INTERVIEW: Chase Masterson on Admiral Leeta's new role in Star Trek Online: Reflections
Chase Masterson talks to Alison Pitt of Daily Star Trek News
SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 - I’ve got another special guest today on Daily Star Trek News! Here to celebrate the launch of the latest season of Star Trek Online, I’m talking to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Leeta - and now Star Trek Online’s Admiral Leeta - Chase Masterson.
We’ve got plenty to talk about, from her journey with the game, to her charity work with Pop Culture Hero Coalition, and why Star Trek Online fans are helping make a real difference to people in the real world.
You can watch our whole conversation on YouTube now, or scroll down for the transcript.
Alison Pitt (AP): Chase Masterson! Thank you so much for joining me on Daily Star Trek News.
Chase Masterson (CM): Thank you so much, Alison. I really appreciate it. It's great to see you as always.
AP: So we're talking about Star Trek Online today, and I am so excited that you're going to be reprising your role. Now listen, you have done a number of roles over the years and it goes all the way back to pretty much the beginning. Tell us about your different roles that you've played in Star Trek Online over the years.
CM: I am extremely proud of the various aspects of Leeta that I've gotten to play with Star Trek Online. I've been Holo Leeta, which as you know, is very different from regular real life Leeta. Holo Leeta is a Dabo girl, she's still Leeta who we know, but Holo Leeta had a different job. Prime Leeta is by contrast a person with a wonderful home life married to Rom, who I love deeply. He is now the Grand Nagus, it’s 30 years later, I believe, and Leeta has lived quite a lot of life.
AP: She's a wonderful character. But that's not who you're playing this time round...
CM: Not by a long shot, honey! Admiral Leeta is ferocious. The Admiral you love to hate. She is delicious. She would, as I've said, eat the Borg Queen for breakfast and still be hungry. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants. She's all about power and the different ways that she can employ her power or get more power. And it just is just so wonderfully fierce and ferocious and fun.
In this episode, we get to see different sides of Admiral Leeta. They're even taking Admiral Leeta farther. Once Admiral Leeta gets to come into the Prime Universe, there are some changes made.
AP: Mirror Leeta came into the game six years ago and since then she's been a staple. But now she's coming back in a little bit of a different position. Is she...good? Because she needs help, right?
CM: Leeta does need help. Leeta needs the player's help.
The emperor is doing something that is threatening the existence of life, as we know it everywhere. And the emperor's choice could destroy both universes. So what Leeta does is basically commit mutiny and she leaves the Mirror Universe.
When we first encounter Leeta, she's actually in prison and she's asking for the player to help her. And in turn, she will help the player and hopefully save the universe.
So look, there's a little bit of good in all of us. She can't help it. She wants to do this. Maybe there are ulterior motives? Sure, everyone's got them! But it's really fun to see Leeta enlist the players' support.
AP: As opposed to just shooting at the players.
CM: Exactly. We're making a switcharoo here. I think it's really going to be fun for everyone. It was fun for me.
AP: I was just reading the details of the season and here's what it says: “Mirror Leeta warps in from the Mirror Universe to warn players of great danger. She is being tracked by mirror Kuumaarke.” And Kuumarke was played originally by Kipleigh Brown. So are we going to see Kipleigh back in the game too? Are you allowed to say?
CM: We do see Kipleigh and yes, I've known and worked with kipleigh for a very long time. The origin of that is interesting. We both did a movie. We were in a movie that I produced called Yesterday Was a Lie, written and directed by James Kerwin.
The fun thing about this is that Kuumaarke and Leeta used to be on the same team. Now Kuumaarke is trying to kill Admiral Leeta. And so there's a different layer of treachery and betrayal and mystery, like who's on whose side now?
All we know is that the universe is being threatened. And if the player and everyone else wants to have a chance at surviving, they need to listen to Leeta. The player and Leeta need each other.
AP: I want to come back to that in just a second, the whole change in dynamic between Admiral Leeta and Prime Leeta and Kuumaarke and Mirror Kuumarke. But first, I want to talk about Yesterday Was a Lie because it looks really intriguing and I'm going to go back and watch it. I did not realize that that was the first time you guys worked together.
CM: It was! I think it's a brilliant film. It's one of my favorite things that I've ever done. It's a study, it's a sci fi noir shot in classic black and white, where Kipleigh plays a woman who is exploring the world through the lens of quantum mechanics, the nature of time and the nature of relationships. And I play a woman who just could well be her alter ego. We don't exactly know. Her conscience, her alter ego? It's a really brilliant piece of work.
I'll just say this really fast, because I don't want to get off the subject of Star Trek Online! But I produced it. And Peter Mayhew, Chewbacca, plays a character with his own face! This was one of the very few times. Anyway Peter was brilliant. Just a lovely, lovely man. So I just wanted to just have a little moment of Peter Mayhew celebration.
I'm sorry, that’s Star Wars! Let's get back to Star Trek Online.
AP: So bringing us back to Star Trek Online. So Kuumaarke, Kipleigh’s character, has been good this whole time. She's been sort of the beacon of hope and light and helping the player. And now she's going to turn out to be the adversary. So did you guys put your heads together on how to transform into a mirror version of yourself?
CM: No, we didn't actually! We didn't really have to because this game is written so well. Big shout out to Al Rivera and his team at Cryptic.
One thing we love so much about doing Star Trek Online is that it really is so beautifully written. We've always made the point that this is more Deep Space Nine! Everyone's always asked for it. Here it is! So there's the incredible writing, and there's enough dynamics. We didn't have to add any.
AP: For you personally, what are you personally most excited for players to experience in the upcoming season?
CM: It's so delicious. One of the things I'm most excited about is the deliciousness of that dynamic. You know, we love Leeta, and I've seen that objectively. It's just a lovely character that they wrote and, and her integrity, her compassion, her dynamics...is always so wonderful to flip that on its ear and to be the most outrageously horrible person ever. And I've had a great time playing Admiral Leeta because of all of that ferociousness!
This in a sense, takes it back again and great storytelling does that. It actually forces the audience to make choices about how we feel about characters. Like, no, wait a minute. Are we going to love her now? Because she's been trying to kill me for years now!
That element of trust that the player needs to have, as Leeta and the player go through this game, is quite interesting. And the twists and turns of what is happening and what could happen and what needs to happen...it's just super fun. I hope I'm not giving away too much!
AP: It's over a decade now that you've been with Star Trek Online and you're a fan favorite and you're bread and butter of the game. What has that relationship with that team and the fans meant to you personally?
CM: That's a wonderful question. That means a lot to hear you say that. You know, none of us wanted the show to end. We all loved it so much for so many reasons. And just getting to be back in it is a rare treat. It's super fun to have more of the Deep Space Nine dynamics and storytelling. It's really fun to explore the Mirror Universe always because who doesn't want to have that!
“I love the Cryptic team. This game [Star Trek Online] is made by a bunch of people who love Star Trek as much as we do.”
I love the Cryptic team. This game is made by a bunch of people who love Star Trek as much as we do. The one thing I missed about recording this is that we recorded remotely. So Al Rivera, who is really the brains and heart behind all of this, and his team were on the phone. And I was in a recording studio here in Los Angeles. And I loved it. It was fun, but it's really super fun to go by the Cryptic offices.
If anybody ever gets to do that, you’re in for a rare treat because it's just full on magic all over. It's Star Trek. And everyone's got all of their fun paraphernalia, memorabilia, like action figures everywhere! And I think that's why the game is so quality because everyone's heart is in it. Our show is like that, so it's nice that the game is like that.
AP: I remember saying a lot before the most recent new series came out, Star Trek Online was, was our Star Trek! The writing and the adventure and everything was the Star Trek we had before Discovery started back up again. And, and you were a part of that.
CM: It was a pleasure and an honor!
Oh, and wait! I was just going to say, one of the things that I love about this next season is that there's a redesign of Leeta and I haven't seen any of it yet just to be honest, but they've told me about it and how excited they are about it and that they really like it!
AP: I wanted to pivot a little bit and talk about your other passion, which is working with the Pop Culture Hero Coalition. Could you just give a quick rundown of what Pop Culture Hero Coalition is and the kind of work that you're doing?
CM: I founded Pop Culture Hero Coalition in 2013 with Carrie Goldman, who's the author of Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear. We realized that bullying is the same issue, whether it's on the playground or in relationships or in the workplace or in terrorism or war, it's all dynamics that are unfair to the victim. It's all oppression. And all of that oppression is based on people being unhealthy inside. In greed, in fear and insecurity.
Carrie came to this because her daughter was bullied. You might remember Star Wars Katie? Katie was bullied for carrying her Star Wars lunchbox to school. And so her mother, Carrie, put this out online saying, “My daughter's getting bullied for being a girl who loves Star Wars.”
Thousands of people responded and I was one of them. And we all said, Katie, you get to be who you are. You get to be loved for who you are. And so Katie kept her Star Wars lunchbox, and Carrie wrote this book. And I do a TED talk where I tell the whole story and it's both highly entertaining, frankly, and also heartful how we formed the Coalition.
