‘Hellboy’ star Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp of ‘Rent’ join ‘Star Trek Discovery’, one will be gay
As the pre-production delays hindered Star Trek: Discovery, the project moves ahead, adding some new cast for the next voyage.
EW confirmed that Michelle Yeoh will star in the series as Captain Georgiou, the Starfleet Captain aboard the Starship Shenzhou. Joining Yeoh will be Doug Jones, a popular actor from big fan favorites such as the Hellboy films and Pan’s Labyrinth, and Rent‘s Anthony Rapp, who has made a decent career out of being a dependable, inventive character actor, will play Trek’s first gay character.
Yeoh had been rumored to be a central character. Jones played a big role on Falling Skies, a fun zombie in Hocus Pocus and will now portray Lt. Saru, the main Starfleet Science Officer who also happens to be part of a brand new alien species in the Star Trek universe.
Rapp will play the Star Trek universe’s first gay character, Lt. Stamets, an “astromycologist,” fungus expert, and Starfleet Science Officer aboard the Starship Discovery.
The openly gay creator Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal) has exited the project, allegedly for being too busy with other projects (i.e. the NBC reboot of Amazing Stories), leaving the new Trek in the hands of Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts.
Fuller noted that “Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast,” so they’re aiming for “absolutely continuing that tradition,” with the introduction of homosexuality.
Star Trek: Discovery will take place ten years before the original series, and is set within the “prime” universe — that is, the continuity established in the original series.
“That allows us to bridge the gap between ‘Enterprise’ and the original series and redefine the visual style of the universe,” Fuller explained. “We’re much closer to Kirk’s mission so we get to play with the iconography of those ships and those uniforms.”
Fuller promised “more aliens” than you would usually expect in a Star Trek cast, as a way of highlighting the diverse array of lifeforms and species populating the universe, particularly in regards to the members of Starfleet. “Usually it’s one person with a bumpy head” surrounded by humans, but that won’t be the case this time around.
Star Trek Discovery is scheduled to premiere on CBS All Access May 2017.
