Earlier career (1975–1994) Mulgrew's early career included portraying Mary Ryan for two years in the ABC soap ''
Ryan's Hope (1975). She became a fan favorite and remained associated with the show long after its cancellation. She remained friends with former co-star Ilene Kristen and presented a special Soap Opera Digest
Award to Ryan's Hope
creator Claire Labine in 1995. While in Ryan's Hope
, she also played Emily Webb in the American Shakespeare Theatre production of Our Town in Stratford, Connecticut. She played ambitious country singer Garnet McGee in a November 1978 episode of Dallas. In 1979–1980, she played Kate Columbo in Mrs. Columbo, a spin-off of the detective series Columbo'' created specifically for her, which lasted 13 episodes. In 1981, Mulgrew co-starred with
Richard Burton and
Nicholas Clay in the Arthurian love triangle
Lovespell as Irish princess Isolt, who casts a spell on Mark, King of Cornwall, and his surrogate son, Tristan. In the same year she also co-starred with
Pierce Brosnan in the six-hour miniseries
Manions of America, about Irish immigrants in 19th-century America. In 1985, she appeared in
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins as Major Fleming. In 1986, she appeared in a run of
Cheers episodes as Janet Eldridge. Mulgrew made history in the
Star Trek franchise when she became the first female captain as a series regular in a leading role.
Voyager was the first show broadcast on the new
UPN channel, the only series renewed after the channel's first programming season, and its only show to run for seven seasons. Mulgrew won the Saturn Award for "Best TV Actress" in 1998 for her performances as Janeway. Mulgrew voiced the character of Janeway for various
Star Trek video games: ''Star Trek: Captain's Chair
, a virtual-reality tour of various Starfleet vessels for home computers; the Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force series; Star Trek: Legacy, which featured all of the captains up to that point (2006); and Star Trek Online''. About her years on
Voyager, Mulgrew said: I'm proud of it. It was difficult; it was hard work. I'm proud of the work because I think I made some minor difference in
women in science. I grew to really love
Star Trek: Voyager, and out of a cast of nine, I've made three great friends, I managed to raise two children. I think, "It's good. I used myself well." During
Voyager, Mulgrew also played Titania in the animated series
Gargoyles (with fellow
Star Trek actors
Marina Sirtis and
Jonathan Frakes) and Victoria Riddler in the television film ''
Riddler's Moon''. Since
Voyager and her subsequent
Star Trek appearances, Mulgrew has appeared at
Star Trek conventions and events around the world. She returned to voice the role of Janeway as a training
hologram and the real Vice-Admiral Janeway (commanding the
USS Dauntless and
USS Voyager-A) in the animated series
Star Trek: Prodigy.
After Voyager (2001–2012) , 2011 When
Voyager came to an end after seven full seasons, Mulgrew returned to theater, and in 2003 starred in a one-woman play called
Tea at Five, a monologue reminiscence based on
Katharine Hepburn's memoir
Me: Stories of My Life.
Tea at Five was a critical success and Mulgrew received two awards, one from Carbonell (Best Actress) and the other from Broadway.com (Audience Award for Favorite Solo Performance). Mulgrew kept active in doing voice-over work for video games, most notably voicing the mysterious
Flemeth in the
Dragon Age video game series, a role she described as "delicious". Mulgrew returned to television in 2006, guest-starring in an episode of
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Mulgrew performed in
The Exonerated at the Riverside Studios in London, England. In early 2007, she appeared in the NBC television series
The Black Donnellys as Helen Donnelly, which lasted for one season. She also performed the lead role in an off-Broadway production called
Our Leading Lady written by
Charles Busch in which she earned a nomination from the Drama League for her performance. Also in that year, Mulgrew played Clytemnestra in New York for Charles L. Mee's
Iphigenia 2.0. She won the
Obie Award for outstanding performance. In June 2008, Mulgrew appeared in
Equus on Broadway, playing Hesther Saloman, a public official who is empathetic toward the play's central character. The play opened on September 5, 2008, for a limited 22-week engagement through February 8, 2009. Also in 2008, Mulgrew filmed the 30-minute courtroom drama
The Response, which is based on actual transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay tribunals. It was researched and fully vetted in conjunction with the University of Maryland School of Law and was shot in three days. Mulgrew portrays Colonel Sims and the other cast members, the crew, and she agreed to defer their salaries to cover the production costs. The film has been screened at a number of sites and is available on DVD. In 2009, Mulgrew appeared in the NBC medical series
Mercy, playing the recurring role of Jeannie Flanagan (the mother of the show's lead, Veronica). Released in 2010, the film
The Best and Brightest, a comedy based in the world of New York City's elite private kindergartens, featured Mulgrew as the Player's wife. appearing at
Destination Star Trek London in 2012. Also in 2010, she starred as Cleopatra in William Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra at Hartford Stage. In 2011, Mulgrew appeared in the feature-length documentary
The Captains. The film, written and directed by
William Shatner, follows Shatner as he interviews each of the actors who succeeded him playing a lead-role
Starfleet captain within the
Star Trek franchise. During that same year, on another science-fiction series, she began a recurring guest-starring role on the third season of the series
Warehouse 13, as the mother of one of the main characters. From July 2011 to December 2013, Mulgrew appeared as the main cast member on
Adult Swim's
NTSF:SD:SUV:: as Kove, the leader of the titular terrorism-fighting unit and ex-wife of series lead
Paul Scheer's character.
Orange Is the New Black and other work (2013–present) Mulgrew starred as inmate Galina "Red" Reznikov in the
Netflix original series
Orange Is the New Black, the role for which she was nominated for her first
Primetime Emmy Award in 2014. The popular character was re-signed for seasons two through seven. On working in the series, she was reunited with her
Mercy co-star
Taylor Schilling. In 2014, Mulgrew narrated a documentary film,
The Principle, that aims to promote the discredited idea of the
geocentric model. Mulgrew said that she was misinformed as to the purpose of the documentary, going on to say "I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism... I do not subscribe to anything
Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history, and had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary." Mulgrew starred in the fall 2024 Off-Broadway production by the
Irish Repertory Theatre of
The Beacon by playwright
Nancy Harris. ==Personal life==