Paul Giamatti on His 'Big, Classic Fight' In Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Premiere

Warning: MILD SPOILERS for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's series premiere

Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti loved his Star Trek: Starfleet Academy fight scene. Executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres with two episodes on January 15 on Paramount+.

Paul Giamatti plays Nus Braka, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1's recurring villain. A half-Klingon/half-Tellarite space pirate with a grudge against the 32nd-century United Federation of Planets, Braka has a thrilling hand-to-hand battle with Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta), one of Starfleet Academy's young cadets, in the series premiere.

At the CCA press conference with international journalists for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Paul Giamatti was joined by his co-star, Academy Award winner Holly Hunter, who plays Captain Nahla Ake.

Giamatti was asked about the choreography of his Star Trek: Starfleet Academy fight scene. Paul revealed how much he performed himself, and that he "loved" working with Sandro Rosta. Read Paul and Holly's responses below:

Paul Giamatti: They came to me and said, “So, we have this big fight.” It was in the script, it was nothing, really. It was kind of like we kind of pushed each other around, [and] that was it. And Alex [Kurtzman, who directed the pilot] said, “Now, that fight is gonna have to be like a real fight. We’re gonna have to have a really crazy, violent fight.

And I was like, “Okay.” I mean, I’m almost 60 and, you know, I haven’t done much like that in a long time. But I was game for it. And I loved doing it with Sandro because I trusted him entirely. And it was wonderful. It was all very choreographed and very worked out.

Holly Hunter: It looked incredible.

Paul Giamatti: 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.

Holly Hunter: Highly successful.

Paul Giamatti: And it came out good. It really did.

Holly Hunter: Great.

Paul Giamatti: 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.

Moderator: Wow, so you paid your dues to Star Trek.

Paul Giamatti: 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.

Paul Giamatti is a lifelong Star Trek fan. His desire to play a Klingon in Star Trek led to executive producer Alex Kurtzman casting Paul as Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1's villain. The character of Nus Braka was created for Giamatti, but Nus became a hybrid Klingon and Tellarite to differentiate him from Jay-Kraag (Karim Diane), one of Starfleet Academy's cadets who is a full Klingon.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's NYCC trailer offers a brief glimpse of the showdown between Nus Braka and Caleb Mir. Though Sandro Rosta is younger and bigger than Paul Giamatti, Caleb Mir is human. Thus, the physically more powerful Nus Braka is seen tossing Caleb into the bulkhead with his Klingon and Tellarite strength.

Paul Giamatti gets to live his dream of being a Star Trek villain in Starfleet Academy, and it's made even better by having his own fight scene. Nus Braka battling Caleb Mir evokes Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) famous fisticuffs in Star Trek: The Original Series, but with the benefit of modern filmmaking's spectacular stunts.

As Nus Braka in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Paul Giamatti joins the ranks of classic Star Trek villains. However, not every Star Trek big bad gets into a physical altercation with one of Starfleet's heroes, which means Paul Giamatti's Nus Braka joins an even more elite list of Star Trek baddies.

Watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's NYCC trailer here: