Star Trek: Starfleet Academy delivered one of its most intense classroom showdowns yet, with Jay-Den Kraag and Caleb Mir’s lab argument setting the emotional tone for that must-see debate sequence later in the episode “Vox in Excelso.” It’s the kind of scene that lives or dies on performance, and Karim Diane has revealed that the key to unlocking Jay-Den’s voice and volatility came down to a single directorial push behind the scenes. Diane said in an interview with ScreenRant:
"[It] Definitely felt liberating in a lot of ways. Because I think up until this point, I, myself, was still figuring out how to play Jay-Den. I am speaking in a much lower octave, and so that took a while to get comfortable with [him]. And huge props to Doug [Aarniokoski], who was our director. I remember the one scene where I'm having an argument with Caleb in the lab. We did a couple of takes, and then he just kind of came back, and he was like, ‘Hey, all right, on this next one. Just like, should I lose it? Should I go crazy? Like, like, really go nuts?’ And I was in my mind, trying to figure [that] out."
Diane continued by saying:
"Me as Karim, I know how to go crazy, but me as Jay-Den down here [doing the voice], I'm like, ‘What does that even sound like? How do I do that?’ So I just gave it a go, and I felt so liberated afterward. And after that moment, that led me into the rest of the episode, where I was like, okay, I can actually add levels to the voice, but also, I can add more emotion. And I really learned how to set and just be free as his character."
That moment happened during the lab confrontation with Caleb, which plays as the emotional dress rehearsal for Jay-Den’s later debate performance. In the episode, Kraag is framed as the “only shy Klingon in history,” visibly terrified of public speaking even as a desperate refugee situation forces him to step up and argue for a “Klingon solution to a Klingon problem” in front of the class.
The class argument lets all of that bottled-up fear and frustration explode in a more intimate setting, so by the time he steps into the formal debate, the character has already crossed a line internally that the audience can feel in his voice and body language.
What’s especially exciting about Diane’s insight is that it shows how seriously Starfleet Academy is taking Jay-Den’s arc as more than just “the Klingon on the cast.” You can feel the difference between an actor simply lowering his register under prosthetics and an actor who has figured out how to build levels into that voice, letting vulnerability, rage, and conviction all sit in the same performance.
That’s why the debate sequence lands as more than a topical “discourse episode,” it feels like a young cadet learning in real time how to turn his fear of speaking into the very tool that might save his people, and that’s quintessential Star Trek.
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