From one major franchise to another major franchise!

Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery Season 4x13

(Image credit: Marni Grossman/Paramount+)

Sonequa Martin-Green has a big year ahead of her with the upcoming premiere of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery in the 2024 TV schedule. She’s the headliner for the series that restarted the Trek franchise on TV, and came into that universe fresh off of five seasons of the original The Walking Dead. Now, as the latest TWD spinoff brings back other original series stars in addition to Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, Martin-Green has opened up to CinemaBlend about what it was like to leave the mega-successful zombie apocalypse show and join Discovery.

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:

That’s a great question. Like you said, when I joined The Walking Dead, it was. It was already going. It was already ‘Walking Dead.’ So that was a particular learning experience, because I had to jump on the train. I had to hit the ground running, as we say, and I had to submit really fast, and produce really fast. But it was exhilarating. It was exhilarating, and that was a show family that would just welcome you and say like, ‘Come on, let’s go. We’re in it together. You belong. Let’s go!’ And so it was so fulfilling in that way.

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:

And then right after that – I never could have imagined that God would do this, but right after that, I was suddenly on the ground level building something myself. And I used everything that I learned on Walking Dead, and the example that Jesus sets himself, and I was like, ‘Okay, here we go. We’re gonna do the same thing and we’re gonna be a family. And there’s not gonna be any ego here. Check your ego.’ And it created a beautiful culture and environment and show family, and I think it had a lot to do with what we brought to life as well.

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:

You would be surprised at the kids that watch the show. [laughs] The kids I’ve met that are like four and they watch this show! I’m like, ‘Do you not have nightmares?’

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+.