As the lead of Star Trek: Discovery, Sonequa Martin-Green knows that the pressure is on.

“There’s definitely a lot of responsibility to being the lead of any show,” she tells TVLine, “and obviously to be the lead of this, [an offshoot of] one of the most popular, if not the most popular, television series of all-time… you can certainly get lost in it if you allow yourself to, and just sort of be frozen.”

Instead, the Walking Dead vet — who’s starring as First Officer Michael Burnham on the CBS All Access revival — is “swimming with the gratitude of it, and that’s carrying me through” any nerves, she says. “I’m still blinking to see, ‘Is this real? Oh my goodness.’

“But I hope that I can bear the weight, if you will, of this legacy and of this story,” she continues, “because I certainly want to do it justice.”

Although the arc of the new series remains shrouded in secrecy, Martin-Green — who’s been shooting “for a little while now” — is able to at least give a vague sense of what Trekkers can expect. “This iteration of Star Trek is going to have a different take than the others in the Star Trek canon,” she says. “It’s going to be bigger, rawer and grittier… and the story’s going to build on itself. It’s going to be a tremendous journey.”

As we already know, it’s also going to be a story told for the first time from the perspective of someone other than the captain — Martin-Green’s First Officer. “Since Star Trek has always been through the eyes of the captain,” she suggests, “to be coming from [his second-in-command’s] mindset is going to be refreshing and challenging in ways that are very thrilling.”

Discovery is set to take flight in late summer or early fall. Will you be beaming it into your living room? Hit the comments.