10, 20 minutes that you watch it there, you could just see that we are telling a story of a fully mixed, integrated world, you know. It has its problems, obviously. As any type of life force will. But it was just such a beautiful thing. You know, I love the fact that Isa Briones, she's mixed, she's Eurasian. Evan Evagora is, you know, Maori. We've got a bunch of mix-y people in the show. And, you know, I carry that with with honor and pride. And I understand that there's little, you know, beige colored kids with curly hair out there that gets to see themselves represented on television. And I love the fact that I can sort of own my curly hair even in 2400 in space.

Kylie Vernoff [00:13:06] Yes. Right. Yeah. I heard you talk about how your father, who was an actor, made sure that you guys consumed media as kids that showed people like you, that were incluve, where you were represented.

Michelle Hurd [00:13:24] Yeah. You know what, it's interesting, I've been thinking about this a lot. When I first got this job, I had a flashback to being in the living room with my family. And I remember my father, you know, encouraging us all to sit down and watch Star Trek. And I'm biracial, my dad's black, my mother's white. There were times where he was doing jobs that he didn't he didn't want us to come see because he was playing, you know, the butler or the Uncle Tom, kind of Stepin Fetchit kind of thing. And he was really prideful, you know, and it was really important for him that his three girls saw themselves represented and, you know, watching Star Trek and watching Captain Kirk and Uhura kiss on screen. I mean, that was the first time there was an interracial kiss on television ever. And, in Star Trek. And I think about that, about my parents, my white and black parents who got married during the time of Dr. King getting assassinated, Malcolm getting assassinated, Bobby John getting assassinated. It must've seemed like the sky was falling. And I asked my mother about that often. And, you know, she says, well, you know what? What were we gonna do? We were not going anywhere. We're here. We're going to persist. We're going to stay true to ourselves and we're going to let our voices be heard. And it's amazing that when I got this job, I had this whole sort of, you know, whirlwind win experience of how how much my parents have been activists and fighting for the rights of people who are, you know, don't have voices all the time. And that I'm sort of carrying on that mantle by working on a show that has since it started, you know, back in the day that was one of its main focus was human story, humanity, life stories, you know, and the fact that we have clashes and we have to figure out how do we get along, because we have to. We're on one planet here, in Star Trek we're in the universe. There's the galaxy. And still we all need to try to figure out how to get along.

Kylie Vernoff [00:15:31] I just got chills up and down. I love that you are carrying that mantle that was carried by your artist parents.

Michelle Hurd [00:15:39] It's an honor.

Kylie Vernoff [00:15:40] It is such an honor. And I love that in this version, in Star Trek, Pacard, you all call yourselves the the motley crew. Right? You're operating outside the system.

Michelle Hurd [00:15:52] Yeah. And I love that, too, because I think when we were in, I don't I know it might have been when we were in Paris or something, we put a little WhatsApp group together so that we would talk to each other and be able to meet up. And I just like, you know, I was like, let's just call it the motley crew, because we're we're the motley crew and I love it. You're like, yep, we are the motley crew.

Kylie Vernoff [00:16:15] I love that. I love like, you know, you're having to work outside the system. And in addition to all of this, it's beautiful representation across different cultures and ages. I love what's happening with Raffi being an addict.

Michelle Hurd [00:16:31] Yeah. I have to say, it was really interesting, and you'll understand, you can relate to this. When I got the audition for this, it was an email like at 9:30PM on a Wednesday for self tape, the next day.

Kylie Vernoff [00:16:48] Of course it was! Of course it was.

Michelle Hurd [00:16:49] Of course it was. I was actually going in to have foot surgery from my decades of doing martial arts in a concrete dojo, thank you very much, the next morning. And I saw this audition for next day and I'm like, I can't do this. It's not going to happen. And I thought, well, you know, you got to be a good little actress and read the information that's given to you. So you know what you're saying. Whether you're saying, you know, passing on something. And I looked at the character breakdown and the character breakdown was so well vetted. It was so complex. It was so delicious. It was better than anything I've ever read before. And then I looked a little further and was looking at the producers and I saw Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman and Patrick Stewart. And I thought, OK, wait a second, what what's going on here? What is this?

