Congratulations, Zoe Saldaña! The actress picked up an Academy Award last night for her work in the film Emilia Pérez—and joined an illustrious group of Star Trek actors with Oscars on their shelves. Here’s a list of all them, in reverse chronological order of their wins. (If we missed any, let us know in the comments.)
Zoe Saldaña (2025)
Uhura (Star Trek, Into Darkness, Beyond)
Saldaña played Nyota Uhura in all three of the Star Trek Kelvinverse movies (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond), and can also be seen in the Marvel universe (as Gamora), and the Avatar series (as Neytiri). She currently stars in the Paramount+ series Lioness, and her dance card is only going to fill up more now that she’s an Oscar winner, having taken home the Best Supporting Actress Award for Emilia Pérez.
Here’s a clip of her win from last night’s ceremony:
Michelle Yeoh (2023)
Philippa Georgiou (Discovery, Section 31)
Michelle Yeoh is on a career high these days, impressive for an actress in her 60s even if she couldn’t still do her own fight scenes—which she can, and does. She joined the Star Trek franchise in 2017 as Captain Philippa Georgiou as well her mirror universe counterpart, Emperor Philippa Georgiou, on Star Trek: Discovery. It was after her win that fans got to see her in Star Trek: Section 31, Trek’s first streaming movie, and despite being very much in demand, she says she’s still eager to come back to the franchise. This year, she was back at the Academy Awards ceremony as part of the cast from Wicked.
The blockbuster Everything Everywhere All at Once won Oscars for screenwriting, editing, and directing as well as Best Picture, and gave Yeoh her first nomination and win for Best Actress. Her acceptance speech was a memorable one.
Jamie Lee Curtis (2023)
Control (Section 31)
Jamie Lee Curtis’ Oscar win came the same night and for the same movie as Michelle Yeoh’s; she took home the Best Supporting Actress award for Everything Everywhere All at Once. She wasn’t yet part of the franchise at that point, but when her good pal Michelle called her to ask if she’d appear as Control in the Star Trek: Section 31 movie, she became part of the Star Trek family.
Christopher Plummer (2011)
General Chang (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
Playing The Undiscovered Country‘s General Chang gave Plummer plenty of opportunity to chew the scenery, as well as face off against his former Henry V understudy, William Shatner. The late actor scored three Academy Award nominations over the course of his illustrious career, and won Best Supporting Actor in 2010 for his work in Beginners.
Holly Hunter (1994)
Starfleet Academy Chancellor (Starfleet Academy)
We haven’t seen any pictures of her in it yet, but Holly Hunter is one of the leads of the franchise’s newest show Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, due to premiere in 2026. We know she’s the “captain and chancellor of the Academy, presiding over both the faculty and a new class of Starfleet cadets as they learn to navigate the galaxy in the 32nd century.” The show recently wrapped production on its first season, and writing has begun on season 2.
Hunter has been nominated for an Academy Award four times: for Broadcast News (one of this writer’s all-time favorite movies), The Firm, Thirteen, and The Piano, which she won for in 1994. Her award was presented to her by Al Pacino.
Whoopi Goldberg (1991)
Guinan (TNG, Generations, Nemesis, Picard)
Goldberg was already an Oscar nominee (for The Color Purple) when she convinced Gene Roddenberry (with help from LeVar Burton) she really, REALLY wanted to be on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so he created the role of Guinan for her. She played her on multiple seasons of show, reprised the role (uncredited) in two movies, then came back years later to play her againd on Picard.
She’s also one of those very rare EGOTs: She’s won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. She became the second Black woman in history to win an Oscar for acting when she won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Ghost, and gave an emotional acceptance speech.
At last night’s Oscars she was onstage with Oprah Winfrey to introduce a tribute to the legendary Quincy Jones. Jones produced and did the music for The Color Purple, a film which scored Oscar nominations for both Winfrey and Goldberg, among his many other indelible accomplishments.
