Sonequa Martin-Green says Star Trek job came after her Walking Dead fate was sealed

Eyebrows were raised December when it was announced that Sonequa Martin-Green had landed the lead role on CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery. After all, she already had a job — as Sasha on AMC’s The Walking Dead.

With keen comic readers already attuned to the fact that things did not end well for Abraham’s girlfriend in printed form, this bit of casting news seemed to confirm that Martin-Green was not long for the zombie apocalypse. Both the actress and showrunner Scott M. Gimple were coy when we asked them about it back in January.

Indeed, Sasha met her end on Sunday’s Walking Dead finale, with Martin-Green crying when she first read the script. But that sadness was softened by the knowledge she could step almost immediately into another highly coveted role with a passionate fan base in Star Trek. And she confirms that the Star Trek talks abegan after Sasha’s fate was sealed, meaning she was not written off The Walking Dead to take the new Star Trek job.

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“I’m just so grateful to God for it,” says Martin-Green of her journey to space, the final frontier, where she will be playing First Officer Michael Burnham. “It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly, because what was happening on Walking Dead was already underway. It was the path. It was definitely in place. And then as we were going into the very end of the season, the very end of our shoot for the season — that’s when the opportunity for Star Trek came. And so I know some people might think that I left Walking Dead to do Star Trek, but it did not happen that way. It was after Walking Dead was already ending that the opportunity for Star Trek came.”

In fact, Martin-Green reveals she was originally worried about what her next step would be after leaving the AMC ratings juggernaut. “I didn’t know what I was going to be doing next. And when Star Trek came I thought, Oh my goodness! This is…unspeakable! Like, what?? It’s going from such a goliath that reaches so many people in such a profound way, to a legacy. So basically going from legacy to legacy. Because Star Trek has definitely been printed in the hearts of so many people and has been since the ‘60s, obviously. To go from such a favorite show, to arguably the most favorite show of all time, is [laughs] I still think I’m catching my breath.”

Since Martin-Green will now be seen on CBS All Access, any chance she also might once again play her The Good Wife character Courtney Wells on the streaming service’s spin-off offering, The Good Fight? “Oh my goodness!” she exclaims at the possibility. “I wouldn’t be mad at that!” Neither would we.