So that was Carrie's background. I had the background of working with men and women coming out of gangs, Crips and Bloods. I mentored them at Homeboy Industries. And I saw that if these guys can end their dynamics of hatred, so can the rest of the world. I thought of how much I've learned through Star Trek and learned from the fans about how active you guys are in making this a better world.
I can't even tell you how many times I've gone to a convention and there's like these Klingons meeting you at the airport. And they go, “Here. We had a Klingon car wash for your charity.” I’ve supported many charities throughout the years, and this has always happened. And so you guys inspired me to found this Coalition originally to end bullying, but we realized that it was really about mental health. So now it's about both ending bullying, racism, misogyny, LGBTQIA+ bullying, but also teaching people about healthy identity. And that every person is great, wonderful. And to be cherished and celebrated exactly who they are.
You have a right to your feelings. You have a right to be who you are. And I'm grateful to say that this little organization that I founded as a grassroots self-funded thing in 2013 is now the mental health program for YMCA of the USA nationwide.
Our program was picked up by YMCA during the pandemic. I am very grateful to have had the support of Star Trek Online and Perfect World Entertainment because it was that money that they raised last year with a fundraiser that propelled us into creating the work. The Heroic Journey at Home is a group of tools that we have available on our site free of charge.
We created this during the pandemic because we knew that people would have struggles. We created this program about how to be a hero for yourself during difficult times, and we had it translated into Spanish, German, and Italian. And this is what we did with the money that Perfect World and Star Trek Online raised. Now if you go into any YMCA in the country, it's our program.
AP: That's wonderful! It's great that you were able to develop something and use what is effectively the Star Trek community and channel that into something that actually helped people last year.
CM: Well, you know, we love Star Trek for so many reasons. Great fun, delicious storytelling. We love it for what Star Trek Online does. And we also love it for the power that it has in the real world. And this is both: this is actually the Star Trek Online players buying a game piece or two and contributing to the real world.
“We love Star Trek for so many reasons. Great fun, delicious storytelling...And we also love it for the power that it has in the real world.”
AP: That's how it's supposed to be done!
Getting a little personal for a second: the slogan for Pop Culture Hero Coalition is “Be kind”. This is something that should be super obvious! It should be the baseline. But sometimes it just feels like it isn't. So for you personally, why do you think that that slogan resonates with people and why does it resonate specifically with you?
CM: It really is so distilled, as you said, it's the basic, and it's not always easy. It is a good reminder. My own t-shirt is a good reminder.
We have the saying, “Hurt people, hurt people and healed people, heal people.” We weren't the first to say it, but we say it a lot because we all have those moments. When our patience is challenged, or we're annoyed, we're aggravated, it's been a long day. “Be kind” is not necessarily really the soft pink and blue kind of thing that a lot of people see it as. If we're going to be honest, “Be kind” is ferocious, “Be kind” musters all your courage and all your strength. And it says in the moment, when you just want to scream, do we just snap, and then the chain of hurt continues, or do we take a mindful moment and be there for ourselves? Just a little love goes a long way.
It's the tiny things in life that can either make or break our day. And then obviously that goes forth on a more systemic level. But it really does start with us and each individual's ability to be good in the world in ways that are small and big.
AP: If you have one, what's your top tip for making the choice to be kind when you're finding it really difficult?
CM: This sounds really cheesy, but being mindful! Like really having the self-awareness to go, “Oh, I'm about to be a jerk. I'm about to say something…” There's some really challenging family issues that I'm experiencing right now. And when someone is horrible to me, I just want to be a jerk back, but what do we want in the long run?
It doesn't mean you don't get to speak your mind. You get to speak your mind. You get to lay down your boundaries. Being kind is not about being a doormat.
Being kind to yourself is also super important. Taking that moment, just having the presence of mind to go, “I need a breather. I want to take care of me right now.” We all need that. And when we take care of ourselves, as big as the cliche is, we have so much better a way of being in the world for our jobs, for our, our careers, for our families, for our friends, for ourselves. It all really starts with self kindness too.
AP: And then sometimes you just need to go and fight some aliens in Star Trek Online.
CM: Sometimes you just need to like, shoot back at Admiral Leeta! Get that out, man! Just go for it. And sometimes maybe you'll just team up with her too. Who knows?
Chase Masterson appears as Admiral Leeta in the latest season of Star Trek Online, Reflections, out today, September 14th on PC, and November 2nd on Xbox One and Playstation 4. Find out more and download the free-to-play MMORPG for yourself at startrekonline.com.
Pop Culture Hero Coalition is online at popculturehero.org or @SuperheroIRL on Twitter and other social media platforms.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
