Warning: the article below contains mild spoilers for Season Five, Episode Nine of Star Trek: Discovery.
In the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Lagrange Point,” sees Adira join a mission that requires them to not only sneak onto a Breen ship, but pretend to be a fully suited-up Breen as well. The experience was a memorable one for the character and also for actor Blu del Barrio.
“With all the love and respect to our costume department, [the suit was] one of the worst things I’ve ever put on my body,” del Barrio told me in an interview a couple of days before “Lagrange Point” dropped on Paramount+. They went on to describe the Breen attire as beautifully created, but also a costume that felt “like wearing seven different wetsuits on top of each other.”
I talked with del Barrio about other aspects of the penultimate episode of the series, including that meta science jargon moment, how they were able to tackle memorizing the complex science-related dialogue over the course of the show, and what they hope for Adira given the series finale is next week.
Read on for our longer discussion.
The interview below has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
How did you prepare to portray Adira when they see action on the Breen ship?
It was really fun. I felt different than how I felt from the first away missions that I had. Me, myself, was like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been ready for this for a hot minute.” And when we did actually film on the ship, fully disguised, all of a sudden hit like, “Oh, gosh, maybe I’m not ready for this. This is a lot and very scary. I’m so short and I don’t fit in.” It was like all of a sudden thinking about all of the ways that this wasn’t going to work.
Technically, within the episode in the story, it was like, I could totally mess this up. But I think they had a lot more confidence than they used to have, prior to going on this mission and doing it with [co-star Patrick Kwok-Choon, who plays Gen Rhys,] was so much fun and something that I really wanted to do for a long time.
And I think the mission itself had so much weight on it. It’s not something that they would have been trusted with probably in past seasons, and I think it cemented a lot for them how necessary they are and how valued and respected they are on the ship, to be trusted with something like this.
And I know you mentioned getting suited up for the scenes. What was it like wearing those Breen suits?
With all the love and respect to our costume department, they were the worst things I’ve ever put on my body. They are so meticulously crafted, and beautiful, and took so long to make. We had I think four or five fittings each over a period of months to actually finish these. So they were a complete work of art, but to wear they were absolute hell because they were so thick. It was like wearing seven different wetsuits on top of each other. And they’re really heavy, plus with a giant helmet on you had a very limited visual of what you can actually see. So wearing them was really discombobulating but they looked so cool, so it was worth it. But walking around and pretending like you feel comfortable and you know where you’re going in all this stuff was really hard to start with because there’s just so much sensory overload. But they were really cool. They’re beautiful.
I didn’t think about that with the headpiece. How much could you see? Was there any running into walls or anything?
I ran my hands into stuff because I think my peripheral was a little bit messed up. If you had to look at somebody, you would have to actually move your whole head, which for me I had to a lot because I was multiple feet shorter than everybody else who was playing Breen, and also shorter than Patrick. That was the first thing I thought when we were going to do that: I was like, they’re all going to know that I’m not Breen—I’m 5’2,” everyone here is very tall. But we had to skirt around that in a way that makes sense.
One of the things I loved about this episode is that there’s almost a meta moment when you’re going on the shuttle for the away mission and Adira says they can’t transport to where they planned because of a “science reason.” I don’t know if it was intentional, but usually the science jargon is so prevalent, I feel like that moment was a nod to that. Did you have that feeling when you were filming?
I think so. I wish I’d come up with that! No, that was fully what it was meant to be, and I think it speaks to their intelligence, and I also think it is a funny little clip. And it’s very Trek and a little bit campy in a way, to be like, “It’s a science problem.” I really liked that line.
In that same vein, Adira says a lot of science jargon in the course of any given episode. How do you memorize those lines? Did it get easier over time?
It got easier over time. I had struggled in the beginning because I learned through this show how I memorize lines. I realized that my process involves me completely 100% understanding why I’m saying what I’m saying in the context of a conversation that I’m having. So like, I’ll remember my lines if it makes sense to say it in the conversation that they’re being said in. If it just flows naturally, it makes sense. So when the science jargon came in, I didn’t know why those lines weren’t sticking because I would just sit there and do all of my stuff and go through my process of learning my lines and they would not stick.
After talking to people on our set, I think it was [Anthony Rapp] specifically, but I had learned that I had to understand what the science meant and the intricacies of what every single line I was saying meant, which took so much extra time. I would contact our writers for questions and contact our science people for questions, to understand what it was that I was describing and talking about and how the science worked. Because if not, they wouldn’t stick in my head.
I love those lines, but they also took so much more time for me to get down. So when we had scenes just full of science jargon, I was like, “Oh, God. This is going to take days of trying to it figure out.”
You mentioned Anthony giving you that tip. I know you joined the show a couple of seasons in—was there any advice or tips you got from any of your castmates that will be really helpful as you go on with your acting career?
I would not be the actor or person that I am now without the amount of advice that I got from everybody on this show. I was so young. I was fresh out of drama school. I was so scared and had a very low self-worth, because I loved drama school but they always kind of kick you down a little bit. You don’t expect to get a job that soon and so suddenly I was there and all of these people around me gave me so much advice. I feel a level of confidence and security now in who I am and what I do that I don’t think I would have felt without the words that they’ve given me and told me. I really needed it at the time and still now, but they very much mentored me in every way possible without me asking or anything. So I’m really grateful to them.
Is there anything specific that jumps to the top of the list?
I think probably the most important thing does apply to sets but also applies to real life—if there is something that in your gut feels uncomfortable or wrong, no matter what, speak up about it and say something, even if you think it’s going to cause an argument or a fight or someone’s going to get mad at you. And ask someone for help doing it, which I never really thought to do. I’m a very solitary person and so I always just think that I need to do things, but they were like, “No, if you want our help, just come to us and we’ll do it with you.”
What do you hope for Adira after the show ends?
It’s split in two parts. On one side, I really think that Adira following in the footsteps of Tilly would be really cool. I think that them teaching in the future as an adult would be really, really cool to see happen, because I think they’d have a lot of a lot of empathy for those students. That’s one option.
The other option I don’t fully have a grasp on, but way down in their lifetime to be a captain on a different ship would be really interesting, to see the jump from them now to them then would be very cool. I hope that they get to have something in the future. I love this character so much. They’re such a part of me, and I hope they get to live in the future the way that so many of the Trek characters have come back. But you never know.
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The series finale of Star Trek: Discovery will be available on Paramount+ on May 30, 2024.