F. Murray Abraham (1985)
Ahdar Ru’afo (Insurrection)
Looking at F. Murray Abraham’s impressive career, it’s hard to believe he’s only been nominated once for an Academy Award, but it’s no surprise that it resulted in a win. In 1984, he became a Best Actor winner for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He’s been in everything from intense drama to high comedy, and clearly likes stretching his limits. He was so positive about the experience in Insurrection that he repeatedly told interviewers he’d be fine just doing more Star Trek movies for the rest of his career.
He did seem to be enjoying himself…
Paul Williams (1977)
Koru (Voyager)
Paul Williams was already a legendary songwriter, composer, actor, and singer when he took a small role in Star Trek: Voyager‘s “Virtuoso,” ironically playing an inhabitant of a planet who was unfamiliar with music. Williams has been nominated for Academy Awards for his musical work six times, and won in 1977—with his co-writer, Barbra Streisand—for the song “Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star is Born).”
He has written or co-written songs for Kris Kristofferson, Gladys Knight & The Pips, the Carpenters, Three Dog Night, Daft Punk, and the great Kermit the Frog, and scored films like Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Phantom of the Paradise, Smokey and the Bandit, The Muppet Movie, and The Princess Diaries 2, so it’s definitely a bit of an inside joke to see him so excited about The Doctor’s performance.
Keith Carradine (1976)
A.G. Robinson (Enterprise)
Another Best Original Song winner, Carradine made his acting debut in the film McCabe and Mrs. Miller, directed by Robert Altman and co-starring Deep Space Nine‘s René Auberjonois. But his Oscar win came for writing and performing the song “I’m Easy” for Altman’s film Nashville.
Also an accomplished actor, Carradine guest starred on the season 2 Enterprise episode “First Flight,” directed by LeVar Burton, who said “…the list came down from casting and there were some really interesting names on it… and when I looked at the list, there was one name that just really jumped out at me and that was Keith Carradine.” Carradine said the offer was a “no-brainer”—he didn’t want to be the only actor in Hollywood not to have done Star Trek.
Check out his performance in Nashville below.
Louise Fletcher (1976)
Winn Adami (Deep Space Nine)
No, Louise Fletcher was not asked to audition to play Winn Adami; DS9 producers knew she’d be perfect and that they’d be lucky to get her. She relished her recurring role on DS9, and said in interviews years later that she was as recognized for that role as she was for the one that gave her her one and only Oscar win, Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One of her fellow nominees was Carol Kane (Hester Street), who, almost 50 years later, would join the cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as Chief Engineer Pelia.
On Oscar night, Louise Fletcher’s win was announced by Charles Bronson and his wife, Star Trek guest star Jill Ireland (Leila in “This Side of Paradise”). “I’ve loved being hated by you,” Fletcher told the audience in her funny, heartfelt speech that included a message to her deaf parents in sign language.
Joel Grey (1973)
Caylem (Voyager)
The producers of Voyager had been trying to snag Joel Grey for a while, but he kept turning them down—until he got the script for “Resistance” and finally agreed to sign on. He thought it was a great part, and was also happy to be reunited with Kate Mulgrew—one of his co-stars in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins he hadn’t had a lot of scenes with and was happy to work with again.
Grey’s long and impressive career started when he was just ten years old. His big breakthrough was on Broadway as Master of Ceremonies in the show Cabaret, for which he won a Tony, and when he played the same role in the film version, he took home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He was up against some pretty formidable nominees, three of whom—James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino—were in that year’s Best Picture, The Godfather.
So… What might Saldaña’s win mean for another Kelvin movie?
The future of Star Trek movies is still in limbo. Late last year, Saldaña was asked about when the next J.J. Abrams movie might happen, and said,
“I wish we were able to do it sooner rather than later. I feel like a lot of us have a full head of gray hair, so we need to do this quickly, if this is the same cast that’s going to reprise it again.”
While Paramount hasn’t locked anything in, on the day of the Academy Awards ceremony, they re-released this behind-the-scenes clip from Star Trek (2009), titling it “Zoe Saldaña Behind the Scenes of Star Trek (2009)” despite the fact that she’s not the star (nor is anyone) of the clip.
