“I would prefer not to, to be honest with you,” says Karim Diané. “To specifically talk about my own personal life is where I’m currently drawing the line. I can’t say that the line will always be there moving forward, but right now, this is where the line is.”

There is, however, no such line for Jay-Den Kraag, whom the 23-year-old actor is currently — and brilliantly — portraying on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Kraag is a very different sort of Klingon — an aspiring healer who prefers birdwatching to slaughtering enemies. There is no “good day to die” in Kraag’s lexicon. There is, however, an aversion to pepperoni, which he plucks from a slice of replicator pizza with a dismissive, “I will not eat anything that didn’t die in a fair fight.”

Kraag is also the first Klingon in Star Trek history with same-sex proclivities. By episode seven, he’s involved with the War College’s Kyle, though his loyalties seem divided as a genuine, simmering connection develops with fellow cadet Darim, the self-acknowledged, mildly arrogant jerk of the gang.

“We knew going into it that he was going to be the first out-of-the-closet gay Klingon character in all of Star Trek,” says co-showrunner Noga Landau. “The fiber of who you are as a Starfleet officer and as a member of the Federation is not contingent on who you sleep with. It’s contingent on you being a brilliant scientist, an explorer, a captain, an engineer, a leader, all of those things.”

The series, the latest in the Star Trek universe, is set roughly 1,000 years after the original series and follows a group of cadets at a newly reforged Starfleet Academy rebuilt after a massively destructive cosmic event known as “The Burn.”

The show has a lithe, limber feel, with a healthy dose of young adult undercurrents, and its fresh-faced cast are charmers, all. They’re supported by powerhouse veterans like Holly Hunter as the school’s firm but fair chancellor, the indefatigable Tig Notaro as an engineering instructor, and Robert Picardo, the original holographic doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, still delightfully prickly all these centuries later. As the first season warps toward a satisfying and thrilling finale, a second season has already finished filming, though no release date has yet been announced.

Diané, who grew up in Potomac, Maryland, had his first taste of fame when he performed on the singing competition, The X Factor. But there are no YouTube clips of his singing appearance, a fact he admits is his doing.

“I spent years getting those clips scrubbed from the internet,” he says. “No one will ever see that experience.” He explains that while it was a thrill to be part of the show, reality TV left a bad taste in his mouth. “It was really a cool experience, but it was also not a cool experience in most ways,” he says, adding, “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say. I don’t know what I signed.”

A two-season stint as a supporting gay character in Peacock’s thriller One of Us Is Lying gave him his first real taste of public stardom, but Starfleet Academy has brought him far greater visibility, and he relishes being part of a show whose message centers on diversity, acceptance, and unqualified inclusion.

“Whoever the fuck you are is perfect — that is truly my only hope that people take away from this show,” he says. “Whoever you came out of the womb as, whoever your inner child is, is so perfect. I have spent my entire lifetime trying to alter myself to fit the mold of who people want me to be or who I think I’m supposed to be, and it has never worked. The only time I have found any kind of success in my life is when I showed up as exactly who I am. That is what I believe Starfleet Academy is trying to say. And I hope people receive that message.”

METRO WEEKLY: Before you were tapped to play a gay Klingon in Starfleet Academy, you played a gay character on the Peacock show, One of Us is Lying. I’m not going to lie to you, I haven’t watched that show.

KARIM DIANÉ: [Laughs.] A lot of people haven’t watched it.

MW: Well, now I’m at least curious to watch it to see you in it. What did being part of One of Us is Lying mean to you?

DIANÉ: It was my very first significant role in a television show. Prior to that, I’d pop up in an episode of something, and you’d never see me again. So this was really the first time where I was part of the show across multiple seasons. It really meant a lot to me that I had so much responsibility. And also, my character was the show’s only flamboyantly out gay male character, so it felt like I had a lot of responsibility.

A lot of the comments and the feedback online I got were from young queer people telling me how much this character meant to them. I was just going to work at first, like we all do. But then, once you get those comments online, you’re like, “Oh, whoa, no, actually, a lot of young people are watching this, and this is actually really important.” So yeah, it was really cool to be able to provide that to young people. Not even just young people — I would get messages from grown men in their 50s, 60s, 70s saying, “Wow, I wasn’t able to be out when I was younger, and it means a lot to be able to see your character on TV.” I got a lot of those.

MW: What does that feel like, to portray a character that is touching and impacting lives, to know that something you’re doing is resonating on a deeper level with people?

