HE WAS ACTING UNDER DURESS
Jready for the captain’s chair. The Liverpool, England, native will play Capt. Lorca in “Star Trek: Discovery,” and he’s fine with the possibility that some fans may have difficulty adjusting to the reboot of the beloved franchise.
Isaacs (inset), 54, said the new show will throw away the legacy of and — and he expects it to upset tried-and-true Trekkies.
“I don’t mean to sound irreverent when I say I don’t care about the die-hard Trek fans,” he told us at an event in Los Angeles. “I only ‘don’t care’ about them in the sense that I know they’re all going to watch anyway. I look forward having the fun of them being outraged, so they can sit up all night and talk about it with each other.” He’s taking an enterprising approach to the sci-fi franchise.
“It’s ‘Star Trek,’ but not as we know it,” he said. “There are places, obviously, where they’ve observed canon to do with things like uniforms and badges and stuff, but there are places where the rules of storytelling are reinvented.”
Isaacs says the new “Star Trek” will be a reflection of our own world, which is something he has a hard time discussing with his own children right now.
“I don’t know how to explain the anarchy and chaos,” he said, citing the government’s suddenly intolerant position on immigration as an example. “One of the things I can do as a storyteller is be part of stories that hold up a vision for the future where we just do better.”
Sadly, there’s no chance that Isaacs’ kids will think he’s cool for landing his new gig.
“My kids couldn’t give a flying f---,” he laughed.
The show hits CBS All Access network on Sept. 24. involuntarily researched his street thug character in “Good Time” by serving time at Rikers Island before the acting thing took off. “Acting made me want to change my life around,” the actor (inset) told us at a screening in Chelsea. He also helped prep for the film. “He said that he got some inspiration from watching the way I am in real life. He came out to my house and we had beers on my porch. He’s a cool guy.”