Kylie Vernoff [00:17:40] Right. Because they hold it so tight. I'm sure it didn't say Star Trek anywhere on it.

Michelle Hurd [00:17:44] It said "drawing room."

Kylie Vernoff [00:17:46] I've auditioned for your show and it came under some name where I was like, what is this?

Michelle Hurd [00:17:53] I know, right? I think we had like, "drawing room," "royal flush." We've had crazy names. But yeah, I called my peoples, or email them and said, you know, I can't do this tomorrow, is there any way that I can get it in Monday. You know, over the weekend. And they said sure, sure, no problem. So I go have my foot operation, I come home on Thursday and I get an email from my people and they're like, "So sorry, honey. They really need it by end of day tomorrow," which is just insane. And you know how they do that. And it's never true,.

Kylie Vernoff [00:18:27] It's never true, but...

Michelle Hurd [00:18:29] They always make you feel like you have to get it in. This was a eleven page scene, five minutes, five, four minutes, 11 pages. And I just had an operation. And I looked at my husband. I was like, damn, damn it! It's just such a well-written scene. It's such a well-written character. I'm just gonna have to try to do it. So Thursday, I rested. Friday I weaned myself off of the oxy, thank you very much.

Kylie Vernoff [00:19:00] I was going to say, you must have been jacked up on something post surgery.

Michelle Hurd [00:19:04] Oh my god. I mean, foot surgery is no joke. That's pain. There's all your nerves down there. So it was really no joke. And I weaned myself off, I took like one oxy every like seven or eight hours. And it was brutal. My husband had a little iPhone. We did the self tape app. I had sweats on, and put a nice top on. Pulled my hair up, slapped a little makeup on. I did two takes. First take I really enjoyed the beginning part. Didn't like the second, the last part. Second take, I didn't like the beginning part but I liked this last part and I was just too tired, too frustrated to try to do a solid one. I said, you know what, I'm never gonna get this. Just send it off. Just send off those two things. Let it go. And then a week later, I mean, there's a little bit more to that. I think they called in and said that I was pinned, which I know you understand as well, and I can't stand being pinned. You know, I always joke with my agents, when they say you've been pinned for a project, have they hammered the pin in? Is it the pin with a little bit just pushed in by a pinkie? Is it going to pop out?

Kylie Vernoff [00:20:15] Is it a staple?

Michelle Hurd [00:20:16] Right. Is it a staple. Is it tape? Is it just a little piece of tape. What have we got here. So that week went by. And then I think at the end of the week the pin fell out like it does. And I thought oh whatever.

Kylie Vernoff [00:20:29] Not always, but often.

Michelle Hurd [00:20:29] Not always but often, sometimes, right? So then I went, you know, I was continuing on with the pilot season here in New York on crutches, you know, mobilizing. And that next week there was a project that I was going to test for, a different project, and I was perfectly fine with it. And Star Trek people called back and they said, you know, we'd like to pin it again. And my people said, well, it's too late. We're setting up a test deal coming up next week. They hung up. We waited an hour. They called back and said we'd like to offer her the role of Raffi.

Kylie Vernoff [00:21:06] Oh, that's the best.

Michelle Hurd [00:21:11] What I love about that story and I really want actors to hear is that, you know, I didn't do a perfect take. There was not one perfect take I did. What I wanted to do was give you the feeling of who this woman was. I wanted you to understand her struggle. And the scene, it touched about her addiction. And I thought this is really important to tell this story in the way of somebody who is still incredibly valuable to society but is hurting, is doing her very, very best to wake up in the morning, but needs advice. She needs a crutch to lean on. She's haunted. She has regrets. She's beat herself up because of the past decisions. But she's trying. She's really trying to get back into the world of the living. And we all, if we all haven't experienced our own personal addictions, we have people in our lives that have had addictions. And, you know, those demons on the shoulders, those monkeys on the shoulder, whatever you want to call them, are real. And, you know, I think it's incredibly important for us to to have space for those people to go through their battles and know that you can reach out and take their hand and lift them up. And even if they don't want to take your hand, you should always remember, you know, try to reach out to them and give them the space to heal and to work through their addictions, because we're all here and we're all, you know, allowed to stumble and fall and get up again. And we shouldn't write people off just because they're haunted by their own challenges.

