Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is now streaming, and fans have quickly latched onto Holly Hunter's wonderful performance as Captain/Chancellor Nahla Ake. It's an offbeat turn for a Starfleet captain's name, though.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Hunter revealed that much of her performance comes from her research into the origins of the name Nahla. It goes back to the Arabic word, which means “first drink of water in the desert.” Hunter then ran with that.
"I love the whole idea of being water," Hunter said. "So I thought maybe I can just be that kind of fluid, spineless, feline...You know how cats just kind of melt into their thing? So I started doing it and it was really fun. It awakened different impulses and it evoked different responses from people who I was doing scenes with."
This ties to the other unique touch of Ake in that the character rarely sits conventionally in the captain's seat of the USS Athena. She's constantly shown lounging on her command chair with legs up or crossed and going around barefoot. In other words, acting like a cat would.
It’s just the sort of quirky element that the Oscar-winning actress would come up with. Landing Hunter was a boon for the series as the veteran star adds gravitas and humor in equal measure for Ake with the 422-year-old alien leading the class.
Hunter credited time spent with showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau for helping her get into the character and feeling no pressure playing the part. Hunter said during the same interview:
"Before the sets were built, we were just hanging out, getting to know each other. I have been on a very small number of movies where I never met the director until I got to the set. There's something sad about that, but it does happen. This was the absolute total opposite. We got to know each other in a completely different way where there was no pressure."
Hunter’s performance is already a major highlight of Starfleet Academy and proves casting her was the best move to get this new series underway.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is now streaming on Paramount+.