Tig Notaro and John Cho Bond Over Their Star Trek Acting

Tig Notaro, John Cho, and Bo Burnham were all guests on The Late Late Show with James Corden, both Cho and Burnham were hugely excited about Notaro’s look and role on the new season of Star Trek: Discovery.

Notaro called the experience a “blast”, but also spoke about her challenges with the dialogue. “James, I don’t know what I’m saying”, says Notaro. “It’s, you know, the science-fictiony Star Trek stuff […] It’s like I spend my time really going over it and I, but, I can’t—I probably shouldn’t announce this because CBS might fire me, but um…”

“Can you remember anything your character says on the show?” asks Corden.

“I can, because my wife overheard me working on my lines and she started laughing, she’s like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I was like, ‘Uh, the spaceship crashed and I saved a bunch of people, so, uh, this is when I find out the war’s over and I turn to this creature I’ve kept alive on a—I don’t even know what’s happening.”

Notaro proceeds to give a short summary of a scene where she manages to keep a creature named Valentine alive, which earns her a standing ovation from John Cho, or as Notaro calls him, “Mr. Star Trek himself.”

“I know how hard that is!” he exclaims.

“Can you remember any of your lines?” Corden asks Cho.

“No,” he jokes. “Something about the…..Force?”

Cho then lists off some of the Star Trek-y words like warping or dilithium crystals, when Notaro adds, “The worst is when you are standing in a scene, and you have to pretend, like, behind the panel you’re pretending to turning knobs and pressing buttons. I have a hard time keeping a straight face cause the whole time I’m [motions] I’m doing nothing! I’m doing nothing!”

“Just don’t make sounds”, says Cho. “That’s the worst.” The Star Trek actor does his best beep-boop sounds, and I want a version of the films where he dubs all the science fiction noises.

The rest of the clip includes Notaro’s hilarious description of trying to act out a scene that involves a cocoon, and then Reggie Watts asking the guests to solve the problem of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment.

(image: screencap)

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