Starfleet Academy's Paul Giamatti Took Inspiration From The Best Star Trek Villain For His New Bad Guy

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It seems like every new "Star Trek" series these days comes loaded with non-negotiables that simply must live up to fan expectations. Will it be action-heavy or focus more on the philosophical musings of the classic shows? (Although, lest we forget, fists were flying quite often even in "The Original Series.") Does the writing team know their lore inside and out, or are we in for some controversial, canon-breaking elements that will keep the editors over at Memory Alpha busy for the foreseeable future? And, perhaps most importantly of all, are the antagonists up to snuff and capable of standing side by side with some of the greats in decades past ... or must our villain rankings forever remain unchanged?

The jury is still out on "Starfleet Academy," the impending show from franchise architect Alex Kurtzman and creator Gaia Violo, but at least everyone involved have been saying the right things so far. Take Paul Giamatti, the biggest star of the ensemble (next to Holly Hunter as our next captain, of course) and the mean mug behind our half-Klingon, half-Tellarite baddie Nus Braka. With the exception of his unusual genealogy, the show's creative team has kept most of the details surrounding the character under wraps — but, at last, we're beginning to understand what makes him tick. In an interview with TrekMovie, Giamatti opened up about which villains he used as inspiration. His answer should make every "Deep Space Nine" fan happy:

"I think I probably had in my head a lot of different villains. I probably had some Khan. I had sort of Chang and Gul Dukat, these guys who love the sound of their own voices. These guys who love to 'blahblahblah,' just bulls****ing, constantly. I thought of the chaoticness [sic] of Q and stuff like that."

Paul Giamatti's Braka has more in common with another surprising Trek villain

Anyone who enjoyed actor Marc Alaimo's brilliant performance as the Cardassian Gul Dukat throughout "Deep Space Nine" should know exactly what Paul Giamatti means when it comes to motor-mouthed villains, particularly those given to long and ponderous monologues — but that's far from his only connection to bad guys of "Trek" yore. As reassuring as it is to hear that the distinctive Nus Braka takes his cues from Khan and even Christopher Plummer's Klingon commander Chang from "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," the other character he name-dropped will likely garner even more enthusiasm among Trekkies.

Giamatti went on to describe Braka's motivations and, fascinatingly enough, what he shares in common with one of the most outlandish villains of all:

"But the thing that I think is interesting about this guy is that — as it goes along, and by the end of it, you really see it — he is very much a kind of malformed child inside. He's this very angry, angry, psychopathic child inside. Which actually made me think of Trelane, who is kind of a child a little bit. And even Q has a kind of child to him. So, whether it's unique or not, what I bring to it, I don't know, but that's something that became more and more important to me as I went on with it."

Let nobody claim that this man is unfamiliar with his "Trek" trivia. Of course, the trickster Trelane recently made a fun return (of sorts) in the latest season of "Strange New Worlds," and it's refreshing to hear that Braka will add a similar sense of psychology to the mix. The first two episodes of "Starfleet Academy" premiere on Paramount+ January 15, 2026.