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Anson Mount Reacts To Star Trek: Strange New World's New Kirk Actor
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star Anson Mount recently shared his thoughts on Paul Wesley, the actor who is set to play James T. Kirk in season 2.

Anson Mount, star of the newest Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds, has recently shared his thoughts on Paul Wesley, the latest actor to play James T. Kirk. Mount stars as Captain Christopher Pike in the prequel series, a character that first appeared in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, the science-fiction show that took the world by storm in the late 1960s and launched a massive franchise. Pike commands the USS Enterprise, the massive Starfleet vessel that will eventually be helmed by Kirk as seen in The Original Series and the subsequent films.

Wesley was announced in March as the new face of a younger Kirk. He will follow both Chris Pine and the venerable William Shatner in the role. However, Wesley’s Kirk will be closer to that of Shatner’s. Due to the differing timelines created by J.J. Abrams in his 2009 reboot film, Star Trek. Strange New Worlds will exist in the Prime Timeline and is a direct spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery, where Mount first took the role of Pike in season 2.

EW spoke with Mount to discuss the actor’s experience while working on his new show. When asked about whether or not Mount had the opportunity to work with Wesley already, he explained that he had and praised the actor. Read what Mount said below.

“Yeah. Paul’s great. We’ve had a lot of fun. We welcomed him right into the family immediately. Good guy, and I thought he was well cast.”

Wesley has the challenge of playing a version of Kirk that has yet to be seen on television. Although Pine’s version of the character was of similar age to Wesley’s Kirk, the reboot character existed in the Kelvin timeline in which Kirk grew up without his father due to the fact that the USS Kelvin — the ship on which his father crewed —  was destroyed. Mount’s approval of Wesley as an actor, as well as his casting for the role, offers audiences some assurance that the actor will realize this younger version of Kirk faithfully to the established Star Trek canon.

As the sixth new series in Alex Kurtzman’s rebranding of the Star Trek franchise, which began with Discovery in 2017, Strange New Worlds aims to bring the series back to a familiar formula as it primarily utilizes an episodic structure, although there is a story arc that carries throughout the season. The show is designed lighter in tone, contrasting the tones of Discovery and Picard, which have been criticized for their darker feel and straying from the Star Trek structure audiences were accustomed to in the previous series, such as The Original Series and The Next Generation. Although Wesley is not set to appear as Kirk until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, Mount’s blessing signals that his entrance will be worth the wait.