Kylie Vernoff [00:23:15] I am so glad that you're talking about that. We talk about inclusion, right. And this gameHERs platform that is hosting this podcast, that's really important to them to talk about inclusion. And we talk a lot about that. But hearing you speak about people who are suffering from addiction and having them represented in that way. That was new to me. And I do. I grew up in a family that was just riddled with addiction. That was the whole arc of my childhood, alcoholism and addiction. And it's really easy to write people off. You know, your character has this line that you gave that I heard where you said the last 14 years have been one long slide into humiliation and rage.

Michelle Hurd [00:24:03] Yes, yes. Humiliation and rage. Those two things. I mean, they're powerful. They're destructive. They're painful. They're painful.

Kylie Vernoff [00:24:23] Really painful. And it's very easy to write someone off who has hurt you, right? Because people suffering from addiction tend to isolate and remove themselves from the people that love them. And hearing you talk about that in the way you just spoke about it. I don't think I've ever really heard that before. Not in the way you're doing it. And I think it's so important. And I think it's really going to help a lot of people, Michelle.

Michelle Hurd [00:24:54] Oh, I hope so. I really wanted to tell the story in such a truthful human way so that we could all see, you know, recognize this person, whether it's recognize it in ourselves or in, you know, people that we know. And also just to know that addiction comes in so many different forms. You know, there's people you know, there's a blanket concept of alcohol or drugs. But we've got pills. We've got exercise. We've got eating disorders. We've got relationship disorders. You know, a serial relationship person. There's so many things. And to be able to try to put a face on what it looks like to... It's almost like a slow torture to yourself. You know, you're beating yourself up. And, you know, if we can try to teach us to be able to recognize that in people who are hurting and maybe have a little more space and patience and time and help, because we're all, you know, we all are just trying to do our best. You're just trying to do your best every day. And sometimes that is almost impossible.

Kylie Vernoff [00:26:13] Yeah. I really love you can see that with Raffi. You can see that, you know, she's been in this isolation, just married to her addiction and seeing her make a choice to reenter the world. It's just gorgeous. And you play her so gorgeously.

Kylie Vernoff [00:26:29] Thank you, honey. Mike, I got to give it to Michael Shiban. One of our executive producers, writers. He, um, he and I talked a lot about that. And I really wanted to make sure that even, you know, that there'll be stumbles. You know, that there's the up and down and it's not a smooth ride. But that she's on a journey that she's fighting. She's fighting to be part of the world.

Kylie Vernoff [00:26:56] Yeah, I love it. So tell me a little bit about about the fans. Because I've always followed your career. You've done a lot of shows that, you know, have a rabid fan base like Daredevil, Gossip Girl. But I'm guessing that there's nothing that reaches the level of these diehard Trekkies, right?

Michelle Hurd [00:27:14] Oh, my goodness. Yeah, there's nothing like it. I think of the first Comic-Con that we all went to was the San Diego Comic-Con, which is a big one. And I keep joking with my cast mates. It's like, you know, if you're going to do Comic-Con, you should do it with Patrick Stewart. It's pretty cool. It's like the seas open.

Kylie Vernoff [00:27:31] I can't even imagine what that's like. I mean, to be dropped into this just beloved franchise must be incredible.

Michelle Hurd [00:27:43] It's phenomenal. It's incredible. And I'm so humbled. I understand it, I get it. I've been a Trekkie fan. My entire family is a Trekkie fan. In fact, when the comic book... there's a comic book that I'm in, which is crazy. When that came out, when that dropped, one of my castmates, Jonathan Del Arco, sent me a picture of it. And I was with my nephews and I like screamed out loud and my eldest...

Kylie Vernoff [00:28:11] I saw it Michelle, and it looks just like you!