DIANÉ: It feels great, honestly. It gives me purpose, because sometimes in this industry, we’re given lines in scripts that are like, “What the fuck is this? This is so stupid. This is the worst thing I’ve ever read in my life.” And so, when you get the opportunity to have a script that is actually doing something and impacting change, it gives you purpose. It reminds me of what I’m doing here.

MW: You’ve made the leap into something even bigger with Star Trek. Now you’re part of a huge world, a huge family of many other actors, and a massive, hopefully adoring, fanbase. How did it happen?

DIANÉ: I have an amazing team. I have the best team on the planet. I am with Paradigm Talent Agency, and my manager is also amazing. I had to audition, obviously, and show the chops, but none of these opportunities would have even presented themselves to me had it not been for my team. I’ve been acting for quite a while, I was with a smaller boutique agency, but as soon as I hopped over to this team, my auditions just got bigger, and I just was considered for a lot bigger roles.

I shot a pilot for a Disney/Hulu TV show in 2023 — that was right after One of Us is Lying got canceled — and the pilot didn’t get picked up. Then the actors’ strike hit, so nobody was working. It was just a rough time for a little while. And I’m a go-go dancer — I dance at a really awesome club in Brooklyn, in New York, where I live, so I went back to my normal life. I was dancing, I was just paying my bills as best I could.

Then, I saw the audition for Star Trek in my inbox. They tried to hide it and call it something different, but my agents tipped me to it, so I knew I was auditioning for Star Trek. But I auditioned for things all the time, so I was like, “I’m not going to get this.” I was just like, “Whatever.” I went to my self-tape studio, did a little tape, didn’t think anything of it, never thought I’d hear back. Then, two weeks later, [co-showrunners] Noga [Landau] and Alex [Kurtzman] invited me into a producer session, a callback. I remember I called my manager afterwards, and I was like, “I think I’m about to book Star Trek. Dude, this is nuts,” because it just went so well. Two weeks later, my agents told me I booked it, and I was like, “Holy shit, this is crazy.” I was on the back of a Greyhound bus when I got the official word, and I was freaking out.

MW: I’m picturing you shouting out loud.

DIANÉ: [Laughs.] I couldn’t yell because I was around a bunch of strangers. But I was clearly excited — I was geeking out. And there were two women in front of me, and they felt my energy — and they were probably listening to my phone call, too — and once I hung up, they turned around, and they were like, “Dude, what’s up? What’s going on?” I’m like, “I can’t tell you what I booked, but I’m an actor, and it’s big, girl, it’s really, really big.” And they were so happy and freaking out for me. It was really nice to celebrate with strangers.

MW: That’s a lovely story. I’m old-fashioned, I think when actors audition, they’re in a room, they’re standing there. But that’s not really the case anymore. You’re on Zoom. You’re not even in person with them, are you?

DIANÉ: I haven’t auditioned in person in about six years. Every single role I’ve booked in the last six years has been digitally, online.

MW: Do you miss the in-person experience?

DIANÉ: I don’t miss it at all. I might be different from other actors, but I do not miss going in person. It’s such a privilege to be able to audition from wherever you are. You used to really have to be in Los Angeles for pilot season, and if you weren’t physically there, then you’re just not likely to work in entertainment, which was very constricting. It’s expensive to live in L.A. Now, you can be in the middle of Vermont and audition for Star Trek. You know what I mean? And also, self-tapes allow you the opportunity to film again and again and again until you get your best take. Whereas in person, you have one shot, and if it’s shit, then you’re just out of luck.

MW: I hadn’t thought of that. I want to go back to something you said earlier. You said you live in Brooklyn?

DIANÉ: I’m BK all day!

MW: And you go-go dance?

DIANÉ: Yes, correct. I’m a go-go dancer at a club called House of Yes. I mean, I might be biased, but not really — House of Yes is one of the most popular clubs in the city. Every weekend, I meet people from Germany and France and Spain who come to hang out with us because they’ve heard of us. I dance alongside aerialists and fire breathers and drag queens and clowns on stilts, and yeah, it’s amazing, I love it.

MW: Do you still do it?

DIANÉ: I sure do. I’m going back next weekend.

MW: You have a successful TV career now, why do you still go-go dance? What do you get out of it?

DIANÉ: So, House of Yes is much like being a part of the circus, honestly, it is. It’s a circus-themed nightlife space, and they are my creative family. And so, I am who I truly am because of this space. It’s not traditional — a lot of go-go dancers in West Hollywood and stuff, they’re on stage in a G-string, and that’s the totality of it, which is totally cool. But this space is different in that you get to choose your own outfits every single weekend. It’s essentially Halloween every night. One night, it’ll be Barbie-land. The next night, it’ll be something different. Every night has a theme.

