Movies & TV Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Holly Hunter Explains Why Nahla’s Barefoot, Among Other Things “You can lick those floors, but it feels really good to the feet.” By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 15, 2026 Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer/Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer/Paramount+ There hasn’t been a Starfleet captain quite like Chancellor Nahla, played to perfection by Holly Hunter in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The first two episodes of the show give us a glimpse into the personality of Nahla, a many-centuries-old half-Lanthanite who likes to lounge in the captain’s chair, drink other people’s old cups of coffee, and walk around many unexpected places barefoot. In my interview with Hunter and Paul Giamatti (who plays the villain this season), Hunter joked that those floors were “uber polished—you can lick those floors, but it feels really good to the feet.” It turns out that Nahla’s preference to walk around sans shoes came from co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the character with Hunter in mind. “Alex had written that my character was barefoot, and I loved that,” Hunter said during a press conference for members of the Television Critics Association (TCA). “That kind of opened up this whole idea of what she might be like, physically, for me.” Hunter expanded on her approach to Nahla in my interview with her: “It had to do with her being [part-Lanthanite], and it also had to do with my name, which is ‘water in the desert.’” In keeping with her name, she decided to give her performance “a liquidity” that informed every scene she was in. “Wherever I am, whatever environment that I’m in, I’m going to explore it with my body,” she said. “It gave every scene, many scenes, a whole different vibe, a different texture, and it put me in a different place.” Photo Credit: Miller Mobley/Paramount+ Hunter also shared at the TCA press conference that having Giamatti attached was a significant factor for her. “In my time of auditioning for stuff, I never auditioned for Star Trek,” she said. “And then Alex [Kurtzman] and [co-showrunner Noga Landau] just presented me with this script and asked me if I wanted to do it.” She continued jokingly, “One of the reasons why I immediately was on alert is because Paul [Giamatti] was attached. And I was like, ‘Wow… this is a red flag. I should avoid this thing at all costs.” Hunter then made clear that it was a “really easy yes.” And as for Giamatti? Kurtzman told me in my interview with him that he reached out only after hearing that the actor dreamt of playing a Klingon in the franchise. “We had the greatest conversation with him and assumed he would maybe do one episode,” Kurtzman said. “And he said, ‘No, I want to be the villain. I want to be Nus Braka.’” Braka, however, is only part-Klingon; the character is also part-Tellarite, a porcine species. Playing a Tellarite, however, was something Giamatti was more than happy to take on. “I was thrilled,” he told me. “As a kid, when I watched the show, there’s an episode in The Original Series that features a Tellarite. It might be the only time a Tellarite was featured until now [Editor’s note: Jason Mantzoukas’ Jankom Pog on Prodigy would like to have a word], and it always stuck with me… so I was very excited: [an] argumentative pig person seemed like a really fun thing to also do, and I get to do a Klingon.” New episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiere on Paramount+ on Thursdays.[end-mark] The post <i>Star Trek: Starfleet Academy</i>: Holly Hunter Explains Why Nahla’s Barefoot, Among Other Things appeared first on Reactor.