Big news for Star Trek fans as the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has cast Paul Wesley (The Vampire Diaries) as the iconic Captain James T. Kirk and has already released a picture of him in the captain’s chair. Take a look below…
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a prequel to the original Star Trek series that will detail the missions of the USS Enterprise’s original crew under Captain Christopher Pike. Anson Mount will reprise his Star Trek: Discovery role as Pike alongside Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, whose real name was revealed to be Una Chin-Riley.
How Kirk will play into the second season is anyone’s guess, but he did become captain of the Enterprise some time after Pike suffered a horrible injury which left him immobilized and unable to speak. Pike’s only appearance in the original Star Trek series came in the two-part episode ‘The Menagerie’ where it detailed a previous mission he and Spock shared and Kirk mentioned having met Pike only once before the episode’s events.
Wesley will be the third actor to play Kirk following William Shatner’s role in The Original Series and seven of the Star Trek feature films and Chris Pine in the Star Trek reboot film series, known to fans as the Kelvin Timeline.
“Paul is an accomplished actor, an astonishing presence and a welcome key addition to the show,” said executive producer Alex Kurtzman and Strange New Worlds showrunners and executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers. “Like all of us, he is a life-long ‘Star Trek’ fan and we are excited by his interpretation of this iconic role.”
Wesley also expressed his excitement over Twitter in which he also related a chance meeting with Shatner soon after he got the role.
I am deeply humbled and still a little startled to have been given the honor of playing the inimitable James T Kirk. Ever since I was a kid, I have been awed by the imaginative world Gene Roddenberry created.
Recently, I boarded a flight to LA to discover that the man in the pic.twitter.com/U8GVD4ZemP— Paul Wesley (@paulwesley) March 15, 2022
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds features Anson Mount as Captain Pike alongside Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn who also reprise their Discovery roles as Spock and Number One, a.k.a. Una Chin-Riley, respectively. Filling out the crew of the USS Enterprise are Jess Bush (Skinford) as Nurse Christine Chapel, Celia Rose Gooding (Jagged Little Pill) as Nyota Uhura, Babs Olusanmokun (Dune) as Dr. M’Benga, Christina Chong (Black Mirror) as La’an Noonien-Singh, Melissa Navia Melissa Navia (Billions) as Erica Ortegas and Bruce Horak (Warehouse 13) as Hemmer.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on Paramount+ on May 5th
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
