Casting News – Klingons Are Coming to STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
CBS announced Monday it has cast its first Klingons for the newest addition to the Star Trek universe, Star Trek: Discovery. Though the franchise has continued on the big screen in recent years, it hasn’t made a new appearance on TV since Enterprise ended in 2005. As casting news continues to trickle in, we begin to see a fuller picture being formed.
Chris Obi will be leading the Klingons and seeking to unite the houses as T’Kuvma. You can also see Obi in the upcoming Ghost in the Shell. Shazad Latif will be Kol, protégé of T’Kuvma and Commanding Officer of the Klingons. Latif played Dr. Jekyll in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. Mary Chieffo will portray L’Rell, the Battle Deck Commander of the Klingon ship. Chieffo is relatively new to the scene, but her latest project is the drama Shelby’s Vacation, which is set to release in mid-2017.
The trio will carry on the Klingons’ long legacy and “Light the Fire,” as announced in Klingon.
The Klingon race has been in every Star Trek TV Series and several of the movies. They became a more rounded focus in Star Trek: The Next Generation with the introduction of a Klingon main character named Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn). Klingons are a warrior race known for their pride and honor. While tensions with the humans have fluctuated, they became a trusted ally to humankind in The Next Generation. The Klingon look has steadily evolved as budgets changed and time passed. They underwent a complete redesign for the 1979 motion picture which provided the ridged foreheads that they became known for. The continued evolution of their style and relationships will certainly be interesting to watch in Discovery.
Star Trek: Discovery will premiere in 2017 on CBS, then move to CBS All Access for all subsequent episodes.
