By GustavoLeao / 11:13, 29 January 2013 / General Star Trek

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StarTrek.com posted a new interview with TNG actress Tricia O'Neill (Captain Raquel Garrett of the U.S.S. Enterprise-C in the fan favorite episode "Yesterday's Enterprise") and here are excerpts.

Let’s go back to Captain Garrett. What impressed you most about the character, as a person?

O’Neil: She had dedication. She had extraordinary courage. She had command of her life and the lives of other people, her crew. Her choices were very powerful and very hard and, for me, the person who was playing her, I was released to believe what she believed. That’s what actors try to do; we try to be these characters we play while we’re playing them. So I had the experience of being the captain of a starship. I wear it as a badge of honor that I played the first female captain of the Enterprise.

Did you audition for the role?

O’Neil: No. I’d auditioned for other roles on the show. I didn’t get those, but they called me in to play Captain Garrett.

What do you remember about being on set, about the production?

O’Neil: I knew what that captain’s chair was and when I, Tricia O’Neil, sat in that chair, I understood the importance of it. A lot of people work on these shows -- people who build the sets and the props and make the costumes – and the work is so good you can absolutely suspend your disbelief of things. Everything becomes very real and, if you let go of not believing, you can sail right into a whole world. Sitting in that chair as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, that’s who I was for a week or so. It was an extraordinary experience. All of the people involved were so talented: the writers, the actors, the set people. Everything is so much bigger than you, but it supports who you are being at the time, for the story.

The full interview is here