His description of finding out about Hugh’s impending death in season one is pretty rough:
I didn’t know right away [that Hugh would be coming back]. In the first season, I was not a series regular, I was a recurring character. I also had another gig at the time, 13 Reasons Why. Star Trek shot in Toronto and 13 Reasons Why shot in Northern California. I was shooting both at the same time. They called me on my first day of shooting the second season of 13 Reasons Why. I had just gone through makeup, my phone rings, and I see it’s [showrunner] Aaron Harberts. I was like, “Maybe he’s calling to wish me luck on my first day.” He was not. He was calling to tell me that my character on Discovery was going to be killed.
I lost it. I couldn’t even fake it. I tried really hard to keep it together and be professional, but I literally lost it because the character of Hugh had already meant so much to me, and I got to work with my friend Anthony [Rapp]. I had bonded with this cast. I had to shake it off because it was my first day at work on 13 Reasons Why. They had to put my makeup back on because I had ruined it.
But you gotta love the next paragraph:
Two episodes before we shot Hugh’s death [scene], they called me in. They were kind of cagey about it. They said, “Listen, this is Star Trek. Nobody really dies.”
🖖
That’s right, they all live forever in O’Brien’s pattern buffer.
Aw, Rickie
