Interview: Gillian Vigman On What’s Underneath All Of Dr. T’Ana’s Cursing In ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’

Actress and comedian Gillian Vigman has spent most of her career in live action films like The Hangover series, TV sitcoms like Scrubs, sketch comedy like MADtv and commercials, like playing Jack’s wife for Jack in the Box. On Star Trek: Lower Decks she has expanded into voice work, creating the USS Cerritos’ curmudgeon Caitian CMO, Dr. T’Ana. This week’s episode (“Of Gods and Angles“) featured a storyline all about Boimler trying to ingratiate himself with her, resulting in plenty of T’Ana’s signature colorful language. TrekMovie had a chance to talk to Vigman about the episode and her work in the final season of the series.

In this week’s episode Boimler is obsessed with getting on Dr. T’Ana’s good side and even though he eventually succeeded she was pretty hard on him. So is her acerbic nature a front from a heart of gold, or is it acerbic all the way down?

I think the core is heart of gold. I think the crust and the mantle is acerbic as shit. It’s as sour as it can be. If she thinks you are being disingenuous, she’ll say F- you, right? So the difference being, she’s acerbic and she watches – very much cat-lile – she will observe how you are and if she’s like, “This is bullshit,” she’s done. So if you compare Boimler to Tendi, what you got to see as the seasons progressed is what she loves so much about Tendi is she saw her as kind of a daughter or as a figure that she can help mold. She saw an intellectual curiosity and joy within the medical research world, and she’s like, [in T’Ana voice] “Now we’re talkin’.” Obviously, she’s going to like anybody who loves what she loves, and if she sees a genuine interest in something versus, versus – I mean the hilarity is that, god bless Boimler, he’s constantly trying to ingratiate himself with people. And as they say throughout the episode, just be you, dude. I think she definitely sees when the faults in the in the makeup of how they approach her. So she’s like, [as T’Ana] “F-off” if you’re going to get in her way. And from my point of view, I think she takes a lot of joy in being as ornery as she can be with everybody.

This episode highlighted her language, specifically cursing. How does it impact you performance knowing so much of what you are doing is getting bleeped? Does it change anything?

No, because here’s the thing: I love swearing, and it’s a real problem. I really love swearing. So for me, it’s sort of a release, just like her. It’s a release of getting everything out. And so what I love so much about it is they’ll write like a “bleep” or like a word in the script, but then they’re like, “Just go crazy.” So, by the time I’m done, like especially when the big fight happens and I’m getting to swear like no one’s business with Boimler, I was so sweaty and so hyped up. I felt like I was on cocaine. I was like, “OH YEAH!” And it is such a joyful release. And I think for someone like her, as Dr. T’Ana, I think the work that she does, it is life or death for a lot of the stuff she does. Or has to, has to work within a very short parameter of finding a cure or some sort of vaccination or some sort of way to deal with some biological disease or virus which is taking over the ship. The way she can let out some of that stress is by a torrent of horrible, horrible things to say. It is basically the verbal vomit that is counter intuitive to the work she’s doing, but it gives her a sense of like, “Whoah.”

So, you are ad-libbing your cursing?

Oh yeah. I don’t think they’d want to write the stuff I say… They may have written like an f-word or s-word, but they’re like, “Just go crazy and add to that.” And the phraseology might be like, “We want you to know that you have to use these words to say: What I’m going to do to you is, I’m going to do this to you, and I’m going to do this to you, and when I get to this point, I’m going to put myself in here, and then I’m going to I’m going to wear you like a puppet, or whatever I might want to say.

Jack Quaid as Boimler and Gillian Vigman as Doctor T’Ana (Paramount+)

So did you come up with “Fucko” as Boimler’s nickname or was that in the script?

That’s a good question. I think they came up with that. Those guys, I will say the writers are brilliant. They’re so good. The writing and the direction, it’s a great team. Like, honestly, I would read those scripts and just giggle. You know when you are by yourself you don’t necessarily laugh all the time… But I have caught myself multiple times by myself, like giggling or laughing out loud at the scripts, because I think they’re so clever. And I don’t know as much as I’d like about like the Star Trek world and the universe, but I can still find so much hysterical joy in reading it and understanding like this is most likely a deep cut, and yet it’s hysterical. So I can only imagine how much funnier it is to somebody who knows more about the world and how cleverly they’ve twisted it.

