‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti Challenged Each Other: “I Wanted To Be at the Top of My Freaking Game”

Summary

• Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks with the cast and showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy at New York Comic Con 2025.
• The new Paramount+ series follows the lives of new Starfleet Academy cadets as they face a new threat to the Federation.
• In this interview, the cast and crew discuss making this dream project a reality, Paul Giamatti and Holly Hunter’s chemistry, and how the new cadets found their place among the stars on set.

The world of Star Trekis as vast as the universe itself, and under the supervision of producer Alex Kurtzman, the world of the starship USS Enterprise and beyond will endure in pop culture. Recent sequels and re-imaginings, including J.J. Abrams‘ reboot films and the series Star Trek: Discovery, honor the past while pushing the story forward and adapting to the times to stay fresh. Premiering in January 2026 on Paramount+, Star Trek: Starfleet Academywill pick up from where Discovery left off in the 32nd century.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy follows young cadets training to become Starfleet officers while dealing with friendships, rivalries, and romance amid the threat of a mysterious foe facing the Academy and the Federation. With this upcoming series, fans should expect the usual space-traveling adventures and hijinks combined with the traits of a high school comedy. Created by Gaia Violo and run by Kurtzman and Noga Landau, the new series features a crop of new young talent led by Academy Award winner Holly Hunter, with recurring roles by Paul Giamattiand Stephen Colbert.

At New York Comic-Con 2025, Hunter, Giamatti, Sandro Rosta, Bella Shepard, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Karim Diané, Zoë Steiner, and showrunners Kurtzman and Noga Landau sat down with Collider’s Perri Nemiroffto discuss Starfleet Academy and opening the doors to new realms in the Trek franchise. Check out the full conversation in the video above or the transcript below, where the cast and creative team discuss working with acting luminaries like Hunter and Giamatti and the responsibility of being part of the Star Trek family.

‘Starfleet Academy’s Showrunner on the Reality of Leading Star Trek’s Next Era

“When your dreams come true, sometimes you freak out.”

PERRI NEMIROFF: Alex, I’m going to start with a question for you, and Noga, it’s going to be a little awkward for you because I want him to give you some flowers. I’m really eager to get a little insight into the experience of picking a co-showrunner – deciding you need a co-showrunner, and also what it was about Noga and her work that made you say, “That right there is the perfect partner for me?”

ALEX KURTZMAN: That’s such a great question. Thank you for asking me that. First of all, I love working with partners. I feel like I’m better with a partner. I’m very unprecious when it comes to ideas, so I always like something to push against. I’m not kidding, I knew within 20 seconds that Noga was the person, and I knew it because I could tell in her bearing that she was wildly responsible, and I could see that she was going to fill all of my weak spots, of which there are many. I just felt it. I knew it. It was one of those things that was very unspoken, but I knew it. I could tell in our sensibility, in how we talked about story and what we wanted to foreground in the storytelling that not only was she a huge fan of Star Trek and clearly did always want to go to Starfleet Academy, but understood that we can have all the explosions and we can have all the special effects, but at the end of the day, the story is very small and very intimate. I was never going to be in a position of having to convince her to make things more emotional, which sometimes can be a thing. So, I rely on Noga for enormous amounts of the day because she just keeps everything organized, while also having two children who climb on her like a jungle gym.

A beautiful combo to have!

To build a little on what he said, when this opportunity came your way, what single part of being a showrunner on this show were you most looking forward to getting to do, but then also, can you tell me something you’ve experienced making Starfleet Academy that wound up being more creatively fulfilling than you ever could have imagined at the start?

NOGA LANDAU: Oh my God, yeah!

KURTZMAN: Wow, you’re going deep.

I come out hot!

LANDAU: Honestly, it was to work with Alex. And it’s not just because he just said nice things, and it’s that, too. For me, I grew up watching Star Trek. I grew up in New Mexico, where there wasn’t, like, stuff. My one connection to the world was through TV, and I would watch Star Trek, and I would stare at the stars, and I would be like, “I want to go there one day.” But I get nauseous and motion sickness, so I didn’t want to go, actually, literally, into space. So instead, it was like 2009, the new Star Trek movies came out, and Alex wrote those, right? He wrote that one in 2009, and I was riveted. I remember coming home from the theater, and I jumped on my bed, because it reinvigorated the franchise in a way that I didn’t know was possible.