Michelle Hurd [00:28:11] Did you? it's crazy, it's crazy! Oh, my God. My eldest sister Denise, because she's a huge Trekkie and graphic novel fan, she literally went to four different comic book stores here in New York and like, you know, tackled one of the owners and was like, My sister is Raffi, you have to save me a copy. It's been incredible. The fans have been so warm, so welcoming, so loving, so accepting. I mean, they've just embraced us. And as I said, I'm so honored to be part of this. I completely get it. I am ecstatic to contribute to this world and, you know, not for nothing. This is an amazing cast and crew. Our writers and directors have given us an amazing 10 episode movie, so to speak, to take on a journey. I love the fact that, you know, Picard and Patrick have you know, they've aged in the time that we last saw Picard in Next Gen, as has Patrick. And he's been impacted by the world. Both of them, Patrick and Picard, have both been impacted by the world. And you're going to see that perspective. And I think it's an amazing thing that we have the perspective of a man of a certain age on television, because we got a lot of people of that age who are here, and their perspective has not been focused on or highlighted. It's usually, you know, put in the corner.

Kylie Vernoff [00:29:47] You know, I'll tell you. And for me, like, I love getting older in this business. And I thought I would hate it. But having a mature perspective, I mean, you know, we're so underrepresented and that's changing. It's changing. But you become so aware of it. When you when you hear, like, you read "middle-aged." So and so. You know, the wrong side of 40. They will literally write that shit in there.

Michelle Hurd [00:30:13] I know. It's ridiculous. I mean, you know I've gotten over it because I'm the mother of grown humans at this point. You know, like when I did Blindspot, I was like, how many of you am i the mother of? I'm just asking. Each of you with the gray hair, I'm your mother as well? Great. Fantastic. No, I mean, and that's the thing is that, you know, we're honestly, as you just said, I feel I've just got so much more to contribute at this age. You know, I think that we validate situations now. You know, you can put us in a show and when we come on, you validate that scene. You're not this sort of fluffy thing in the corner. But we have our leader is aware of life, of mortality and of the choices that, you know, that really become more valuable as we mature.  think it's phenomenal.

Kylie Vernoff [00:31:06] I really hadn't thought about that. But you're so right. That is a perspective that is so often lost. We have, you know, people put in as grandparents and right off to the side and to really just have his perspective and have that be at the helm. And also to have... You know, I think you said that his understanding of the canon, that he will literally stop a scene to say the fans will know this isn't right.

Michelle Hurd [00:31:37] Oh, absolutely. It's amazing. I mean, what's so beautiful is that Akiva and Michael are huge longtime Trekkie fans. And so you have your executive producer and your head writer being a huge Trekkie fan. And then you have Patrick, you know, the Star Trek icon or, you know, whatever I want to refer to him as. And he's so respectful of the fans. We often, not often I should say, I know there was like three times where we were shooting and Patrick stopped. And he was like, "This is not right. The fans will know that this is not right. We need to tell the proper story." And what I love is that our producers, our directors our writers will stop and we'll all sit down. We'll vet it out, we'll talk and we'll try to figure out how do we tell this story or the point of view in a more, you know, correct way for the canon. And we do it. We change it. As you know, I've been doing this for such a long time on so many different sets. I've never experienced that before that we will literally just stop, throw out the script and come up with a new way of telling the scene. It's pretty amazing. It's an amazing experience.

Kylie Vernoff [00:32:50] It must be, it's so live. It's a live story that you're telling.

Michelle Hurd [00:32:55] Yes. Yes. And you have a master actor. You know, you have Patrick Stewart, who is fully alive whenever you're acting with him. I mean, he's one of the most giving actors I've ever had the privilege of sharing space with and he keeps you in the moment, right in the scene, and it's so fluid. It's like breath. You know, you take a deep breath. He takes a deep breath. I mean, it's beautiful, really.

Kylie Vernoff [00:33:22] I can feel that when I watch, I can feel that what's happening there is authentic. And I'm so excited for you. I just love watching it. I love seeing it. It's so inspiring and awesome.

Michelle Hurd [00:33:38] Oh, honey, thank you so much for saying that. You know, it's weird because I often have a hard time watching myself, as many actors do. You're like, oh, I should've done this, oh I should've done that. But I gotta say, watching Star Trek, I'm just involved in those characters. Like, I'm in it. I'm in it. I want to be in their stories. I want to you know, I want to know how it comes out. And I just love how perfectly imperfect Raffi is. I love that she can stumble, that she can, you know, make good and bad decisions. I love Rios and Agnes and Elnor and Soji. The characters are just... it's an amazing adventure. It's an amazing adventure that I'm so thankful for.

