Entertainment
Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti Unpack Their Explosive Rivalry on Star Trek’s Hotly Debated New Series
Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 6, “Come, Let’s Away.”This week’s episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy sends our cadets on their first official away mission, and unfortunately for Holly Hunter‘s Captain Ake, things go terribly, horribly wrong when her cadets are intercepted by a terrifying race of cannibalistic aliens. With her cadets held hostage on the remains of a fallen starship, Nahla is forced to call on her biggest nemesis, Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti), if she wants to get them back alive. Unfortunately, making a deal with the devil never really works out, and the cadets suffer a serious loss as one of their War College comrades is killed, SAM (Kerrice Brooks) is left glitching, and Tarima (Zoe Steiner) falls into a coma after saving her friends.
I recently sat down with Hunter and Giamatti to dig into this tense and devastating episode of Starfleet Academy. During our conversation, Hunter spoke about how she embodies Nahla and what needed to happen in this episode to leave her truly betrayed by the end. Giamatti also spoke about how easy it was to have Hunter as a scene partner, before they both spoke about the simmering tension of filming this episode’s intense one-on-one sequences. Finally, the duo teased what to expect from their next showdown later this season. You can read our full conversation below or watch it in the player above.
COLLIDER: Holly, I have to start off by saying Nahla has instantly become one of my favorite Star Cadet captains in the franchise, and I love the choices that you make with her physicality, like flopping into the chair to stop Braka from taking it, or sitting on tables and flopping down in the elevator. When you were establishing the character, what about her lent itself to that sort of movement for you?
HOLLY HUNTER: That was something that kind of organically happened when I read it. I was thinking about a physicality that I wanted to explore with her. Then, when I got to the set, wow, they just invited it for me. And the more sets that I was introduced to, the more my mind opened to the possibilities of going over the back of a couch. I mean, it just became like, “Ooh,” like a new world opened up for me that I found really enticing. I was really kind of turned on by the whole idea of being somebody who lived like that, and then it just manifested.
Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti Break Down Their “Odd Attraction” in That Tense Nus vs. Nahla Scene
“I always thought that maybe I was going to kiss him.”
I love that so much. For both of you, your characters have this very intense and magnetic antagonistic chemistry, and in Episode 6, Nahla has to ask for his help at a great cost to herself. What was it like to turn the tables on that dynamic and add another layer to that relationship and that palpable hatred?
PAUL GIAMATTI: Exciting. Exciting that the whole thing takes a turn there. And it was a very well-written scene. I think they accomplished it really well on the page in a way that was kind of easy to begin to play out. But she discovered this great thing in that scene, which is the moment when she comes back, and she starts to kind of hit me to try to get me to comply, which I remember thinking, “This is brilliant because this is really going to fool people into thinking that I’m going to play along.” I thought, “What a brilliant, interesting choice to find.” But the script had that room where you could find all kinds of interesting things in it, like that.
HUNTER: I also think that it was really important so that I would really, truly, truly, truly be double-crossed.
GIAMATTI: Yes, and it was a brilliant way of doing it.
HUNTER: That Nahla would really take the freaking fall. Not kind of halfway, “Oh, well, I suspected it.” No, I mean to really, hook, line, and sinker, be devastated.
GIAMATTI: To almost sell it in a comedic moment, too, was kind of brilliant because then it’s just like, oof! So when the turnaround comes, it’s even more brutal. Yeah, it was great.
Absolutely. When working with these very intense one-on-ones, can you each recall something, like having her in his face, that each of you did that surprised you and unlocked another layer of your performance?
GIAMATTI: I kept being surprised at how much I wanted to get close to her, kind of get right up on her, and I kept thinking, “Why am I doing this? Why am I getting so strangely like…?” And at that point, there were certain shots that we did, I don’t think it’s in it, where I was almost kind of resting my head on her, and it was like, “What am I doing?” It was interesting because I thought, “What does he really want out of this?” It was odd.
HUNTER: Well, I always thought that maybe I was going to kiss him. I thought there might be a kiss, and I thought, “I cannot betray my crew.” Because it was so bizarre! It was so bizarre. It came out of nowhere.
GIAMATTI: There was an odd kind of attraction.
HUNTER: I was like, “Wow, why didn’t I obey that? I wish I had.” That would have been really horrible to obey it.
GIAMATTI: Interesting.
HUNTER: I had terrible conflicts.
GIAMATTI: Yeah. Very strange. There was a lot of that stuff. The physical thing where I kept wanting to get on her was weird. I was like, “Why am I doing this?” It was interesting.
Well, I mean, love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so that chemistry is very there.
Paul Giamatti Teases a “Very Grand Gesture” Ahead of His Final ‘Starfleet Academy’ Face-Off With Holly Hunter
“I come back with a big move at the end.”
What do you think has changed for Nahla in the 100 years since she lost her son that makes her willing to make such a huge sacrifice for Caleb and the rest of the kids now, that she couldn’t do 100 years ago?
GIAMATTI: Wow.
HUNTER: Well, I think she makes a mistake that she can’t live with. The Federation is a severe outfit at the beginning of this show. At the beginning of Starfleet Academy, they are still recovering from The Burn and from some of the restrictions that they instilled after The Burn. But nevertheless, I think Nahla really takes some of those steps that she was responsible for when she quits. And I think that child, she feels compelled to make that right, as mysterious as that is to search the galaxy for a person who is orphaned, possibly. I love the mysticalness of that, and I love that there was something deeply mysterious about that search. We all make mistakes. I don’t know.
I love that. At the end of this episode, Braka gets away again, but now he’s got a huge, huge price on his head. Can you guys tease what we can look forward to from your next face-off?
GIAMATTI: I come back with a big move at the end, towards the end. I do come back.
HUNTER: A grand gesture.
GIAMATTI: Yeah, with a very grand gesture at the end.
HUNTER: Yeah. And that’s all we could possibly say.
GIAMATTI: That’s all we can possibly say.
Starfleet Academy is available to stream on Paramount+. Stay tuned at Collider for more.
- Release Date
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January 15, 2026
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Alex Kurtzman, Noga Landau
- Directors
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Douglas Aarniokoski
- Writers
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Alex Taub, Tawny Newsome, Kirsten Beyer, Jane Maggs, Kiley Rossetter