So when this opportunity came up, first of all, I’d always wanted to make Starfleet Academy, but then, when I knew I could make it with Alex… I had also watched his shows, like I loved Sleepy Hollow. I just loved his approach to storytelling. So when they were like, “You can work with Alex Kurtzman,” I got scared, and I was like, “I don’t know about that. I don’t know about it.” Because when your dreams come true, sometimes you freak out. But then, I think he and I both had the same thing: the second we locked eyes for the first time, we just knew. I just knew, “I guess I’m making this show now.” You know? You just see it. We get to have many artistic soulmates in this work, and I just knew instantly that he was one of mine.

Paul Giamatti Calls ‘Starfleet Academy’ an “Open Door” Experience

“You feel utterly free to do whatever you want to do.”

I’m going to continue forcing some of you to give each other flowers. Paul and Holly, I love the fact that we often talk about what newcomers learn from the acting veterans, but I also love that it goes the other way, as well. Can you tell me something about the folks sitting behind you that made you stop and go, “Oh my god, that’s something else, and it inspires me?”

HOLLY HUNTER: Well, let me just first say how much I learned from Paul.

PAUL GIAMATTI: What not to do.

HUNTER: Because to encounter the force of Paul on the set, it’s so cool because he’s my nemesis, but he’s my collaborator, and [for] some actors, that’s a slippery slope. If they’re a nemesis, then they’re going to be a nemesis. With Paul, that’s not the deal. That’s not the compact that he brings because he’s an actor, and he’s fun, but he’s also tremendously devoted.Tremendously devoted, tremendously prepared. So, that combination that I was confronting every day was like some kind of extraordinary reassurance for me. It was like a validation of the playing space to have somebody with his decades of experience challenging me and also supporting me simultaneously. He was my colleague, he was my friend, my enemy, and that was a really fun combination to have, and I must say it was extremely, really invigorating. I wanted to be at the top of my freaking game with Giamatti because he made me be, because he was. So that was so enlivening. Every second. He’s like one of the greatest actors that I’ve ever worked with because of this thing, because of what he brings that we all know. But what I know is in the wings. What I know behind the thing is so rich and textured and granular that Paul brings.

GIAMATTI: If I was any of those things, it’s because there’s an enormous open door that just opens in front of her that lets you do all of these things. I’m not like that normally. I’m awful and terrible. I’m not good. No, it’s because you’ve got somebody who lets you in in such a profound way that you feel utterly free to do whatever you want to do. There’s no question that what you’re going to do is going to come back at you. You’re going to be supported. It’s ridiculous.

I want to say one hilarious thing she did. Very early on, when we did the first table reading, she turned to me and she said, “This is really great. This is really great. This whole thing with being the captain, is this a big deal?” That’s what she said to me! And I was like, “Uh, yeah, I think it’s a big deal, Holly.” But that was great. There was just this kind of, like, “Okay, this is cool. I’m going to play around. This is great. I’m just here having a good time.”

These guys, I really only got to work with him, but I got to be around all of these other people, and, again, the doors are completely open here, too, for different reasons. The door’s open with her because she’s done it so often, and she’s so good at it. They’re good at it, but they’re also new to it — not new, but newish — and so the door is open all the time, so you just walk in. That’s what you do. With these guys, too, Alex and Noga, the doors are open. The whole show is like an open door for people to walk through. The whole franchise, that’s what it is: walk through the open door.

HUNTER: But I will also say that working with these guys, there are things that you can’t act there. We are so lucky. We’re so fortunate as storytellers that these guys are so charismatic individually, but also as a collective. Their collective energy is infectious. There is a real chemistry that is alive and radiating off the set from each of them. And like Paul said, the door is open. Working with all of you guys, it’s just so exciting and so new and fresh, but at the same time, passionate. The colliding of passion, newness, and charisma that’s coming from this cast is pretty phenomenal.

The ‘Starfleet Academy’ Cadets on Conquering Fear and Earning Their Place in the Star Trek Legacy

“Existing is belonging.”

For all of you now, this kind of leans into what Noga was describing before, the idea of basically getting to live your dream, but it being kind of scary, because there’s a lot of pressure when you jump into a franchise like Star Trek. I’m a big believer that you can have the fear, but what matters more than anything is that you believe to your core that you belong there. Can you tell me the very first thing you did, either in prep or on set, that made you stop and go, “Oh my god, I deserve this, and I belong in Star Trek?”

GIAMATTI: Heavy!

GEORGE HAWKINS: I’m so grateful to be a part of an ensemble. Taking something on like this on your own must be terrifying. The relationship that we’ve built with each other, sort of subconsciously, there’s a recognition with each other that there’s no one else in the world that’s taking this on, and there’s a recognition in all of us every day on set where we’re not alone. So, I can’t help but feel like I’m not supposed to be here or I don’t deserve that because it’s just unbelievable, and I think is actually good to keep a little bit of that. Like, “I’m here to add something, not just to take away from it.” And everyone I’m sitting next to here and in front encourages that. “Let’s lift up. Let’s add something more. Let’s add something more every day.” Every day. And the amount I’m learning just by being a witness is incredible. Absolutely incredible.

