“My manager sent me the screenplay and the instant I read it I wanted to do it,” she said. "I get sent so much . . .  but this just stood out." With a nod to her past role on Star Trek she added, “I’m always in uniform you know.”

The character of Simms is smart, powerful, and persuasive, going head to head with Jefferson over the detainee’s fate. “She’s a fine woman and she’s been very careful to develop her own character according to her own philosophy,” she adds. “So I think that when I’m speaking my own point of view it’s not only passionately felt but I would probably give my life for it, which made this whole debate between Jefferson and myself so fascinating.”

“What’s really going on in that room that makes the film so compelling is that Jefferson and I are selling to Captain Miller,” says Mulgrew. “The debate is all about proving to Miller that my point of view is the right one. So I thought it just got deeper and deeper and more complicated.”