Popverse's top stories of the day

• Inside Anson Mount's long journey to be Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Captain Pike, and how he got the blessing of the family of original Pike actor Jeffrey Hunter
• MEMBERS ONLY: Watch the 20th anniversary Serenity reunion panel from Seattle's ECCC 2025 with Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, and Sean Maher
• ECCC '25 Recap: Greetings from Seattle's Emerald City Comic Con... Sincerely, Popverse

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Before there was Kirk, there was Pike.

When the original pilot for Star Trek was filmed in 1964, William Shatner’s Captain Kirk was absent. Instead, Jeffrey Hunter played Captain Pike, the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise. When Star Trek was picked up as a series, Hunter withdrew from the show. As a result, the series was retooled, with William Shatner joining the cast as James T. Kirk. However, the legacy of Captain Pike lives on. The character appeared in Star Trek novels and comic books, and Bruce Greenwood brought him to the big screen in the 2009 Star Trek film. Now Anson Mount is continuing the legacy, playing Christopher Pike on Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Mount was a longtime Trekkie, who had petitioned to get a role in the franchise.

“When I was doing the rounds in LA after I finished Hell on Wheels, I had a meeting with Julie McNamara, who at the time was the head of development at CBS All Access, if you remember that. They hadn’t even launched, but they were buying, and she said, ‘Can I let you in on a secret.’ I was like, ‘Sure.’ And she’s like, ‘We’re going to do a Star Trek show,’” Mount recalls during the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds panel at Emerald City Comic Con this past weekend.

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Watch now the 'Charting New Frontiers: The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' panel live from the Emerald City Comic Con 2025 Main Stage powered by Xfinity:

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This piqued Mount’s interest, and he quickly got to work.

“After the meeting, I walked out to the parking lot at Paramount and I called my representatives, and I say, ‘Get me on this show.’ They actually tested me for Lorca, and then they wisely hired Jason Isaacs.”

It looked like Mount had missed his chance, but when it was time to bring Pike in for the second season, he was given another shot. However, he was kept in the dark about which character he was really auditioning for.

“The next year they called and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got another captain. Would you be interested and would you put yourself on tape for Captain Parker? I was like, ‘Well, that’s a terribly uninteresting name for a captain, but sure.’ I just threw it on tape with my wife, and they said, ‘Okay, let’s do this. It’s Captain Pike.’ And I was like, ‘[shocked noise].’”

The legacy of the role he was taking on wasn’t lost on Mount. However, Chris Hunter, son of original Pike actor Jeffrey Hunter, told him the character was in good hands.

“I absolutely knew. I’m an old-school Trekker. I know that it’s more than a TV show for a lot of people. Jeffrey Hunter’s son Chris actually came to Comic Con in 2018 when I was doing Discovery to tell me that he felt like his father would have approved of my casting. That meant a lot,” Mount recalls.

It's hard to find an accolade better than that. Jeffrey Hunter may have introduced Captain Pike to the world, but Anson Mount is taking the character to new heights. Live long and prosper Captain.

You can watch Charting New Frontiers: The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds from ECCC 2025's Main Stage powered by Xfinity for yourself as part of Popverse's all-encompassing coverage of Emerald City Comic Con 2025. Be there from anywhere.

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Here's how to watch Star Trek in order: the shows, the movies, the cartoons (in chronological or release order).