(written from a Production point of view)
Mary Chieffo (born 7 November 1992; age 31) is the actress who played L'Rell in the first and second seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. She reprised the role in Star Trek Online.
Chieffo watched previous series with Klingon episodes and commented, "[The series that] that keeps coming up when we're talking about serialized Star Trek is Deep Space Nine, because those last three seasons really do start to have a new, serialized quality. Somebody on Twitter yesterday said, "Has she watched Deep Space Nine?" Or something like that. I was like, "Yeah, actually. In those last three seasons, I got so caught up in the plot that I stopped just watching the Klingon-featured episodes, because I felt that it became extremely profound." I think it's got so much nuance, and all the characters are so wonderful, and lovable, and the way that they really get to evolve and develop is wonderful. Of course, I have a soft spot for Odo. Then, I think about the great female Klingons on the show, and one of my favorites, Grilka, comes in." [1]
She made a brief appearance in the first episode and was a studio guest in the fourth episode of After Trek, as well as in the second episode of The Ready Room.
Biography[]
The daughter of actors Michael Chieffo and Beth Grant, Chieffo appeared as a sleeping baby in the short Making Sandwiches (1998) directed by Sandra Bullock. She graduated from high school in 2011, being the valedictorian of her graduating class. She then attended the Drama Division of Juilliard School (bearing the nickname "Valedictorian"), where she was in the same class as Mary Wiseman and Noah Averbach-Katz, and graduated with a BFA in 2015. [2](X)
She appeared in a theater production of Othello and also in movies like Natural Disasters (2008), Herpes Boy (2009), Girls! Girls! Girls! (2011), Miss Dial (2013), and Shelby's Vacation (2017). She also appeared in the short movies Odyssea (2013) and The Perfect Fit (2012) and the unaired TV movie Jack and Janet Save the Planet (2009).
In 2017, she appeared in an episode of The Mindy Project.
She worked as a voice actress and in dubbing on the 2007 drama Welcome to Paradise (with Ken Jenkins and Elizabeth Dennehy).
Chieffo is describing herself as a Shakespeare Lover, Feminist and Geek.
Star Trek appearances[]
- DIS:
- "The Vulcan Hello"
- "Battle at the Binary Stars"
- "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"
- "Choose Your Pain"
- "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum"
- "Into the Forest I Go"
- "Despite Yourself"
- "Vaulting Ambition"
- "The War Without, The War Within"
- "Will You Take My Hand?"
- "Point of Light"
- "Through the Valley of Shadows"
- "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"