‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Team Says Major Jay-Den & Lura Scene Is Why Show Was Made

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1 Episode 4, “Vox in Excelso.”]

Jay-Den (Karim Diané) is not like other Klingons on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and the Thursday, January 29, episode highlights just that.

As flashbacks reveal, his brother knew that he had aspirations beyond those of other Klingons, to be a healer, and encouraged him; his father, however, did not seem to — until Lura (Gina Yashere) suggested that he actually set Jay-Den free with his reaction. Meanwhile, in the present day, Jay-Den grapples with a debate competition that ends up having bigger implications. A Klingon ship carrying eight houses to a refugee camp suffers catastrophic mechanical failure and his family is on board. The debate becomes whether or not the federation should intervene to help, and Jay-Den argues against it. Nahla (Holly Hunter) then brings him on the bridge to use his strategy to get the Klingons to accept help — by making them think they fought for and won a planet as the spoils of war.

Below, in separate interviews, Karim Diané and Noga Landau and Gina Yashere break down the pivotal Jay-Den-centric episode.

Jay-Den is a very different Klingon. Noga, talk about crafting the character, what you want to do with him, and what you’ve seen in Karim bringing him to life.

Noga Landau: I am happy to, and then I want Karim to jump in and say it all too. So much of this character is him. But in crafting the character, we always knew that we wanted to have a Klingon on who dreamed of being a doctor. Not only because it’s so different from the typical Klingon character that we see on Star Trek shows, but because it also just shines a light on the fact that there actually is a rich history of Klingon healers. Klingons are not just warriors. They do everything. And I think it was important to design a character that was surprising for the audience, but also at his core, and this is where I think Karim should really speak to it, is classically Klingon, still prides himself on his people and his heritage and who he is through and through.

Karim Diané: I remember first reading this episode and realizing, oh my gosh, I think this is my life actually., I’m West African, I’m half-Guinean, and half Congolese, and my tribe is Mandingo, and Mandingo men are known for historically being warriors. So much like Jay-Den, I had no interest in being a warrior. I had no interest in sports or basketball or soccer or whatever they tried to make me do. I just wanted to dance and sing, and that was a big risk coming from my background. But yeah, I, much like Jay-Den, decided to take a step out and give it a try, and I’d say it’s going alright for both of us.

Related

Paul Giamatti & Holly Hunter Talk Facing off on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' (VIDEO)

We had those great flashbacks. And then Lura reframed those events that his father set him free. Karim, by the end of the episode, does he believe that’s what’s true?

Diané: That’s a really, really good question because I think about that moment sometimes, I’m like, “Is that…?” I don’t know if the truth even really matters, honestly. I think just the most important thing is not necessarily what happened, but what he believes to be true. And he has to believe it to be true in order for him to become who he is to become, I guess.

Talk about filming that scene with Gina and how much he needed it.

Diané: Oh my God, that was a really, really emotional scene. I cried a lot. I was a mess. I really was. The tears came from a really real place because I was thinking about a lot of things in my own personal life that I could relate to — losing someone that means a lot to you. I thought about my grandmother the whole entire time. And so yeah, every single word came from a real place within me. Gina is a phenomenal, phenomenal actress. So it felt really nice to just have — A lot of our scenes are with a lot of people and with group scenes and in classrooms. So it was really nice to just have a really special private moment with this lovely actress and this incredible character, seeing a different side of both of them. Yeah, it was a beautiful, emotional moment.

Gina, what did Lura see in Jay-Den in that conversation?

Gina Yashere: Obviously, he broke tradition in his family in that he didn’t want to kill things, he didn’t want to fight in that way. And so she gets to say, “Look, you’re a warrior in a different way,” which is very new for Klingons. They’re very much about eating weird meats and fighting and blood lust. She softened enough to really say to him, “Look, you are still a warrior in your own way and don’t look down on yourself and your father recognized that in you.” So that was a really beautiful moment.

And so filming that was really nice because it was literally just us in the room. The cameras, we forgot they existed for a while. And so yeah, I really enjoyed that because it was super intimate, it was super close. It was a beautiful scene. And I really hoped that it would come out as good as I hoped; I thought it felt in the moment. And watching it, I was like, “No, we killed that.”

Noga, what did you want to do with that Jay-Den and Lura scene?