Perhaps this is a clue that they are keeping it on their radar, given Saldaña’s rising star (and thus rising cost) in Hollywood. Hopefully, like Michelle Yeoh, she’ll want to make time for another visit to the Star Trek universe.
Keep up with more celebrity news at TrekMovie.
Wow this is a very impressive and detailed list. I only knew about half of these and didn’t know about the non-actor winners.
And congrats to Zoe Saldana! I haven’t seen the movie and it seems to be pretty divisive to say the least but she is on a Hollywood winning streak that’s been going for years now.
Unfortunately I don’t include the Kelvin movies in that streak considering how dead they are today and still don’t see that changing anytime soon.
And please no cheap Uhura streaming movie just because she won an Oscar. Let’s kill that idea before it starts. 🤨
What this means is that a Kelvin IV is never going to happen. These axctors are WAY to popular and costlyt for a Star Trek movie. Star Trek is NOT a summer blockbuster franchise and it never was. It isn’t worth what little $$$ Paramount has left.
I wouldn’t be so sure. There is a best actress curse that causes their careers to flop. Saldana also owes a lot of her career to franchises and might not be able to carry her career only with serious movies. GotG seems to be over, and Avatar shooting has already wrapped all the sequels. She also gets on well with the Trek cast and has replaced Bones in the main three. She might not be up for multiple movies but I think there is a reasonable chance she will do a fourth, same for the others.
Saldana has always said she wants to make more Star Trek. They even quoted her last statement about it last year in the article. She has never wavered from that. They ALL said they want to do more. I can’t think of any of them who said they would have to think about it. Zachary Quinto literally said he would still play Spock in his sixties and in a TV show if asked.
Even though Star Trek is not a huge franchise (hence the death of these movies), it’s still a very known one and very lucrative for all the actors who is part of it in both TV and movies.
The question is will Paramount make another Kelvin movie? I stopped holding my breath after 2018 even though every few years they say they want to make another one and proceeds to do nothing.
zoe done enough franchises over the last 20 years to escape that curse
Zoe Saldana is really truly the only A list star in that cast, especially now. Pine is a ‘movie star’ but that’s in quotes for a reason. The others are, as I said many times, juat working actors. They are not huge stars. Zachary Quinto, John Cho and Karl Urban last big film was literally Star Trek Beyond although Urban did have a role in the third Thor movie. Pegg has the Mission Impossible movies but outside of those it’s been roles in smaller movies and TV shows. Pine and Saldana are also the only one who has staring roles in their movies. The others are usually supporting actors only.
I say this all the time because I don’t know why people keep saying this. These people are not Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Leonardo Dicaprio or George Clooney. Again with the exception of Zoe Saldana and maybe Chris Pine they are not household names who can just pick and choose any project they want.
Most would all jump at the chance to do more Star Trek because it’s probably the job that has paid the most for all of them with the exception of Saldana who does probably earn a lot more money thanks to her Marvel and Avatar roles.
Maybe Saldana could use her Oscar win to help get ST4 greenlit again lol
That doesn’t remotely matter. But I’m assuming you’re just joking.
Well true but I mean “A List” in the realm of Trek. I mean she may not be at the Whoopi Gholdberg level per se but she’s a bigger name than most trek names IMO and I would imagine that means demanding more money, esp after her win.
People literally said the same thing about Michelle Yeoh after she won her Oscar and she would now be too expensive to work on Star Trek again. That obviously wasn’t true nor I don’t understand why anyone would think that considering AFTER she won her Oscar she was in more demand than ever. No one had any problems paying her her asking price even if there was a higher demand.
But I don’t think just because you win an Oscar you can suddenly demand twice the money or anything. This is another misnomer I always see. Sure maybe a little more but I still think end of the day what actors can demand really comes down to how much the films they are in make and how high their name was in the credits to calculate just how much they should demand. But she was already in billion dollar films for a long time now. Avatar 2 made over $2 billion two years ago and she was the star. That would probably be a bigger factor how much she makes more than an Oscar. And she was still talking about doing another movie after that.
