Kate Mulgrew - a.k.a. Kathryn the Great on Voyager - talks candidly about taking command, raising kids
and living in the material world

A super-pert gal Friday answers the door of Kate Mulgrew's surprisingly suburban - almost 'Leave
it to Beaver'-ish - home in Brentwood, Cal., and leads us upstairs to the study where there wait
more members of the star's entourage: a smiley Voyager publicist, a nervous looking housekeeper
who is laying out a tray of tea and cookies, and an elephantine labrador named Gracie who is eyeing
the cookies with slobbery delight.

And there - in the center of it all with a half-read biography of Catherine the Great by her side -
is the no-nonsense, tough talkin', cigarette smokin' actress who plays Captain Kathryn Janeway.
"I'm Kate Mulgrew," she says, as if there could possibly be some confusion. She exhales out the side
of her mouth, offers a warm, hefty handshake (if truth be told, she's got a grip on her like a
Teamster), and instructs the housekeeper to start pouring. Mulgrew is frequently likened to Katharine
Hepburn, for both are bossy, bull-headed beauties who live life by an iron-clad code of ethics: guts,
decency, honor - the kind of stuff that hasn't been in vogue since the Truman administration.

And she is so effortlessly captain-like in real life that it's eerie: After each day's work, the
39-year-old single mom goes home and spends hours - often in front of the mirror - rehearsing the
next day's scences until they are perfect to the letter. "When Janeway speaks, it has to be like
water off a duck's back - every technical phrase must be like liquid," says Mulgrew. "Her authority,
her intelligence, must be complete. Her command of science must be unquestionable. And I do not go
to sleep until that has been achieved."

Nothing she says, suits her better than hard labor. "I love getting up at 3:30 in the morning and
driving to the studio in absolute pitch darkness. I love being the first on the set and the last
to leave. I love being a captain. I love being responsible for it all. I love protocol."

And, right now, her dog - who sits glued to the coffee table with her nose a quarter inch from the
cookie dish - is busting protocol big time.
"Gracie!" bellows Mulgrew, with no trace of Starfleet decorum. Feigning temporary deafness, Gracie
refuses to budge. "I'm...warning...you...girl!" Mulgrew raises a hand to her hip and flashes an evil
eye. The chocolate-brown beast slumps to the floor in total humiliation. Mulgrew lights up another
smoke.

"My career didn't go at all the way I thought it would... which no career does, I suppose," says the
former star of 'Mrs. Columbo'. "I'm really ready to value Voyager - but when I was young and successful
in this town, I was far too arrogant to understand how important it is to value what you get when you
get it."

Indeed, Mulgrew used to be quite mouthy: When asked about her penchant for publicity blasting the
execs in charge of the Columbo spin-off, Mulgrew once told the Toronto Star: "What am I supposed to
do - sacrifice my character? Keep my mouth shut forever so I can work for NBC?...
I'm embittered because they are all tough, manipulative people. All scared to death and walking on
eggshells, as afraid of losing their jobs as I am."

Today, the kinder, gentler Mulgrew even has media ground rules of her own: Voyager's publicity arm
has warned us that there are certain verboten topics - among them, her recent (and, reportedly, very
stressful) split from her husband, theater director Robert Egan, and her roller-coaster finances (she
was on the verge of being forced to sell her home when the original Janeway, Genevieve Bujold, took
a hike from Voyager - a twist of fate that changed Mulgrew's life, and bank account, forever). Still,
the star alludes to these personal dramas, anyway.

"The relationship between a mother and her children is almost telepathic. They feel what I feel and
vice versa," says Mulgrew of her sons, Ian, 11, and Alex, 10. "It's the only relationship in the world
that works that way. This doesn't happen between men and women... I know because I've tried. Even when
you're deeply in love you don't feel what the other one's feeling. You're so selfish when you're in love."
She reaches for a cookie and continues.

"I've had some bad years, bad months. Bad stuff has happened in my life. I've been really broken, you
know? But not one moment during any of it have I ever wanted to do anything but act. That passion
has kept me going and never wanted - not even for a second." She is deeply quiet for a moment.

"My parents were tough on me, real tough. I went to work when I was 13. I've been on my own financially since
I was 16. I worked in diners to put myself through school. When my career came at 18 - well, 19; I
always try to shave a little off my age - it came precisely on time, according to my plans. It came
in a guise that was not expected - I thought I was going to be a big movie star or a big stage star -
but I definitely had the whole thing laid out."

That 'guise' was the role of Irish Catholic fireball Mary Ryan on the landmark soap 'Ryan's Hope' - but
when the subject is brought up, the Irish Catholic Mulgrew gets downright testy. "I only did 'Ryan's
Hope' for one year when I was 18. Er, 19. I was a baby! Jimmy Smits started in soaps, but you wouldn't
bring that up to him."

Yikes, what's the big deal?

