Giamatti broke his finger in Captain Kirk-esque fight
It’s clear from the upcoming streaming series' official trailer that there’s some bad blood between Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti) and Starfleet Academy cadet Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta). In the footage, Nus did taunt a very young Caleb, insisting he hold onto his hate. And, apparently, the boy did. However, does this deep-seated anger mean fans will get to see more hand-to-hand Kirk-esque fights featuring Giamatti’s half-Klingon, half-Tellarite villain. After all, Giamatti did break a finger during the stunt. The actor said in the same interview:
“And it came out great. And I will have you know, there’s one shot in that where it isn’t me, and it isn’t him, only because it was too dangerous for us to do this thing, so they wouldn’t let us do it. But other than that, it’s me and him. And he split his lip, and I broke my finger, and it was fantastic. I loved doing it. But they did say to me, ‘We have plans for another fight.’ And I said, ‘No, no.’ That was it for me. I’ve done my big fight. But I loved doing it. It was really fun.”
One of the only things I didn’t like about Star Trek: The Next Generation was how Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) commanded the Enterprise-D in a practical fashion. He rarely put himself in danger like Captain Kirk (William Shatner) did in The Original Series. Thus, fans got less fistfights from Picard.
Kirk was always ready to get involved in fisticuffs, and I loved those hand-to-hand fights in TOS. So, it’s great knowing that Starfleet Academy’s young protagonist (Caleb), mixes it up once with Nus Braka. I hate they both took a bit of a beating, though. Giamatti added:
“But it was very, very worked out and choreographed wonderfully, great stunt men, and, yeah, great people. And Sandro, I loved doing it with him. We had a really good time doing it. A Star Trek fight, a kind of big, classic Star Trek fight. Yeah, like The Original Series, they always had these great fights. So, yeah, it was good.”
Does knowing that Nus Braka and Caleb Mir throw down in hand-to-hand combat like Captain James T. Kirk have you even more excited to see Star Trek: Starfleet Academy? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.
Live long and prosper, Trekkies!