List of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds characters
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an American television series created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet for the streaming service Paramount+. It is the 11th Star Trek series and debuted in 2022 as part of Kurtzman's expanded Star Trek Universe. A spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery, it follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds and carry out missions during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series.
Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn respectively star as Pike, Spock, and Number One, all characters from The Original Series. Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, and Babs Olusanmokun also star, joined by Bruce Horak for the first season and Martin Quinn from the third. Many of the regular actors and several guest stars portray younger versions of characters from The Original Series.
This list includes the main cast of Strange New Worlds, guest stars with recurring roles, and other noteworthy guests and co-stars.
Cast overview
Main characters
Christopher Pike
Christopher Pike is the captain of the, who learned in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery that he will suffer a horrible fate.Pike was first portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in Star Trek: The Original Series as a "gruff, authoritative commander" whom Mount described as "first act Pike... a very young man very self-involved". In contrast, Mount's "second act Pike" is confident, collaborative, and empathetic. Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman believed that a "more thoughtful and contemporary approach" was required to avoid the toxic masculinity of some previous Star Trek captains, and Mount said his Pike represented "true masculinity". Inspired by Mount's own leadership style, Pike's quarters include a kitchen where he convenes the crew, cooks for them, and builds consensus. In the first-season finale, "A Quality of Mercy", Pike sees a future where he is spared his fate but Spock is injured instead. Goldsman said the episode was about changing Pike's fate from a curse to a choice, and Mount said Pike was more resolute and free after deciding not to try to change his future. Pike's hairstyle was widely commented on, drawing comparisons to Elvis Presley and the title character of the animated series Johnny Bravo, spawning Internet memes and its own fan-run Twitter account, and being called "the best hair quiff on television". Mount enjoyed this and attributed the style to "hair guru" Daniel Losco.
Spock
Spock is a half-Vulcan, half-human science officer aboard the Enterprise.The series takes the opportunity to explore Spock's human emotions before he becomes the more "computer-like" version portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in The Original Series. Peck said he was "constantly checking in" with Nimoy's portrayal, and scenes exploring Spock's emotions were "a constant source of anxiety" for him to get right. Strange New Worlds expands on the complicated relationship between Spock and his fiancée, T'Pring; co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers acknowledged that they interpreted The Original Series differently from what fans had previously done to expand on T'Pring's role in this stage of Spock's life. The series also explores a romance between Spock and Christine Chapel, who Peck said was one of Spock's "great teachers about his humanness". As a Vulcan, the character is portrayed with pointed ears and slanted eyebrows. Legacy Effects re-designed the prosthetics for Spock's ears and eyebrows to be closer to those used on Nimoy than the ones used on Peck for Discovery. Prosthetics department head Chris Bridges convinced Peck to shave his eyebrows, which he chose not to do on Discovery, to improve the application process and reduce the time it took from two hours to 70 minutes.
Christine Chapel
Christine Chapel is a civilian nurse on the Enterprise.Myers felt the character's portrayal by Majel Barrett in The Original Series came from a "very different conception of women and of marriage and what people would do in their jobs" that modern audiences would not expect, and sought to tell new stories inspired by Bush's strengths. Bush said the character had a "distinct essence" but also felt there was room to explore her youth and backstory; the actress focused on the character's "dry and sarcastic" personality and developed that into a sense of humor. She said Chapel first sees Spock as a "science subject" and is caught off guard when their relationship develops.
La'An Noonien-Singh
La'An Noonien-Singh is the Enterprise newly assigned chief of security, whose family was murdered by the lizard-like Gorn when she was a child.Chong described the character as guarded and struggling with survivor's guilt but noted that she opens up as the series goes on and the crew of the Enterprise becomes her new family. Serving as security chief allows her to protect that family. La'An is also a descendant of the famous Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh, and has been discriminated against because of this. Chong related to this aspect of the character because she was bullied as a child for her ethnicity. The second season introduces a romance between La'An and an alternate version of James T. Kirk. Ava Cheung plays young La'An.
