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 team 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, and won in 1994 for The Piano. 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.
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 this 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.