Landau: I think there’s so much intrigue around who Lura is and around her connection to both her Jem’Hadar lineage, but to her Klingon lineage as well, what it means to grow up outside of the diaspora that Jay-Den grew up in. And I think it was really important to us in having this scene. We always knew the scene was going to be the emotional turning point of the episode, and we also knew that our audience had been waiting for it ever since they met these two characters. And it was very important to us in this moment that we see Lura do something a little surprising, and that’s speak candidly to a young man and not in the role of a cadet master and the role truly as a Klingon elder. And to show that Lura, despite the fact that she’s usually a sledgehammer of a person in her day-to-day life, actually has the capability of meeting Jay-Den where he is, that she knows in that moment that Jay-Den, because he is who he is, needs someone to speak to him gently, but firmly and to draw on their shared heritage, to drive a message home. And so we were so excited to see Gina and Karim do that scene together.

And I remember watching them do it and being so emotional with the connection between the two actors. It’s one of my favorite scenes this season, and it’s one of the reasons why we made Starfleet Academy, so we could do scenes like that between teachers and students.

Brooke Palmer/Paramount+.

The other dynamic I’m really enjoying is Jay-Den and Caleb’s (Sandro Rosta) relationship, and that’s been fun to watch build. What makes that what Jay-Den needs, and how much is it what Jay-Den says, that Caleb’s like his brother?

Diané: Yeah, I mean, I think that it is vital to Jay-Den’s existence at Starfleet Academy. He’s alone, he’s all by himself. There’s nobody else exactly like him. And so it’s important that he has somebody that is there to defend him and be his partner on this journey. I think we all need that.

Landau: I think ever since Caleb stands up and defends Jay-Den in our pilot, when Darem is taunting him with the binoculars, whether Caleb likes it or not, he is growing closer and closer to Jay-Den. And it’s a friendship that’s genuine. It’s probably his first real friend that he’s had because he grew up not being able to trust people and everything that Jayden has done for him comes from a place of genuine love and genuine trust. And this episode is really about how these two characters realize that they have so much more in common than they realized, that even though they seem so different. Jay-Den is someone who grew up with a tight-knit family. Caleb did not. They both feel like outsiders in some ways is Starfleet Academy. But what really draws them together is that they’re carrying these ghosts from their past. They’re carrying this guilt, this shame. For Caleb, it comes in the form of his mother. For Jay-Den, it comes in the form of his family and that’s what binds them together as brothers, actually, more than anything.

Diané: I’ll also say that as Caleb and Jay-Den grew close, so were Karim and Sandro. I remember so specifically in the moment that we had both in the science lab and then also on the stairs, even in the scene where we’re debating, it was the first time I was really getting to know Sandro. He was the last one cast, and so I hadn’t spent that much time with him. I’m very defensive about this cast. I love them down, and I just didn’t know him yet. I was like, who is this kid kind of coming, trying to break up what we got? I was kind of defensive about it at first. And so those moments, it’s real. I remember finishing one of the scenes, and I was like, “Bro, I actually feel, like, a little closer to you now. You did a great job. This was a lot of fun. I can’t wait to do it more.” Yeah, so those moments feel very real.

There seems to be a possible romance brewing between Jay-Den and Kyle (Dale Whibley) from war college, which I am enjoying seeing. What can you both say about that, and what’s coming up there?

Diané: We were just talking about this. What I can say is, yeah, I mean, there’s definitely romance for sure in Jay-Den’s future, there’s romance for every single one of these cadets. We’re all in college, and all these aliens are really hot, so it’s hard not to —

Landau: Can that be the name of your article? “All these aliens are really hot”?

Diané: So yeah, there’s definitely romance in Jay-Den’s future, I’ll definitely say that.

Noga, what can you say about Jay-Den and Kyle?

Landau: Well, it’s only the beginning, so keep watching because yeah, you might have some fun if you’re a fan of Kyle, but the course of true love never did run smooth, and there’s other people entering the mix also for Jay-Den.

Because it’s also Starfleet Academy versus War College. But it seems like Kyle is not as into the competition. Is that what’s playing into the fact that this relationship can build?

Landau: Kyle’s a really special character because while he is at the War College, he is a gentle soul, he’s a loyal soul, and I think you’ll see that later this season. It’ll definitely play out. But yeah, Kyle is special. We love Dale. Shout out to Dale Whibley, who plays him. We shot this scene where Karim and Dale meet each other for the first time on the stairs. That was one of the first things we shot, right, Karim? I think about how early in the schedule that was, and I’ll be honest, in the writing process, at first, we weren’t quite sure because you never know who’s going to have chemistry. I have to say, as soon as we saw those two on screen together, we were like, “Oh, we’re going to be fine. These two are real good.” [Laughs]

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Thursdays, Paramount+