"The big deal is that I've had 20 years in this business and people always want to talk about the
soap thing I did! I mean, could we just talk about my Hedda Gabler for a second?!" Her jaw juts in
defiance, then quickly softens.
"I don't mean to pounce," she says with a noticeably sexy purr. "I guess, I should be grateful for
[the soap] but, you see, that harkens back to my arrogance. I just want to be applauded for the real
work that I did. As marvelous as 'Ryan's Hope' was and as much of a launching pad as it was - if
Fred Silverman had not seen me on that show, he wouldn't have offered me 'Mrs. Columbo' - it is
not the real body of my work. The substantive stuff that I'm really proud of came much later." This
includes: spouting Shakespeare in Central Park for producer Joe Papp, the short-lived hospital series
'Heartbeat' and her many guest stints on 'Cheers' as Sam's lady love, council-woman Janet Eldridge.

But Mulgrew - the queen of contradictions - also worries that, as an actress, she is just too grounded,
too reliable, to be among the truly brilliant, wild, on-the-edge talents the world so admires. "What
I really want to do is...electrify. Marlon Brando is the finest actor who has lived but he is an
absolutely impossible human being. Geraldine Page was insane. But they are indisputably great. I
don't think of myself that way. I want to break through all that stability and responsibility. Until
I can, I won't even begin to touch my potential. Then again, you can't be on-the-edge and play a part
like Kathryn Janeway. It wouldn't work."

She prides herself on being a low-maintenance actress and can't stand Hollywood's love affair with
cosmetics: "When I joined [Voyager] at the eleventh hour, we had nothing but hair problems. Short?
Long? With a hairpiece? Without a hairpiece? All the concerns were about my hair - the hair being
the trademark of the woman, right?" She rolls her eyes heavenward. "Finally, we got all that
settled - but I think there was really something else going on. I think they were nervous about
having a woman as captain but they coudn't be as general to say,'We're just nervous about her.' So
it's best to pick something - like hair! I am very impatient with that sort of thing - to which
they will attest on the set."

The stubborn Iowa-born Mulgrew raises an open hand in the air as if she's about to make a proclamation.
And, indeed, she is: "First of all - and I do not want anybody to say anything when I say this - I am
not...a...beautiful...woman. And that's not a problem. As an actress, I have never, ever worried
about being pretty - I worry about being interesting. My body has come and my body has gone. To me,
it's always been about heart." She reaches for a cookie. "Until, that is, I see myself onscreen and
say, 'My God, Kate, why did you have to have that third Big Mac?'"

Taped on her bedroom mirror is a quotation by Carl Jung - sent to Mulgrew by her mother - which
offers an insight into the star's psyche. "I just love Jung so much," she says, paraphrasing the
great psychologist's words with almost teeny-bopper enthusiasm. "He said: 'Conflict in the artist is
ever present.' You want to be a real person in the real world but you're totally and constantly
torn because the deeper longing is to be an artist." She takes a deep drag on her cigarette and
continues - though it's difficult to tell where Jung leaves off and Mulgrew begins. "And you will risk
everything the world has to offer you - including your happiness - to fulfill yourself as an
artist. So when that's not happening, no matter what else is going on, there's a darkness. Have you
noticed how much I'm smoking?"

In her youth, Mulgrew gave many an interview touting her arch-Catholicism - something she's no longer
likely to do. "that was another part of my early arrogance. I'm not deeply religious. I used to tell
everybody I was a big Catholic - but I've always been a spiritually fractured person. My children
have been raised as Roman Catholics, but superficially so. I have not brought them up to ask
the profound questions about God and love because I have not pursued them myself. It's a dangerous
thing..."

In Mulgrew's mind, a true quest for spirituality necessitates relinquishing everything worldly. "And
as you can see," she says, gesturing - like Vanna White - toward several of her fine belongings, "I
am not remotely prepared to do that. To leave my nice house in Brentwood and go into the darkness of
my soul? Not me. I'm a middle-class lady and, at this point in my life, I have to call a spade a
spade. Oh, if the conversation at my dinner table should turn to religion; I can drag it on till
dawn - and people will walk away saying, 'My, she's soooo interested in what St. John did.' But then
I'll go up to bed and have an Absolut martini, and then get up in the morning, put on my $2000 suit
and go to work. Gracie!"

Gracie, who has gradually inched her way back to the refreshments, is led out of the room by the
gal Friday.

"So," continues Mulgrew, "I have to be really harsh with myself when it comes to religion. I
certainly don't know if God exists if I'm worrying about which bakery I'm going to buy the cookies
at, or whether or not my guests have remembered to park their $35,000 cars in the driveway or whether
my nice Mexican maid discovered where I left her bonus. I mean, c'mon. You have to strip it all
away and then you can consider yourself able to begin your crawl on the path to spirituality. I've
spent a lot of time talking to very enlightened religious people - Trappist monks and hermits
who have been in the hermitage for 35 years - and we're talking about abject poverty, chastity,
obedience, and silence. People who really practice religion would renounce all of this bull-."

She points at the classy knick knacks on the coffee table, at her cushy throw pillows, at her
dog-eared copy of this week's Voyager script.

"Well I do not renounce these things," says Mulgrew. "I embrace them." And with that, she bites
into another cookie.

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