‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’: See The Cast & The Characters They Are Playing
During the “Star Trek Day” panels yesterday (very late last night for those of us in the UK…), ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ announced some the characters some of the new cast will be playing in the upcoming series, some of which will be very familiar to fans.
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ is based on the years Captain Christopher Pike manned the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The series will feature fan favorites from season two of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’: Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. The series will follow Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Number One in the years before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they explore new worlds around the galaxy.
They are going to be joined by Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel, Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga, Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh, Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas and Bruce Horak as Hemmer. More about them below…
Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel
Nurse Christine Chapel first appeared in the Star Trek: TOS episode “The Naked Time”, played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (aka “the First Lady of Star Trek”).
Jess Bush starred as Helen in the indie feature ‘Skinford’ and appeared in the recurring guest role of Kendall in the Channel 10 series ‘Playing for Keeps’. Bush also played the role of Bella in the Australian series ‘Halifax – Retribution’. In addition, Bush went on to guest star on the ABC series ‘Les Norton’ opposite Rebel Wilson and David Wenham.
Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura
The legendary communications officer Nyota Uhura first appeared in TOS first broadcast episode “The Man Trap” portrayed by the equally legendary Nichelle Nichols. Zoe Saldana played the character in the JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movies, which, on an Interesting side note, was the first time Uhura’s first name was used in canon on-screen.
Celia Rose Gooding starred as Frankie Healy in Jagged Little Pill, a musical inspired by Alanis Morissette’s award-winning album, until the Broadway shutdown in 2020, and received a 2020 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her work. Past theatre roles also include Urinetown and Fame.
Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga
Dr. M’Benga was played by Booker Bradshaw on Star Trek: TOS appearing in the episodes “A Private Little War” and “That Which Survives”.
Babs Olusanmokun’s television credits include his roles in Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’, Marvel’s ‘The Defenders’, HBO’s Emmy-winning miniseries ‘The Night Of’ and History’s 2016 remake of the miniseries ‘Roots’. His film credits include the upcoming and highly anticipated ‘Dune’ and ‘Wrath of Man’.
Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh
The following set of characters are new inventions from the show, however, this first one does have a familiar last name… Noonien Singh. So she is presumably some connection to Khan (or KHAAAAANNNN! as Kirk would put it.)
Christina Chong starred in the live-action adaption of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, ‘Tom and Jerry’ and in Sky One’s ‘Bulletproof’. Chong’s other television credits include ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Doctor Who’, ABC event mini-series ‘Of Kings and Prophets’, the hit BBC series ‘Line of Duty’, SYFY’s ‘Dominion’, and Fox’s event mini-series ’24: Live Another Day’. Film credits include ‘Christmas Eve’, opposite ‘Star Trek’ captain, Patrick Stewart, and ‘Johnny English: Reborn’.
Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas
Another new character, Lt. Erica Ortegas. Don’t know any more about her than that at this point!
Melissa Navia has recently appeared in a recurring role on AMC’s critically acclaimed series ‘Dietland’ and guest roles on Showtime’s ‘Billions’ and ‘Homeland’. In March 2020, she made her Off-Broadway debut in the much-applauded Bundle of Sticks at INTAR Theatre.
Bruce Horak as Hemmer
The last new character announced is Hemmer. We don’t know this for sure, but it seems very likely Hemmer is an Aenarian, who are a blind, telepathic Andorian subspecies that we last saw in season four of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’.
Bruce Horak himself is legally blind, seeing the franchise, once again, break new ground in representation. Along with being an extremely talented artist, creating stunning paintings and artwork, his acting credits include an appearance on the series ‘Warehouse 13’, and he has won multiple awards for his theatrical performances including This is CANCER and Assassinating Thomson.
We don’t yet know exactly when or where ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ will land in the UK, although it will be in 2022… It was mysteriously missing from the list of shows when they announced the Paramount+ UK launch last month. Whether that means it has been sold on to Netflix or Amazon already, or whether it will actually show up on Paramount+ UK, we will have to wait and see. You can be pretty sure it will air somewhere though! If you want to keep track of this or any other show, you can add it via our Never Miss system, and you’ll be notified when it gets a UK premiere date.
