American Gods Actress Yetide Badaki Talks About How She Became a Geek & Loving Captain Picard

American Gods is dealing with some weird casting and showrunner issues at the moment, but thankfully it has one of the most impressive television casts out there, including Yetide Badaki, who plays Bliquis, the old god of love.

In an interview with SyFy Wire, Badaki talks about being a small girl in Nigeria, listening to her elders telling her stories about their mythology and history at the fireside. That interest then spread to shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Quantum Leap. Badaki’s family would gather around to watch those shows, and she loved whenever Picard would get into one of his passionate speeches about humanities evolution through the hard times they have experienced. “All of these stories gave me a place where I felt like I belonged.”

Badaki’s geek origin monologue is a great reminder of how sci-fi’s influence and ability to inspire is a worldwide thing that touches people across multiple cultures. Especially something like Star Trek which has, throughout his history, strived to show that humanity’s future was more hopefuly and more inclusive (mostly) than what we had today.

It’s a great interview and all I can say is that whatever is happening right now during the great American Gods exodus, as long as we keep Yetide Badaki and Ricky Whittle, I think we will be okay.

(via SyFy Wire, image: Starz)

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