And so, we get to create our looks from head-to-toe every single night, and we all are in the mirrors doing our makeup next to each other. My creativity has catapulted exponentially because I am getting ready next to a drag queen every single night, and they’ll grab my pen and be like, “No, babe, do it like this,” or, “Take that off and put this on.” I am the artist that I am today because of them, and I imagine I’ll probably be working at House of Yes for as long as they’ll have me, honestly. I have a lot of fun, and they’re all my best friends now, too.

MW: That’s fantastic. How often do you do it?

DIANÉ: Whenever I’m not filming, and I’m in New York, then I’ll do it. So for the last couple of years, it’s been in between seasons, I’ll have three or four months off, and I’m there pretty much every weekend.

MW: So back to Star Trek. You were cast as Jay-Den. Did you know you were reading for the Klingon when you auditioned?

DIANÉ: I did not, no, I did not. They put a fake name on it, so I had no idea what I was getting into at all.

MW: So you didn’t try to read it as a Klingon?

DIANÉ: Nope. I actually read it as myself in my regular voice.

MW: When it was revealed to you that you would be playing a Klingon — and what did you think? Are you a Star Trek fan?

DIANÉ: I actually had never really delved into Star Trek prior to this audition. Booking this role has been my first experience really diving deep into the lore and learning about Star Trek. But when they told me that I was playing a Klingon, I looked it up online and I was like, “Oh yeah, I know Worf.” Everybody knows what he looks like, even if you’ve never seen it. So I remember I was on the phone with Noga and the picture of Worf popped up, and I was like, “Oh, shit. That’s really cool, actually.”

MW: When did they reveal to you that he was going to be a different kind of Klingon, a gay Klingon?

DIANÉ: I knew that immediately, because on the breakdown, they said two things, “Must be okay kissing boys and must be okay in prosthetics.” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m down with that, whatever.”

MW: No deal breakers there.

DIANÉ: No deal breakers at all. I was like, “Sign me up. Let’s go!”

MW: He is an intimidating presence just by virtue of the fact that he’s a Klingon, but you bring a gentle quality to him that we don’t see in other Klingons. There’s a warmth to him that comes through. It’s really lovely. Can you talk about that?

DIANÉ: Yeah, for sure. Physically, he’s intimidating. I do notice when I step onto set in those big boots — I’m like 6’5″ in those shoes — that the extras are staring at me. And I sometimes can be naive, but after thinking about it, I’m like, “Oh, they must be like, ‘Whoa.'” I look really badass as this Klingon, and seeing it in person must be very intimidating.

But I am not at all. I’m super chill, I’m very kind and friendly. And when I do get into conversations with the extras, I think they might even be surprised that I’m just a regular person. But that is Jay-Den as well. Jay-Den looks a certain way, but he’s really, really, really sweet, he’s really soft. He truly would not harm a fly — he cannot harm a fly. He has no interest in harming anyone or anything, and it’s so beautiful.

I got a message the other day from a high school teacher who told me, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know that one of my students really relates to Jay-Den and he’s never felt himself so perfectly represented on a television show, because he is really big and he’s really tall, and physically, he’s imposing, but he’s gay and he is also very sweet and soft. He’s Ferdinand the Bull, essentially.” And the teacher was just saying thank you for representing this on TV, and that his student felt seen. And I just thought, “Wow, how lovely.”

There’s so many people on the planet who look a certain way, whether it’s their size or maybe they have a ton of tattoos or a funky haircut, and people might judge them for that. But it has nothing to do with the heart that they have inside, truly.

MW: Jay-Den has a key line at the end of episode four, a very rich episode that dives into his backstory. He says to Caleb Mir something along the lines of, “You live in my heart.” It’s not a line that you would associate with a Klingon. It’s also brilliant the way the series gradually reveals that he’s gay. It’s like a slow unfurling of his character, very natural, very understated.

DIANÉ: I am so thrilled by the way that they unraveled it. It’s interesting that, in general, we assume people are straight until they reveal themselves not to be, because why not the other way around? [Star Trek] is the future, and it’s not a big moment. Nobody cares what you’re into, just whatever you’re into is cool. It’s not this huge plot point. We don’t need an entire episode about how he’s gay — he just is.

MW: There’s an interesting love triangle Jay-Den is part of between Kyle [Dale Whibley] and Darem [George Hawkins]. Will we see more of that in Season Two?

DIANÉ: All I can say is that there’s definitely a lot more to be explored in this love triangle. It’s not even close to over yet.

MW: What did it feel like the first time you saw yourself in full makeup?

