The characters of Star Trek: Discovery have endured much in their defense of the galxy, but few have weathered the storm more gracefully than the USS Discovery’s Chief Medical Officer, Hugh Culber. After dying during the show’s first season, Culber was resurrected and helped the crew reconcile the trauma that they suffered. Then in the fifth and final season, Culber was temporarily possessed by the Trill symbiont Jinaal, which showed a new side to his character and greatly affected him — even after his bond to Jinaal was discontinued.
In an interview with CBR ahead of Season 5’s home video release on Aug. 27, Star Trek: Discovery actor Wilson Cruz discusses the big changes that happened to Hugh Culber over the course of the Paramount+ series. He reflects on the overall evolution of the show each season. Plus, the star shares his hopes to see more of Culber and his marriage to Paul Stamets beyond the conclusion of Discovery.
CBR: In Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, you got to play a different character when Culber was possessed by Jinaal. How did you approach that challenge?
Wilson Cruz: The two weeks leading up to it were some of the most painful two weeks as an actor that I’ve ever had, just because they gave me carte blanche. [Laughs.] They were like, “He can be whoever you want him to be.” You say that to an actor, and it feels like nine million options open up. Narrowing it down to what’s best, that was hard, and believing that I could do it in this short amount of time to make it happen. But once the cameras started rolling, once I decided who he was going to be, and we were ready to go, it was the most fun that I had had in five years.
Hugh Culber didn’t get a lot of opportunities to have fun . Jinaal was this character who hadn’t been on the physical plane for 800 years and was in literal awe of the world — being in the elements again, breathing air, having his feet on the ground, jumping, just having a physical presence. I think even after Jinaal leaves Culber’s body, he leaves him with a bit of that element and a feeling of awe for the world. It’s really healing for Culber. It was fun to play this character, to be that. It was written so beautifully, but it also afforded Culber to grow and have some ability to be in awe himself.
Star Trek: Discovery started as a much darker show, with your character killed in the first season, before growing much lighter and hopeful under showrunner Michelle Paradise. How was it being part of the show as it evolved in tone?
Every season had its own tone change, and I think that was on purpose. I think that it needed to be dark at the beginning. A candle doesn’t work until you turn the lights out. We needed that darkness to find our way through it, in order to find the light. The thing that was exciting about the series when we started is that it was different than any other Star Trek, in the sense that we were going to see these people become great.
We start with Michael Burnham. We see Paul Stamets, who is dealing with this discovery of how to travel. Tilly is a cadet. Saru hadn’t gone through his Vahar’ai; he didn’t even know what that was yet. We see these people who are fascinating and interesting, but they are not who they’re going to be yet. We get to see them become that through the process of the series. It was really exciting in that way, and really fun. The tone changes just made coming to work every year exciting.
In your last interview with CBR, you mentioned not being able to be on set to film the series’ coda because of a prior commitment. How did you eventually make peace with the end of Star Trek: Discovery and Culber?
It was hard, I’m not going to lie. I didn’t get the opportunity to hug it out with everybody on that last day on set, to have that experience with everyone. They did call me from Toronto in Thailand, where I was shooting at the time, and that helped me a bit to close the chapter. I think coming back together to do the press around the premiere and the season helped close the chapter a bit for me.
I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to him. If there was an opportunity to come back and play him in some other rendition or some other way, I’m completely open to that — because I feel like he was just getting started, I really do.
The heart of Culber’s arc in Star Trek: Discovery was his marriage to Paul Stamets and their love for each other. How did you build that with Anthony Rapp across five seasons?
Anthony and I have known each other for about 27 years. We came to this relationship with a real willingness to create it out of the very real love and friendship that exists between us. When you start in that place of mutual respect, love and understanding, your work together is going to be fun and fulfilling. It’s why the chemistry, why those scenes feel really natural and feel like a real marriage in some ways, because we came to it with a real love for each other.
It’s one of the things that I’m going to miss the most — my time with him. I think Season 6 would’ve given us an opportunity to delve more into that relationship and family. We didn’t really get the opportunity in Season 5, because we were dealing with this epic quest that we were on. I was looking forward to seeing them together a bit more going forward.
Created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream on Paramount+. Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 will be released digitally on Aug. 26, 2024 and on DVD and Blu-ray and with a limited edition steelbook Blu-ray on Aug. 27.