Kylie Vernoff [00:34:30] You know, I was thinking that when I was growing up, when I was maybe in high school, I think I thought of Star Trek and sci fi in general as more of like a boys club. You know? That like, I had a lot of male friends that were really into Star Trek. And I sort of learned about it from them. I think that more and more it seems like girls and women are huge fan of the whole genre.

Michelle Hurd [00:34:57] Oh, yeah, I think so.

Kylie Vernoff [00:34:58] Are you finding that when you get out there, the fans?

Michelle Hurd [00:35:02] Absolutely. I mean, the women almost out number the men. I can't remember, I guess it must've been San Diego, the first Comic-Con that we did when our teaser, at the end of the teaser. Jeri Ryan, you know, Seven of Nine, shows up, and the stadium, like, lost their shit. I mean, it was amazing. It was the most beautiful experience. They just lost it because, you know, there's all of a sudden this powerful Borg woman right on screen and they just love her. And more and more during our Comic-Con, when we get to interact with the fans, you really see how the women are just so thankful that we're giving them strong characters, diverse characters, interesting characters, integral characters, characters that contribute and need to be there, not just dressed up and, you know, put on the side. I think times they are changing.

Kylie Vernoff [00:36:07] THey are! I can see it with with Star Wars, with Marvel. And I think that when they branch out that way, they see that we show up because representation matters. Right? These girls want to see themselves.

Michelle Hurd [00:36:21] That goes back to when I got this job. You know, I don't think I realized how important it is to see yourself represented. I think of my two nephews, two brown boys and when I grew up in my, I don't know, first, second, third, fourth grade classrooms, they'd have all the pictures of the presidents, you know, around the room. And for my entire, you know, majority of my life, it was old white men. And all I can think of now is that my two nephews, when they sit in that kind of a scenario, there's a black man there. It's hard to it's hard to measure how that impacts you. But it really does. When you see yourself part of society, you realize that you are here. You're valued. You can contribute. You can do whatever you want. Back in the day... it was funny because I was thinking about movies and things that I watched. What I grew up on or, when I want to show it to my goddaughters or my nephews. And you start looking back at old movies and you realize that, you know, there's not a lot of representation of people of color. I loved MGM Classics, you know, I grew up here in New York and the Waverly Place Theater always used to play MGM musicals on the weekends. I mean, that's what we'd go see. And I love them. When I look at them now, it's crazy because I'm not represented there at all. We're not, we're not there. We're not in the world of this entertainment. And that, I think really sends a message. So the fact that sci fi and, you know, as you said, all the different movies and Marvel and all the different shows are bringing not only women to the forefront, but people of color to the forefront. We're gonna see a lot more voices being strengthened in our society. And I think women and women of color are going to be, as you see, as we see even in our politics, are really going to be pushing the agenda and, you know, becoming much more important contributors. It's interesting because the women in society in general, like go back in time, women have always been the entity that push things forward. You know, if you think about slave days, you know, women wanted to be able to marry so that they could, you know, continue their families and and be considered human. Women wanted to be able to vote so they could have their voices be recorded and their opinions being valued. Women are powerful creatures. And I think, you know, thank goodness for sci fi.

Kylie Vernoff [00:39:20] Thank goodness for sci fi. Yes, absolutely. Oh, Michelle, this has just been incredible. And as I'm winding down here, I wanted to... as we talk about your nephews and things changing for this younger generation, I would love to give you an opportunity to tell me about a time in your life or in your career when when someone saw something really special in you and just gave you an opportunity to shine.

Michelle Hurd [00:39:51] You know, it's an interesting question because it causes you to reflect back, you know, and my parents have always been the biggest fans for sure, you know, without a doubt. I think a lot of people, not everybody, but a lot of people can say that. But if I looked outside my family, it's kind of interesting because, you know her too, Normi Noel, who is a voice teacher in Boston University.

Kylie Vernoff [00:40:28] Yes.

Michelle Hurd [00:40:30] There was something about her that I just... I felt seen and supported and encouraged by. She just touched my heart. I don't know what it is about her, but there was something that I really felt when other teachers may have brushed me aside or made assumptions of me. She really reached out to me and encouraged me to explore and, you know, continue to be as kind of wild and crazy and adventurous as I am. That is part of my core. Yeah. Normi Noel really holds a special place in my heart, I have to say.

