Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1 features a cast led by Oscar winner Holly Hunter as Chancellor Captain Nahla Ake, Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti as season villain Nus Braka, and five breakout cadets played by Sandro Rosta, Karim Diané, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, and Bella Shepard. The series also brings back Robert Picardo as The Doctor from Voyager, alongside Discovery veterans Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr. It premiered January 15, 2026, on Paramount+.
Watching a new Star Trek series means walking into a room full of strangers and trying to figure out who everyone is before the plot demands your full attention. This guide does that work for you. It covers every major face in Season 1, maps each actor to their most recognizable prior roles, and includes character details that the episode synopses deliberately leave vague. Whether you are a lifelong Trek fan or someone who just stumbled onto Paramount+, this is your crew manifest.
Who Plays Captain Nahla Ake and Where Have You Seen Holly Hunter?
Holly Hunter plays Captain Nahla Ake, the Chancellor of Starfleet Academy and commanding officer of the USS Athena. The character is written as a long-lived half-Lanthanite, which explains her centuries of institutional knowledge. Hunter won her Oscar for The Piano in 1994 and her Emmy for The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. Genre fans know her as Elastigirl in The Incredibles. Kurtzman wrote the role specifically for her, and she accepted immediately.
Who Is Paul Giamatti Playing and What Is Nus Braka?
Paul Giamatti plays Nus Braka, a part-Klingon, part-Tellarite villain with a direct history connecting him to both Captain Ake and cadet Caleb Mir. Giamatti reportedly told Kurtzman he was a lifelong Star Trek fan while promoting The Holdovers and specifically asked to play a Klingon. He was given five scripts and five role options, then chose the villain, which surprised the production. His Oscar nominations came for Cinderella Man and The Holdovers. He studied at Yale School of Drama.
Who Plays Caleb Mir and Who Is Sandro Rosta?
Sandro Rosta plays Caleb Mir, described in promotional materials as a brilliant street kid who earns unlikely admission to the Academy’s first new class in over a century. His mother Anisha Mir, played by Tatiana Maslany, is a key recurring mystery in Season 1. Rosta was cast while still attending drama school in August 2024, making him one of the least experienced leads in recent Trek history. That origin story, a drama student going straight to a major Paramount+ franchise, is worth noting.
Who Does Karim Diané Play and What Else Has He Been In?
Karim Diané plays Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon cadet pursuing a medical track rather than the typical command or tactical path. That career choice is a deliberate subversion of how Klingons have historically been written in Star Trek. Diané is a French actor best known in Europe before Starfleet Academy gave him his biggest English-language platform. Episode 4, which focuses entirely on Jay-Den facing an existential crisis tied to his species, was a showcase written to highlight Diané’s range.
Who Are Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, and Bella Shepard Playing?
Kerrice Brooks plays SAM, which stands for Series Acclimation Mil, making her character literally a new kind of being navigating identity at the Academy. George Hawkins plays Darem Reymi, a Khionian from a privileged background laser-focused on a command career. Bella Shepard plays Genesis Lythe, a Dar-Sha, a species created specifically for this show, and the daughter of an admiral trying to outrun her family name. Shepard appeared in Wolf Pack on Paramount+ before landing this role in 2024.
Why Is Robert Picardo Back and How Does The Doctor Fit In?
Robert Picardo reprises The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, the Emergency Medical Hologram who ran Voyager’s sickbay from 1995 to 2001. The character has appeared in multiple Trek properties since, including First Contact. In Starfleet Academy, he appears across eight episodes as part of the Academy’s medical and faculty infrastructure, which makes narrative sense given that a photonic being would not age across the centuries separating Voyager and the 32nd-century setting. Picardo confirmed the return publicly in July 2025 alongside the main cast announcement.
What Roles Do Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr Reprise From Discovery?
Tig Notaro returns as Commander Jett Reno, the sardonic, genius-level engineer she played throughout Star Trek: Discovery. In Starfleet Academy, Reno transitions into a faculty role teaching physics and engineering. Oded Fehr returns as Admiral Charles Vance, the senior Starfleet official he played in Discovery Seasons 3, 4, and 5. Vance oversees the Academy’s strategic role within the Federation. Both reprised their roles following Discovery’s final season in 2024, giving the new show institutional continuity for longtime fans.
Who Is Tatiana Maslany Playing and How Big Is Her Role?
Tatiana Maslany plays Anisha Mir, Caleb’s missing mother, in a recurring guest capacity across Season 1. Maslany won a Primetime Emmy for Orphan Black in 2016, where she played over a dozen clones in a performance that is still widely cited as one of television’s most technically demanding. She is also known for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Her Starfleet Academy casting was announced at New York Comic Con in October 2024. The character functions as both emotional backstory and active plot thread for Rosta’s lead arc.
What About Gina Yashere, Becky Lynch, and Stephen Colbert?
Gina Yashere plays Lura Thok, a Klingon and Jem’Hadar hybrid who serves as First Officer and Cadet Master. The Jem’Hadar connection to the Dominion War adds layers genre fans will appreciate. Yashere is best known from Bob Hearts Abishola and her years on Last Comic Standing. Becky Lynch, the WWE champion, plays Lieutenant MacKenzie Ya on the Athena’s bridge crew. Stephen Colbert voices the Digital Dean of Students, an AI announcer role revealed at New York Comic Con 2025 that he described with characteristic enthusiasm.
A Final Note for First-Time and Returning Trek Fans
Every generation of Star Trek has introduced a new crew that felt unfamiliar until it suddenly did not. What makes Starfleet Academy distinct is the intentional mix of franchise veterans and genuinely new talent, a structural choice that mirrors the show’s premise of legacy meeting the next generation. Production ran from August 2024 through February 2025 at Pinewood Toronto Studios, and Season 2 was greenlit at New York Comic Con 2024, before Season 1 even aired. That level of institutional confidence from Paramount speaks to how central this show is to the franchise’s 60th anniversary strategy.