Now ALL that said, I don’t think it’s a shock the Kelvin movies are basically DOA these days because they clearly either cost too much or don’t think the next one will make enough of a profit to justify another one. It’s obviously one of those or both. And sure a lot of that is probably due to the cast salaries since they can now demand more money, at least for Star Trek. And Pine DID demand more and we saw what happened with that lol. So you can be partly right but I don’t think it’s really Saldana that’s the problem because, according to reports anyway, she lowered her fee back in 2018 to do the next one. Again, according to reports, they all did with the exception of Pine and Hemsworth.
But that was a long time ago now so who knows today? But as I always say most actors just want to work. If they REALLY want to do a movie or show then they just lower their fees to make it happen. Brad Pitt and George Clooney reportedly did that to get the Apple movie ‘Wolfs’ put into theaters.
I just don’t think that’s remotely an issue. If any time she could’ve demanded more money it would’ve been after Avatar 2 and yet she popped up in Lioness a year later which is a TV show and also for Paramount+. And as said she could just lower her asking price if she wants to do it.
Well ST09 and ID were summer blockbusters. ST09 did 257m domestic (about 380 adjusted to now) beating the likes of XMen, Terminator (domestic and worldwide) and Da Vinci Code 2 (domestic) ending up #7 domestic for the year. STID did 228m domestic (about 300m now) beating World War Z domestic (and did near same to Fast 6), and while it might deem pointless to bring up Beyond (158m domestic about 200m now) it still beat likes of XMen, Tarzan, ID2 domestic that summer (obviously ww it was annihilated by just about everything bar bombs like Ghostbusters,TMNT2, Da Vinci 3). But the first two esp ST09 were ‘summer blockbusters’
and prior to them Star Trek II and III were summer blockbusters too (domestic were #6 and 8 for 82/84)
Domestically they were. In terms of international box office not even close. In fact they were the lowest performing films for what they cost to make both summers when compared to the big boys.
That’s the main problem with these films, their international clout is very poor end of the day. It was the domestic box office that made them hits and then Beyond showed up even and that was no longer the case anymore.
It’s still insane they spent nearly $200 million on the last two. Completely ridiculous. No wonder why Paramount is in the trouble it’s in today.
Darn you beat me to it lol
LOL!
They were Summer movies but I wouldn’t consider them blockbusters. They did very well in the US but so much overseas IIRC. I mean they certainly do not do Marvel type money. And Beyond proved they didn’t have staying power.
ST09 and ID boosted the worldwide box office for ST films at that time, away from the record set by TMP in 1979
I know Robert Wise was nominated for Oscars but don’t know if he ever won one. Other than that impressive list and Joel Grey winning amongst all those Godfather actors was interesting. He is lucky they didn’t put out a hit on him LOL :))
In fact I’ve checked IMDB now and yes Wise did indeed win for West Side Story and The Sound of Music. Was he the only Academy Award winning director who worked in Trek?
Wow interesting. Yes it was a huge deal to get a director of his caliber at the time; probably due to being an Oscar winning director.
I’ve seen a lot of his movies because my wife and I were TCM junkies.
Robert Wise was a great director. The guy did so many different kinds of movies. He was extremely versatile.
Even though Nimoy and Shatner didn’t particularly like TMP, IIRC they were both complementary to Wise because they were fans of his work.
This is making me wonder which major Trek actors have won Emmys. Shatner, of course. Anyone else?
Cromwell.
Depending, I suppose, on how you define “major.”
I meant main cast.
Congrats Zoe, if they ask to make a TV movie around your character to capitalize on this, take the pass. :D
Congrats to Zoe! There so much talent in the Star Trek universe just waiting on Paramount to get it’s act together. Here’s to hoping they will!
irony was DS9 allowed ms fletcher to escape years of typecasting for ‘cuckoo’s nest’ by playing an even more hiss worthy villain