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From December to April, Clare McConnell had to keep a very big secret.

The Calgary-born, Toronto-based actress had just landed a dream role, cast as Dennas the Klingon in Star Trek: Discovery. But the highly anticipated new entry into Gene Rodenberry’s sci-fi universe was so secretive she couldn’t tell her friends about it. She couldn’t tell her family. She couldn’t even tell her Trekkie dad.

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Still, she had to tell her Toronto roommates something about where she was going every day. So, perhaps leaning on her Calgary improv training, she made up a show. She called it Tennessee Fields. It was an “historical fantasy” in which she played a character who came from another universe.

“I kept making it more and more detailed, and it sounded terrible,” says McConnell. “I’m glad that is not the show that I’m on.”

McConnell is now free to tell people that she plays Dennas, leader of one of 24 Klingon houses in a story that takes place 10 years before the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series. She just can’t say much else. No screeners have been released to the press and CBS has kept a tight lid on specific plot points. The series debuts Sunday on Space.