Strange New Worlds’ Star Christina Chong on Lesson Learned in ‘Lower Decks’ Crossover

The already entertaining Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is about to get even more fun with an upcoming crossover with the animated series Lower Decks.

As has been glimpsed in the Season 2 trailer, Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid guest star as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler in live-action form aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. The episode will also feature animation and was directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Picard actor and director Jonathan Frakes.

“For La’an, it’s the most annoying thing in the world,” Strange New Worlds‘ Christina Chong tells TV Insider of her character. “She’s like, ‘you guys are the worst. I can’t wait for you to get off the ship and stop breaking security protocol.’ And she is just like deadpan, moody bitch face the whole time with them.”

That couldn’t be further from how the star herself felt about the crossover event and what it brought to the set of the Paramount+ drama.

“Christina, on the other hand, is laughing like a maniac because every take is different, and it is like free standup comedy,” Chong shares. “They are just brilliant together and alone. And I follow them around the ship a lot because of obviously security. And it was a real kind of lesson as well, learning from them, because Lower Decks lends itself more to improvisation, so they wanted to ensure that that could be authentic in Strange New Words as well.”

She continues, “So [it] kind of made you think, ‘Oh, maybe I can have a bit of permission to do a little bit of that myself.’ And they did give us that. There was definitely a time when they’re like, ‘OK, now just do whatever you want,’ and we were like, ‘Ooh, oh, we’re not used to that. OK.’ So yeah, it was very freeing. Their energy coming in and shaking it all up, shaking the ship up, was very fun.”

We cannot wait. Something tells us the episode will be an instant classic.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+