Jeffrey Hunter’s Son Praises Anson Mount, CBS Submitting ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Actors For Emmys

Today’s Discovery update has some high praise for new cast member Anson Mount, CBS dreaming of Emmys and some fun stuff from social media.

Jeffrey Hunter’s son praises casting of Anson Mount

The biggest news of April has been Anson Mount being cast to play Captain Christopher Pike, a role originally played in the first Star Trek pilot by late actor Jeffrey Hunter. In a new interview with the Sammi Speaks Geek podcast, Jeffrey Hunter’s eldest son Chris Hunter talked about the casting of Mount, saying:

“I’m really happy about Anson Mount…I’ve been watching Anson Mount and he really has the qualities that you need in Pike. You know Pike is a very serious captain. My dad played him as a guy who was burned out, who really cared way too much about his crew, and was really tested by the old Talosians. Bruce Greenwood was wonderful as Pike. He really had those qualities as a mentor. I think Anson Mount is going to have the same qualities that those two guys did. He’s got some big shoes to fill and think he is going to really be successful.”

While acknowledging that Mount resembles his father, Chris Hunter said that isn’t why he thinks it was good casting, noting “What’s important is they understand who Pike is.” He did note that he sees similarity with Mount’s work in Hell on Wheels and his father’s work in a number of westerns and how Mount portrays a similar character style of “independence and calm demeanor.”

Shortly after he was cast, Mount also acknowledged his resemblance to the late actor in a Facebook post (using the comparison image created by TrekMovie.com) and adding the note “doing my best Jeffrey Hunter.”

Bring your dog to Discovery day?

Speaking of Mount, last Friday the actor posted this pic showing he has brought his dog Mac with him as he shoots Discovery. The photo from Twitter also shows that Mount – who is often seen with a beard or some level of facial hair – will be portraying Pike clean shaven.

CBS hoping for acting and series nominations

We are coming up on Emmy voting time and CBS Studios is preparing their submissions for consideration. The Gold Derby is reporting that Star Trek: Discovery is one of a handful of shows CBS is making a big push for, submitting it for Best Drama Series as well as submitting a number of names for the various acting categories.

List of CBS Studios submissions for Discovery.

“STAR TREK: DISCOVERY”
Drama Series
Drama Actress – Sonequa Martin-Green
Drama Supporting Actress – Mary Chieffo, Mary Wiseman, Michelle Yeoh
Drama Supporting Actor – Wilson Cruz, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp
Drama Guest Actress – Jayne Brook
Drama Guest Actor – James Frain, Kenneth Mitchell, Rainn Wilson

The Gold Derby report focused solely on series and acting submissions. Presumably there will also be submissions for other categories. The Star Trek franchise has picked up 155 Emmy nominations over the decades, however only three of those were for acting (all for Leonard Nimoy for each season of TOS). The franchise has also picked up three nominations for Drama Series, for the first two seasons of TOS and the final season of TNG. The Emmy nominations will be announced in July.

CBS is hoping Sonequa Martin-Green will be the first in the franchise to be nominated for an Emmy for  Best Actress

Behind the scenes pic of the day: Sewing Discovery

Production on the second season of Discovery started last week, so every department is busy making new Star Trek. This morning costume designer Gersha Phillips shared a shot on Instagram of the “early morning sewing team” hard at work.

Fan art of the day: Disco Cage

Cartoonist Lee Sargent is spending a year making a new Star Trek-themed cartoon every day. On Sunday he posted a fun mashup of Discovery and the TOS pilot “The Cage.” It even got the attention of some of the Star Trek: Discovery crew, garnering some likes retweets from writers and cast from the show.


Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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So the actress who plays my least favourite character and seems to have one expression may get an Emmy nomination, but some of my fav actors from Trek, such as Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Colm Meaney, Nana Visitor et all always got overlooked?

Wow–life is just horribly, horribly unjust. Hope you can bear it anyway if SMG gets the nod.

I know, eh? People like Captain Neil believe that anybody on the Berrmanverse shows needed to be nominated, but even with great acting skills, the way the shows were written (in particular the writing of the scripts in the first season of Star Trek-The Next Generation) ensures that nobody involved would be getting an Emmy for what they did aside and apart from SFX work and set design.

