‘Starfleet Academy’: Holly Hunter Joins the New ‘Star Trek’ Spin-Off Series!!

Starfleet Academy has just hired its first faculty member. Holly Hunter will star in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, the newest star in Paramount+‘s galaxy of series based on the long-running science fiction franchise. Variety has the news that Hunter will play Starfleet Academy’s captain and chancellor in the new series.

Hunter is the first cast member announced for the new Star Trek series, which will begin production in Toronto (including in the newly-renamed Star Trek Stage) this summer. She’s certainly a big “get” for the series, with a Best Actress Academy Award on her trophy shelf. Say Starfleet Academy co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau, “It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius. To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on Starfleet Academy is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of Star Trek.” Little else is known about the series, save that it will center around the titular academic institution that trains all of Starfleet’s future officers; it first appeared in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and subsequently appeared on Trek series The Next Generation and Voyager.

Who Is Holly Hunter?

Holly Hunter moved to New York City and roomed with fellow aspiring actor Frances McDormand. She landed parts in the slasher movie The Burning and the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell dramedy Swing Shift before breaking out in 1987 with showy lead roles in Raising Arizona and Broadcast News. She was Oscar-nominated for the latter, and became a sought-after star. In 1993, she achieved the rare feat of being nominated for two Oscars in the same year, for her roles in The Piano and The Firm. She won Best Actress for her role in the former as a mute Scotswoman in 19th-century New Zealand. She has since remained busy on both the big and small screen.

She has starred in a number of high-profile films, including Crash, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Moonlight Mile, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and The Big Sick. On TV, she played the lead role in the TNT crime drama Saving Grace for three seasons, and recently starred alongside Ted Danson in NBC‘s Mr. Mayor. She also lent her voice to Pixar‘s The Incredibles and its sequel, playing superheroine/mom Elasti-Girl. She is next set to star in Hurricanna, a dramatization of the last days of the life of model Anna Nicole Smith.

Hunter joins a small group of Oscar-winning actors who have beamed into the world of Star Trek. Most famously, lifelong Trek fan Whoopi Goldberg eagerly signed on to play the recurring role of Guinan on The Next Generation, while Louise Fletcher played recurring villain Kai Winn on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Meanwhile, on the big screen, the crew of the Enterprise has faced off against villains played by Oscar-winners Christopher Plummer (in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) and F. Murray Abraham (in Star Trek: Insurrection).