Whoopi Goldberg talks returning as Guinan on Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard brought back plenty of a familiar faces in its first season, and it looks like plenty more are on the way.

In its first season, Star Trek: Picard gave fans a treat by bringing back lots of legacy characters. Sure, there are original, new characters as well, but longtime Trekkies loved seeing older versions of folks like Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Data (Brent Spiner) and of course, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard.

And the nostalgia trip will continue in season 2, which is due to start filming in February. Early this year, before the coronavirus had locked everything down, Stewart stopped by The View and invited Whoopi Goldberg to reprise her role as Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and she happily accepted. It was a sweet moment:

“It’s amazing,” Picard writer Michael Chabon told The Hollywood Reporter about the prospect of writing scenes for Picard and Guinan, who had a close relationship on The Next Generation. “I’ve gone back to rewatch some of the more key Guinan episodes from Next Gen, the major Picard and Guinan moments. She’s such an amazing actor; I can’t wait.”

The catch is that Chabon gave that interview last March, before COVID-19 had shut down film and TV sets around the world. In a normal year, Goldberg would probably have already filmed her scenes, but talking to SFX Magazine, it sounds like a deal is still in the works:

"No, I haven’t seen [Star Trek: Discovery] – but I did watch the first season of Picard, which was great. From time to time, I talk to Patrick [Stewart] about Star Trek. Hopefully, I will be joining their cast for a little while next year. I’m very excited about that."

She gave this interview at the tail end of 2020, so by “next year,” she means this year. As for her comment about “hopefully” returning, TrekMovie.com wonders if she’s just playing it safe, given that she may have signed an NDA. If Chabon was already planning to write scenes for her, it sounds like a done deal.

Guinan was always an intriguing character. She’s a member of the long-lived El-Aurian race, who were almost wiped out by the Borg. Given that the ex-Borg members have played a pretty big role on Picard thus far, that could make for some interesting concept. The Next Generation star  John de Lancie has also hinted that he may appear on Picard as Q, who had a bit of an adversarial relationship with Guinan, who served as a bartender on the USS Enterprise.

We probably won’t find out what role Guinan will play until the end of this year at the earliest, but it’s good to see that things are moving. In the meantime, you can see Goldberg doing her acting thin as Mother Abigail in The Stand, airing now on CBS All Access:

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