From one major franchise to another major franchise!
(Image credit: Marni Grossman/Paramount+)
The actress joined The Walking Dead in Season 3 back in 2012, with Season 4 as her first full season. As fans likely remember, that was around when The Walking Dead frenzy was in full swing, and she exited as a regular at the end of Season 7 in 2017. While Sasha wasn’t killed off because the actress wanted to leave TWD, the timing lined up with her joining the Trek universe. I spoke with Martin-Green at SCAD TVfest, and when I asked what it’s like for her to look back at joining two massive TV universes, she shared:
The actress’ time on The Walking Dead of course came to a tragic end, although Sasha’s death in Season 7 was a change from the comics written. So, it was never likely to expect her in Rick and Michonne’s The Ones Who Live spinoff like Pollyanna McIntosh as Jadis and – spoiler alert for Episode 5 – Seth Gilliam as Father Gabriel. Despite Sasha’s long list of tragedies, the actress who played her only had good things to say about her coworkers and how they welcomed her to the zombie apocalypse.
Sonequa Martin-Green’s casting for Star Trek: Discovery was actually announced before Sasha’s demise on The Walking Dead, so the character’s death didn’t come as a huge shocker. The actress, who would debut as Michael Burnham on Discovery in 2017, went on to explain what it was like for her to go from the massive Walking Dead franchise to the franchise that has been a fan-favorite going back to the 1960s:
With the final season of Discovery set to premiere on April 4, I have to say that it was nice to hear Sonequa Martin-Green speaking so highly of her show family in the Star Trek universe. The series was cancelled after the fifth season had finished filming, and the actress explained that there were some “close calls” when it came to reuniting the cast to reshoot the ending. According to CinemaBlend’s Mick Joest after watching the first four episodes, Season 5 feels bittersweet.
As for The Walking Dead, Sonequa Martin-Green addressed encounters she has with fans, and some of them are a lot younger than she expected. She said:
If you want to revisit The Walking Dead – and are over the age of four – you can do so streaming with a Netflix subscription. As for Star Trek: Discovery, the fifth and final season will premiere on Thursday, April 4 for fans with a Paramount+ subscription. There’s also still some time to revisit the first four seasons of the first modern Trek show, and every episode of Discovery so far is streaming on Paramount+.