Paul Giamatti Defends Holly Hunter’s Bold Captain’s Chair Move in Star Trek's New Spin-Off

1 week ago 13

Nus Braka scowling at someone off-screen.

Published Feb 16, 2026, 8:02 PM EST

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation."

An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the newest star in the galaxy of Star Trek shows, and it has attracted its share of controversy. Coming in for a surprising amount of criticism is the preference of Holly Hunter, who plays Chancellor Nahla Ake, to sit in her captain's chair in an unconventional and decidedly informal fashion. However, Hunter's castmates and fellow Star Trek alums have been quick to spring to her defense. Last week, fellow Starfleet captain Kate Mulgrew led the charge; now, it's the turn of her on-screen arch-foe, Paul Giamatti.

Giamatti, who plays space pirate Nus Braka on the series, recently guested on The D-Con Chamber, a podcast hosted by Trek veterans Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer. The subject of Hunter came up, as Keating described her as "taking on the spirit of a cat," and Giamatti gave her his full endorsement: "The first time I saw her do it, we went onto the set for the bridge, and she got in the chair like that, I just thought it was great. I’m sure there’s people who were outraged." As a Trek fan himself, though, he didn't share the outrage: "I’m an old Star Trek fan, and I thought, ‘That’s great.’ What a great thing that somebody is just gonna be that comfortable in there, and it’s a different kind of command stuff, you know."

Who Is Nus Braka?

The hybrid offspring of a warlike Klingon and a contentious Tellarite (which Braka has referred to as a "Klingarite"), Nus Braka is a space pirate operating in the aftermath of The Burn, a galaxy-wide disaster that shattered the United Federation of Planets. He is first seen in the opening moments of the series, having masterminded the robbery of a Federation shuttle and the murder of its pilot. Put on trial by Ake alongside his accomplice, Anisha Mir (Tatiana Maslany), both he and Mir were sent to jail, separating the latter from her son, Caleb. A decade later, he'd escaped prison, leading the Venari Ral marauders in strikes against the still-rebuilding Federation. He comes into conflict with the new Starfleet Academy, which is led by Ake, and counts Caleb (Sandro Rosta) as a student as he searches for his lost mother. Recently, an encounter with the hostile Furies led Ake to seek Braka's assistance...only to be double-crossed by the canny pirate.

Keating and Trinneer starred on Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) as, respectively, Malcolm Reed and Charles "Trip" Tucker; they launched the podcast in 2024 after concluding their previous podcast, The Shuttlepod Show. Previous guests on The D-Con Chamber have included William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, and Enterprise captain Scott Bakula.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is now streaming on Paramount+; episode 7, "Ko’Zeine," will premiere on Thursday. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.