Nyota Uhura
Nyota Uhura is introduced as a cadet on the Enterprise specializing in linguistics.Despite Uhura's important role throughout the Star Trek franchise, the writers felt there was a lot still unknown about her that could be explored beyond her just being a Starfleet officer. As one of her first television roles, Gooding related to Uhura's experiences as a cadet who is learning about the Enterprise. The actress chose to keep her own natural hair rather than wear a wig to match previous Uhura actresses Nichelle Nichols and Zoe Saldaña because she felt they both represented the "black femininity" of their times and she could, too, with a modern look.
Erica Ortegas
Erica Ortegas is the Enterprise helmsman.Navia described Ortegas as a "highly skilled pilot a veteran... she can handle a gun and also crack a joke". The actress compared Ortegas to one of her favorite Star Trek characters, Jonathan Frakes's William Riker. Navia worked with John Van Citters—the vice president of Star Trek brand management at CBS Studios—and the series' motion graphics team, who create the display for Ortegas's on-set control panel, to understand how to fly the Enterprise accurately. The surname is a reference to Jose Ortegas, a navigator in the original Star Trek pitch.
Joseph M'Benga
Joseph M'Benga is the Enterprise chief medical officer, who is secretly trying to cure his daughter, Rukiya, of a rare disease.When Goldsman first discussed the character with Olusanmokun he said, " was a man of war, and he's now a healer." Olusanmokun appreciated that description and chances to explore M'Benga's backstory as it is revealed. The actor researched combat medics for the second-season episode "Under the Cloak of War". Olusanmokun felt he was "crafting something anew" with his portrayal since M'Benga only appears in two episodes of The Original Series. The character was not given a first name in that series, but was referred to as Joseph in the script for the unproduced episode "Shol". Posters at the 2022 Star Trek: Mission Chicago convention referred to him as "Jabilo", a name used in some non-canon novels, but the producers soon stated that this was incorrect and the name Joseph was eventually used in Strange New Worlds.
Hemmer
Hemmer is the Enterprise chief engineer.Hemmer is an Aenar, an albino subspecies of Andorians who are generally depicted as blind; Horak is blind in one eye with limited sight in the other, and the first legally blind regular actor in a Star Trek series. The writers always intended for Hemmer to die in the first season as a way to increase the series' stakes, since most of the main characters are still alive in The Original Series. Horak was told about this when he was first cast and hoped to build the character into a "fan favorite". He compared the role to the Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi, serving as a mentor to the young Uhura. He added that Hemmer's death would not be the end of his involvement in the series; Horak returned as Hemmer for a recording that Uhura watches in the second season. Horak's Aenar prosthetics took three-and-a-half hours to apply each morning. The character's original design included contact lenses to give Hemmer white eyes, but Horak found them painful to wear and an eye specialist suggested that Horak not risk further damage to his sight. His eyes were digitally altered by the visual effects team instead.
Number One
Una Chin-Riley / Number One is the first officer of the Enterprise and second-in-command to Pike.The character was only referred to as "Number One" in The Original Series, where she was also portrayed by Majel Barrett, but she was given the name Una Chin-Riley in non-canon Star Trek novels. Strange New Worlds brings this name into official Star Trek canon. The series confirms that Number One is an Illyrian, which Original Series writer D.C. Fontana established in the novel Vulcan's Glory, and reveals that Illyrians genetically modify themselves. This explains why Number One appears human while the Illyrians seen in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Damage" do not, and also aligns with the description of Illyrians practicing "selective breeding" in Greg Cox's novel Child of Two Worlds. The Strange New Worlds writers believed it would be interesting for Number One to be at odds with Starfleet's anti-genetic alteration laws. The first season ends with Number One being arrested for being an Illyrian, and the showrunners said they did not know how they would resolve this story when they added the cliffhanger. They were glad when the writers came up with a "straight-down-the-middle classic Trek episode" to address it in the second season, referring to the courtroom episode "Ad Astra per Aspera". Anna Claire Beitel plays young Una.