The Galway Bay Murders star Kate Mulgrew has paid tribute to the late Patrick Stewart and the advice he gave her when she began playing Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.

Speaking on The Oliver Callan Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on Friday, Mulgrew recounted first meeting Stewart just after he finished playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and she began work on Star Trek: Voyager.

“He came in, I think, in the second week I was shooting,” she told the host.

Listen: Star Trek: Voyager’s Kate Mulgrew, who stars in RTÉ’s new thriller series The Galway Bay Murders, joins Oliver Callan on RTÉ Radio 1

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“I’d just gotten off The Bridge. I’d already lost 52 lbs I was so… I mean, it’s nerve-wracking. I was shot out of a cannon.

“He came in and, you know, in that gorgeous baritone, helped himself to a coffee. I stepped off The Bridge and I came over and I said, ‘How the hell did you do this?’

“He said (adopting Patrick Stewart’s voice): ‘Now, listen to me, and listen to me very clearly. If you invest yourself completely for seven years, as I did, you will be deeply rewarded. So just give it everything you’ve got’. And that’s exactly what I did.”

“What he was saying was you’ve got to take a deep breath and dive,” Mulgrew explained.

“This is an abyss and you’re not going to have a lot of control but just get yourself into the character and you will do it. And he was right.”

“I’m very sorry to say goodbye to a great, great captain in Patrick Stewart,” she continued.

“Jean-Luc Picard was beloved by millions, and millions will carry him.”

“I know how beloved he was, and I know what his command was like,” she added.

“And he was very kind to me.”

Mulgrew stars opposite Love/Hate’s John Connors and fellow Star Trek alumnus Colm Meaney in RTÉ One’s new thriller series, The Galway Bay Murders, which begins on Sunday, 8 November at 9:30pm.

Watch: The trailer for The Galway Bay Murders

The Oliver Callan Show, weekdays, RTÉ Radio 1, 11am