KARIM DIANÉ: I had an enormous amount of anxiety in the first few months of filming that I honestly just kept inside and didn’t even say out loud. But I had a lot going on to transform into a Klingon — prosthetics, makeup, wig. Also, I think I can say this, but my voice is completely different. It’s, like, octaves lower, and I’ve never done that before. Also, just knowing how iconic Worf is, I just felt like, “Damn, those are some big-ass shoes. That’s a lot of pressure.”

The day that I felt confident I could do this was with Holly. It was one day we were shooting one of the scenes in my episode, and I did what I did, and then I walked off to the side, and I was kind of like, “Fuck.” [Laughs] And then Holly, you walked up to me, and she was like, “Wow, you’re doing an amazing job. You’re really great.” In your own way, you said “you ate that,” Holly. Holly was like, “You ate that. You ate that.” [Laughs] And I was like, “You know what? Yeah, I did! I did!” And in that moment, I was kind of like, “You know what? Jay-Den is a bombass Klingon. I deserve to be here, and I am doing an incredible job.”

SANDRO ROSTA: The first time I felt like I belonged in Star Trek? Well, two days ago… [Laughs] No, no, but it’s kind of true in a sense that, like, this is so big in a way that you kind of always feel like you’re in something that is so far beyond you, and you’re just hoping that you can contribute in a way that people will enjoy and that will add something. I think thatit took a lot of time for me to really accept what was happening. I was just doing the job as well as I could. I had a lot of conversations with Alex about how I didn’t want help because I was too scared to ask for help, and all these things. So, to be very honest, it took a while for me to settle, emotionally at least.

But I think that after seeing the pilot and the finished product of what it was that we were making… I’d never been on camera before, so I had never seen myself act before, so I had no idea what I was doing, and I would forget about what I did the next day. So, the whole time, I’m like, freaking out. Like, “I have no idea what’s going on!” So I think once I saw the direction that they had in mind, and the finished product of what they had been cooking up behind the scenes, I was able to breathe.

BELLA SHEPARD: I feel like this is one of those things that’ll just never stop hitting me. Like, the realization of what I’m a part of and who I get to work with and just how lucky I am, I don’t think the realization of that will ever stop. It’s just something I discover in new ways every time I go to work, every time I see these guys outside of work, every time I see finished products or new scripts that we receive. The gratitude is just something that will always hit me, forever.

ZOË STEINER: I feel similarly. It’s such a crazy thing to be a part of that I don’t necessarily feel like there was one moment that I could really take that in, even today, still. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just that I don’t know that there will be a time when I fully feel and receive and know that I’m on Star Trek. Maybe when it comes out.

But in terms of the question being about knowing that I belong, I mean, I feel that through my character. I really feel so grateful for her because that’s a way in which I feel that I belong to the Star Trek universe, which is part of why it’s such an amazing thing is that it offers that. And Paul was talking about before the open door, like this inclusivity, and that everyone is welcome, and there’s hope for every kind of person or being in the universe itself. So, I feel like as an actor, the types of things that I bring to this character, who’s an empath, is my sensitivity, which for some of us might have been something that was not embraced. It’s been such a gift that I can belong in that way as an actor and a person, to be able to bring that sensitivity and put it into Betazoid, like it’s required, you know? So I feel in that way, I belong very much. I’m so grateful for that.

KERRICE BROOKS: Oh, man. “Belong” is such an interesting word. I’ve lived such a random life, as Kerrice the person. I feel like I’ve reached a point, not even recently, but I think I realized back when I was, like, 15, that my life is just going to be random, and that’s just what it’s going to be. I feel like I don’t know why I end up places, but I trust God and I trust whatever reason I’m supposed to be there. But in me feeling like I belong there, I would say part of me is still just going with the flow and just vibing.

But also, now I’m thinking about there’s this scene that me and Bella have, and without spoiling it, I’m kind of going to her because I feel like I don’t belong, and she tells me how we’re all weird in our own ways, and it kind of goes back to what Paul was saying. And I think that day sticks out to me because I’m like, “Damn, we all do belong in our own way, because who’s to say we don’t belong? Who’s to say we don’t belong in a certain space or to just exist?”

SHEPARD: Existing is belonging.

BROOKS: Yes! Yes, actually. So I don’t know if there was ever a moment where I felt like I belonged, but I do think that we all end up in spaces for reasons that we will never know, and I trust that process more than anything. More than my own feelings.