DIANÉ: Oh, my god, I was like, “Damn, I look good.” Jay-Den is sexy. Jay-Den is a fine young Klingon. I remember being worried going into it, I was like, “Damn, I hope they don’t make me look like a crazy alien because I’m going to have to look like this forever.” And then I saw myself and I was like, “Wait, hold up. I look really fucking good.”

And then I went into the producers’ office for them to give the final word, and they were like, “What do you think of it?” I was like, “Sir, I look so hot. Please choose this look.” And they were all cracking up, and yeah, it’s the look that they went with.

I love every single detail. They allowed me to audition in green contact lenses, and so I’m glad that they allowed me to carry that over into my character. I love the dreads. I love the beard. There’s not a single thing that I’m upset with. I really love the way he looks.

MW: I love the red dread.

DIANÉ: The red dread, yeah, it’s really cool and very defining. And the eyebrow ring is super sick.

MW: How long does the makeup take?

DIANÉ: First season, it took five hours every single day for prosthetics, makeup, hair, and costume. It took too long, child. Oh, my god, it took so long. I would be up at 1 a.m. to get to work. But in Season Two, they got it down to about two and a half hours, which was great.

MW: I’m curious what you think of some of the fan backlash to the show. It seems there are some out there not willing to give Starfleet Academy a chance because it’s so different in tone from other Star Trek shows. How would you respond to them?

DIANÉ: I mean, listen, I’m a visitor in this space, so I understand that people are very tied to what they know and what they grew up loving, and I don’t think any of us are trying to take that away, in any way. But what I would say is that yes, I agree, this is not like other Star Treks. This is very, very different, and that is by design.

We have people behind the scenes who, first of all, are Trekkies — like Alex Kurtzman and Tawny Newsome. They’re hardcore Trekkies, they love this world so much, and they are very determined to keep this universe alive. It’s been around for sixty years — six decades — and that’s so long. And the only way that anything manages to stay around that long is by evolving. Nothing stays around for that long by staying the same. It has to evolve, it has to change, and that’s what the showrunners are really trying to do here, so that it can remain relevant to an entirely new generation of people, so that it can live on for another sixty years.

I’m chronically online, I read all of the comments, and I do read a lot of comments of people who are like, “At first, I hated it, and I didn’t watch it.” But once they really get into it — episode four and five and even six — then they see, no, there’s some deep meaning in a lot of these episodes. We’re exploring a lot of really, really deep topics here with a [Young Adult] filter, I guess. But there’s some really rich stuff if you really stop to pay attention and watch it.

MW: I agree with you. If you analyze the show trajectory critically, the first three episodes are kind of set up solely to put the pieces in place. By the time we get to your episode — episode four — the richness is overwhelming. It’s very powerful on so many levels. It’s about family. It’s about finding oneself. It’s about following one’s trust in oneself. And it’s philosophical in the best Star Trek way. The big message in that episode is that Klingons have the right to define themselves. And the first thing that popped into my head was the modern allegory that trans people have the right to define themselves.

DIANÉ: One hundred percent. I am so tired of human beings trying to define other human beings for them. It’s confusing to me, even. First of all, I don’t understand why specifically trans people live rent-free in homophobic people’s minds. It’s so weird to me. I don’t understand why people care so much about how somebody else defines themselves or what they’re doing with their lives. If you’re not infringing on my safety, do whatever you want to do with your life, define yourself however you want to, it doesn’t change anything for me.

And so, it’s just so frustrating when I go about the world, and I see people have so much to say about queer people, about trans people, trying to control whether or not they can drive or how they define themselves on a passport or a driver’s license. It’s so odd to me, and I will never understand it.

I believe that decades from now, or hopefully sooner, we’ll look back at this moment and be like, “What the fuck were we on? That was so weird.” I’m thrilled to be a part of an episode where the message is let people define themselves, period. It’s nobody else’s job but that person’s.

MW: I think Season One is great — the finale is superb — but I have to come back to Season Two, which you’ve just finished shooting. Is there anything at all about the next season you can reveal? Sorry, it’s my job to ask.

DIANÉ: [Laughs.] I think that if people loved Season One, Season Two just takes the knob and turns it up. We’re all so much more comfortable in our characters. I heard a lot from people on set and producers who’ve seen the first few episodes of Season Two that we all just know these characters like the back of our hand now. At least for me, in Season One, I was guessing the whole time, to be honest with you. I was trying to figure out how to work this voice, how to act underneath prosthetics. But in Season Two, I knew exactly what to do. So we get to dive so much more deeper into these characters. I think it’s going to be really exciting for fans to watch.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is streaming exclusively on Paramount+. The season finale is March 12. Visit paramountplus.com.