Kylie Vernoff [00:41:21] I love that. I love that she encouraged you to keep being adventurous and wild and crazy. That she wasn't trying to get you to fit into a mold, she was urging you to find who you were.

Michelle Hurd [00:41:34] That's exactly right. And, you know, I felt it. And, you know, we both went to the same school. So, you know, there were times where you felt like you had to either be this person or that person. You know, there's actors who our school sort of put in categories, you know, that lead a person to this, to that. I think that when i went to BU, I played every single different ethnic character, which, at a certain point I want to say to the powers that be, "Guess what, guys? I don't need to work on being a minority. I got that down." Like, I walk into the room, people go. You're a minority. Copy that. You know, I don't. I don't need that. The reason I go to you know, you go to a university and you pay your money is the to have the opportunity to play Juliet. Not just the maid, you know. And I remember being, you know, I would battle with BU a lot. And one of the people who really stood by my side and just never made me feel like an other was Normi Noel. I became really vulnerable with her, like she was allowed to see my vulnerable side. My my soft side, the side that needed help, you know. And I don't think, I know, that there was not any other teacher in that school that I allowed to see that or encouraged me to show that.

Kylie Vernoff [00:42:52] That's really beautiful. I hadn't thought about her in so long. You said her name and I just got this, like, warm, fuzzy. She also taught us how to, like, have a career in voiceover when we got out.

Michelle Hurd [00:43:02] I know, right? Thank you very much.

Kylie Vernoff [00:43:04] I was able to support myself doing plays for no money.

Michelle Hurd [00:43:08] Yeah, right? No paying theater gig jobs. Exactly. I felt like I had to go to AA for some moment. Like, did i say yes again? God damn it. I said yes again.

Kylie Vernoff [00:43:18] I said yes, and I'm gonna have to like, help them pay the theater fees. What's wrong with me?

Michelle Hurd [00:43:24] Exactly, I bring my broom because I clean up afterwards.

Kylie Vernoff [00:43:28] Oh god, I am just thrilled that you were able to make time for this today. You know, you have always been just a mold breaker in my eyes. And I know how busy you are. But our listeners are going to gain so much from hearing from you.

Michelle Hurd [00:43:43] Oh, honey, well thank you for saying that. And you too, my dear. You know, I'm really proud of you. You are working and striving and you are owning your power. Just this forum right here, really highlights that, that your strength and generosity is boundless and you are touching people, you know, more than we realize. And I thank you for that.

Kylie Vernoff [00:44:12] Why are you trying to make me cry?

Michelle Hurd [00:44:14] I'm saying true words, my love. Just true words. And it's really, you know, I'm proud of you. And I'm excited for this journey that we all get to go on and pave the way for those to follow us. Because I have to say, you know, being the daughter of activists, art and activism really, you know, go hand-in-hand. We have the ability to create a language that can touch everybody regardless of race, religion, all of it. This is a way that we can reach out and empower people and unite. And so I thank you so very much for doing this and inviting me to come to experience it with you.

Kylie Vernoff [00:45:04] It has just been an absolute pleasure. It has just been an absolute pleasure. So thank you, Michelle Hurd.

Michelle Hurd [00:45:11] Thank you so much, my friend.

Kylie Vernoff [00:45:14] All right, love you love you love you!

Kylie Vernoff [00:45:22] Well, I hope you're all feeling a little more inspired after that one. I know I am. Star Trek Picard airs on CBS All Access. Check our show notes for how to stream it now. And you can also stay connected with Michelle by checking out her socials. It's @realmichellehurd on Instagram and on Twitter @itsmichellehurd.

Verta Maloney, the*gameHERs [00:45:44] Thank you for listening. Let's Play was brought to you by the*gameHERs. A community that connects all gamers who identify as women and welcomes people of all genders who support this. Let's Play it was co-produced by Kylie Vernoff, Jenny Groza, and the*gameHERs team: laura Deutsch, Rebecca Dixon, Heather Ouida and me, Verta Malony. Please visit thegamehers.com for show notes to access exclusive bonus material and to learn more about the*gameHERs community. And if you like what you heard, we'd so appreciated if you subscribed and gave us a five star review. Thanks again for listening.