Paul Giamatti cast as main villain in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Paul Giamatti is set to play the main villain on the forthcoming Paramount+ series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

The show’s joint showrunners and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau issued a statement on Tuesday hearkening the addition of the Oscar-nominated actor, 57, to the cast.

‘Sometimes you’re lucky enough to discover that one of the greatest actors alive is also a huge Star Trek fan, and meeting Paul was one of those miraculous moments for us,’ they said in a joint statement.

They added that ‘the sheer delight with which he dove in on Starfleet Academy is only surpassed by the gratitude we feel about him joining our incredible cast.’

The premise of the upcoming series in the franchise created by the late Gene Roddenberry is focused on a team of cadets training to be Starfleet officers. 

Paul Giamatti, 57, is set to play the main villain on the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Pictured in February 2024 at the BAFTA Awards in London 

The show’s joint showrunners and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau issued a statement on Tuesday hearkening the addition of the Oscar-nominated actor to the cast, calling the entertainer ‘one of the greatest actors alive’

Giamatti’s character on the series was described as ‘a man with an ominous past connected to one of [the] cadets,’ Deadline reported.

Giamatti will join a cast that includes Holly Hunter, who portrays the Starfleet Academy’s captain and chancellor on the sci-fi series.

The series’ production will commence in the next few months, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

News of comes a week after Giamatti was revealed to be working on a TV adaptation of the popular horror film series Hostel.  

Giamatti will collaborate on the forthcoming project with Eli Roth, Chris Briggs and Mike Fleiss, who are executive producers on the adapted TV series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The show will be in conjunction with the studio Fifth Season, which also works on the Apple TV+ series Severance.

Sources described the forthcoming project as a ‘modern adaptation’ and ‘elevated thriller’ that will reinvent the Hostel franchise nearly two decades after the first installment, Hostel, arrived in theaters in January of 2006. 

Details about Giamatti’s involvement in that project were being kept ‘under wraps,’ according to the outlet.

Giamatti’s character on the series was described as ‘a man with an ominous past connected to one of [the] cadets’

Giamatti was busy earlier this year amid award season, garnering major plaudits for his performance as Paul Hunham in the feted dramatic comedy The Holdovers. Pictured at the Oscars this past March in LA

Giamatti told Entertainment Weekly in 2013 that he and Roth had talks while the original Hostel film was in production, as he had been in Czech Republic making the 2006 mystery film The Illusionist with Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.

‘Eli was shooting Hostel in Prague and I was shooting The Illusionist and I met him,’ Giamatti told the outlet. ‘We talked about me actually killing somebody in that movie but it never panned out.’

Giamatti was busy earlier this year amid award season, garnering major plaudits for his performance as Paul Hunham in the feted dramatic comedy The Holdovers.

Giamatti won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy for the role. He was also nominated at the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and BAFTA Awards.