Who else could be in T’Ana’s book club, and is it just an excuse to drink?

I think she definitely is drinking. I think she has a mix of both lower deckers and upper, but I feel like she picks a lot of the weirdos. Like Migleemo, even though she’ll probably tell him to shut the F-up if he goes on too long on a diatribe, that like his breakdown of the book… I think she’s one of those people, like those people you’re friends with who love to observe something exploding. Like, “look, oh no, they’re meeting up, they’re about to fight. Oh yeah, they’re fighting. Oh shit, this is getting good!” She’s an observer. So I think she enjoys watching. So I think she’ll put people in that’ll cause a catalyst of a situation. This goes to her ornery, sort of crazy side. I think she enjoys watching things explode, and then she helps pick up the pieces.

Jack Quaid as Boimler and Gillian Vigman as Doctor T’Ana (Paramount+)

I’m curious, do you do the cat noises too?

Yes, of course! It would be weird if I didn’t. I better be able to be a full-on Catian. Yes! And sometimes I’ll sit there in the studio and they’d say, “We want these to be more like fighting,” Or “She’s enjoying herself.” I’ve actually gone on YouTube to cat noises, which sounds kind of like fetishized, too, in its own way.

So what’s up with Shaxs and T’Ana, are they still together?

Oh yeah!

What did you think of that pair up?

Oh my gosh. I thought it was fantastic! It makes like no sense and all sense. And I love it. Especially because just looking at their size difference. All I thought about was her using him as a scratching post, which I thought that’s so hot.

Gillian Vigman as Dr. T’Ana and Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs in “I, Excretus” (Paramount+)

We haven’t heard a lot from Dr. T’Ana this season but you have voiced other characters in season 5, like Madame Gonald the Klowakhan critic. Can you talk about her and any others you might have voiced this season?

This has been really fun to stretch my ability as a voice performer. So I always sit there with them when we go into the room and I say, “Well, how do you want to hear this?” The Klowakhan was a lot of fun, I took a lot of guidance for that, but I really got into that. I was one of the Orions on Tendi’s pirate crew, and that was so much fun. And it was also fun to kind of see the other side of where Tendi’s origins are and what kind of the attitude they have and how it’s sort of female-driven. I found that phenomenal.

My mom was British and so I have been able to play a lot of different characters with more of a very upper-crust British accent. Throughout the seasons I’ve been allowed to do voiceovers when we’ve talked about different parts of the educational system. It’s been a really great experience for me personally as a sort of newer voice-over performer to be thrown different things. Dr. T’Ana is very specific in the world that she inhabits and then to be sort of thrown into each of the other characters and little parts in different worlds, it’s been such a cool experience.

Sam Witwer as Legnog and Gillian Vigman as Gonald (Paramount+)

Whenever I talk to one of you guys I ask about following Tawny [Newsome] and Jack [Quaid] into live-action. You would be a special case. But would you want to do that, like with prosthetic makeup, or prefer motion capture, or just do the voice?

I would do the whole cat and caboodle. Oh, sorry, dad joke. But yes, I would absolutely sit through five or six hours of prosthetics, just to be in live-action playing a version of Dr. T’Ana. It would be a freaking joy, as long as they let me swear and they can bleep me out,

Including the jumping and the clawing, and all of that?

I would totally do it, even if I’ve got a bum knee. I would limber up. And if they said that wasn’t good enough we might have to get a stand in, but I would be absolutely willing to jump, crawl, scratch, land on all fours. Yes! Absolutely. I love this stuff. It’s been such a joy to play this character in this world.

Anything you can tease for the rest of the season?

The closest I can come to teasing is that you will see a lot of career aspirations get shifted with both upper and lower decks… You’re going to see some movement that maybe you were not prepared for.

Jack Quaid as Boimler and Gillian Vigman as Doctor T’Ana (Paramount+) 

The fifth and final season of Lower Decks debuted on Thursday, October 24 on Paramount+ in the U.S. and internationally. New episodes of the 10-episode-long season will drop every Thursday on the service leading up to the series finale on Thursday, December 19.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.

NOTE: Interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.