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There is something beautiful about seeing someone manifest their dreams. Simu Liu famously tweeted about wanting to be Shang Chi in the MCU, and look what happened to him. There is a joy that rises within us when people get what they both want and deserve, which is what happened with Paul Giamatti. The actor’s offhand comment about wanting to play a Klingon during an interview directly led to him playing one in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Paul Giamatti has been a Star Trek fan for years. When he was on the press tour for The Holdovers in 2023, he mentioned to a journalist that his dream role would be to play a Klingon in Star Trek. Within 24 hours, the showrunners for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy had him on a Zoom call. During that call, they offered him five different roles, but he naturally chose the half-Klingon villain, Nus Braka.

“I’ve always wanted to play a Klingon,” Giamatti said in a recent interview. “But it was not something I actually thought was ever gonna come to pass. I can’t actually think of anything else manifesting like that, that I’ve said and that it actually happened.”

The actor seems intent on making the most of his time in Star Trek, playing the villain as big and bold as he can. He commented that he felt like he “was heading for a cliff at 95 miles an hour” while playing the Klingon in Star Trek.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy debuted on January 15, 2026, with new episodes airing weekly on Paramount+.

Space may be the final frontier, but there's no end to Popverse's love of the Star Trek universe. Hop aboard the starship Enterprise with our Star Trek watch order, explore strange new worlds with our upcoming Star Trek TV shows and movies list, seek out the new life of the franchise, and boldly go where no Star Trek film has ever gone before - with Quentin Tarantino?