In short, life isn’t fair.

Relax. She will not win. What’s crazy is the cast that’s lumped together for the guys.. “Drama Supporting Actor” – Wilson Cruz, Jason Isaacs (who should not be in a “supporting” role), Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp were Incredible. Plus “Drama Supporting Actress” – Mary Chieffo, Mary Wiseman, Michelle Yeoh as the show went on just became totally Fantastic! But that’s me.

Yeah I was a little surprised at where they slotted Jason Isaacs – Drama -Supporting- Actor WHUUT?? I could see that if he were in fewer than eight episodes, but ….

Believe it or not, there are rules governing the definitions of the categories. Although I tend to disagree with many of them. For example, I think any series with fewer than 15 episodes should qualify in the “mini-series” category. It just does not feel fair that the 10-13 episode shows be lumped in with the 20+ episodes shows.

Yes because a human raised in Vulcan society would just be extremely emotional and expressive wouldn’t she? Ugh…tired of some “fans” not even getting it. We know already, you don’t like Discovery, move on already there’s HOURS of Trek on Netflix you can enjoy.

Haha, yeah funny how some think that living on a planet where you are taught to suppress emotion won’t impact how one might express things and feelings. Oh well, for those who think “TOS or bust” there are plenty of fan made shows like Star Trek Continues and Star Trek The New Voyages and some are actually quite good and well-written. For me, I prefer watching Discovery and I think the new show and the new cast are great but there are some out there that don’t agree. Fortunately for them – there are alternatives.

Dean, the problem is, that the fan shows are over thanks to a certain grifter who-shall-not-be-named that destroyed all of them with his vapor project fan film. These so-called ‘fans’ could watch Discovery, but something tells me that their brains and bodies would shut down if they had to watch more then a few minutes of it due (most likely) to the skin color of the main character and the subject matter of the plots on the show.

I find it disingenuous that a common response is to tell people to go watch reruns of something they have seen already. What those who say such things seem to fail to grasp is that fans want NEW stuff. Not only that, they want the new stuff to be, you know… Good. At least mediocre. And they aren’t even getting that.

Ok, but what’s “good”? That’s entirely subjective.

Yeah. I did add a little editorial there at the end.

Not only that, they want the new stuff to be, you know… exactly the same.

Do you know what disingenuous means?

PEB,

Re: human raised in Vulcan society

Where does the human schoolteacher, Amanda, figure into your equations? The wallpaper?

Amanda had human parents. Amanda wasn’t raised by Vulcans because her parents were killed. Amanda didn’t have to feel as though she had to live up to Vulcan (Sarek’s) expectations which is what was exactly shown when Burnam as a child practically pleads with Sarek that she can do better and maybe even learn to train in the Vulcan language. Amanda fell in love with a Vulcan, and “understood” Vulcan people. That doesn’t at all mean that she would be any less human than anyone else. In TOS she even shows frustration with Spock and Sarek for being stubborn. She is emotionally, human. We went through this in TNG with the human boy who was taken in by the alien race as a young child and by the time he was a teenager, that race was more normal to him than humanity. So…that’s exactly where Amanda figures into this for me.

PEB,

Michael was raised by a human, Amanda from Earth, and a Vulcan, Sarek, who where BOTH her legal guardians. The fact that you keep incorrectly stating that she was “raised by Vulcans” confirms my surmising that you merely regard Amanda as part of the wallpaper of Vulcan. Your wallpapering of her goes so far that you even fancy that somehow the away on diplomatic missions Sarek spent more time raising Michael than her other parent, the non-vulcan, Amanda.

It’s as if you haven’t even watched an episode of Discovery. You can clearly see how young she was when she lost her parents. If she was put in Sarek’s care, went to school with Vulcans, wanted to attend the Vulcan Science Academy instead of Starfleet, it’s pretty clear that she felt or wanted to be more Vulcan than human. Georgeou even admits that Sarek felt it would be good for her to mentor Burnham to help her connect with her humanity.

PEB,

Also, in the off chance that you actually entertain the folly of believing that somehow other Vulcans were involved in raising Michael, I remind you that every iteration of STAR TREK has hit home that Sarek is pretty much the sole Vulcan in this era who cared to get intimate enough with humans to bother to care for and raise them. So could you please name who these, other than Sarek, Vulcans were that helped him raise Michael as you appear to continually assert?

I guess you don’t believe that if you grow up around certain people that they aren’t helping to shape who you become… A human child having to grow up on Vulcan (yes Amanda was there, we get that) surrounded by other Vulcan children and Vulcan adults, learning around other Vulcan children would have a lasting effect on that child. It would be completely different if Sarek, Amanda, Spock and Burnham were living on Earth but they weren’t. That’s my whole point.

Indeed, I wish that these so-called ‘fans’ would move on, and stick to the older TV shows and fan-created web series, but they won’t because they feel that Discovery somehow ‘besmirched’ Star Trek in some way. It hasn’t though.

I wonder if many of the people who hate Burnham are just letting their racism come out (it did come out when Avery Brooks was cast as Sisko on Deep Space Nine in a small way.

I believe Stewart got ONE nomination. From season 7. I recall Nimoy got nominated all three years for supporting actor in a dramatic role. And TOS itself was nominated for Best Drama for season one and two.

Yep. Trump in the White House still seems very surreal, but it is what it is….

Phil,

No, what’s surreal is that THE SIMPSONS explored it and then it happened.

She hasn’t been nominated. A bunch of actors were submitted for consideration to be nominated.

I’m assuming previous Trek productions submitted their actors too. Were syndicated shows in the running?

Careful… You’re starting to sound a lot like a misogynist.

Thanks for the shout out guys – I didn’t realise they’d seen it let alone shared it :)

Your drawrings are hilarious – Janeway vs. God, ROFLFWIW

Thanks! Yeah that one is possibly my current favourite but I try not to favour any of them too much ;)

Oh my god what a CUUUUUUTE doggy!

Any captain who brings his pup to work can’t be all bad.

Oh, and PS, those intrusive slide in ads are really causing problems for me on mobile iOS. Anyone else having issues? Anthony, I know the site needs to make money to survive, but the slider ads are super obnoxious and are making me lean towards not visiting or posting here anymore. They are that bad. Please do something about this. Thanks.

I’m not having issues but it sure is annoying as hell.

One problem that it causes is that the iOS keyboard behaves erratically when trying to type a comment (like this one). The audio and video auto-playing on the desktop is also an intrusive annoyance.

Mary Chieffo has to be the most underrated member of the the Discovery cast. She was absolutely amazing.

Actors in sci fi and horror series tend to get overlooked since such shows are rarely taken seriously even when they’re met with praise from top critics. The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, BSG (one nod for Mary McConnell, at least) and the list goes on.

I honestly cannot see that show getting any Emmy nominations beyond the production ones. (effects, lightning, etc) The acting was adequate but nothing spectacular. And the show itself was woefully sub par. But you never know… The TV Academy of Arts and Sciences has made some weird nominations and wins before… I mean how does one explain SNL getting the Emmy for Comedy/Variety series last year? It makes zero sense.

For the record, that Sargent cartoon looks more like it belongs in “The Cage” era than the show itself does. Maybe Sargent should have designed the costumes?

I didn’t think you could nominate a plank of wood for an emmy.

Sorry to speculate but in the sewing room photo, is that the sleeve of an Enterprise science officer uniform on the table in the background??

That might actually be a great spot!!

How old is this photo from Chris Hunter? The guy is born 1952!

There are no photos of Chris Hunter in this article. All of the side-by-side comparison photos with Anson Mount are of Jeffrey Hunter. As for the age of that headline photo (the one where Hunter is wearing the red sweater), it must be from the 1950’s, maybe even the late 1940’s… he looks *young* in that picture. Hunter was 38 when “The Cage” was filmed (he was born in 1926).

oh okay, I recognised Jeffrey Hunter and thought the other one is Chris. But that is Mount! Thx :-)

No…no…no… Anson Mount’s ear is the wrong shape! Not a match for Jeffrey Hunter. IT’S A DISASTER!!!!
[grinning, ducking and running]

Chris Hunter is quite a good looking man! Life father, like son!!