Sam Richardson reveals what role his shapeshifter plays in Star Trek: Section 31, which hints his Chameloid may be smarter than Odo (Rene Auberjonois) on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Richardson plays the first Chameloid seen in Star Trek since Martia, the changeling embodied by Iman in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Richardson joins the cast of Section 31, Star Trek’s first made-for-streaming movie starring Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh.
Sam Richardson was a guest on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, which delved into the Emmy-winning actor’s career. Richardson explained his Star Trek fandom and revealed his Chameloid is “a physicist shapeshifter,” making his changeling a scientific expert as opposed to Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, who was a skilled detective. Read Sam’s quote and listen to Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard below:
The new Star Trek, so Section 31, it says Star Trek movie. I had a really great time. I’m a Star Trek fan my whole life, so I know every iteration of it. The Motion Picture, the Shatner movies, the Picard movies… The J.J. Abrams, 2009, as we call it.
So I play a physicist shapeshifter, what’s called a Chameloid. This is the second time there’s ever been a Chameloid in Star Trek. And the first time was Iman in Star Trek VI… It’s actually very funny. With Iman, it’s like, this is a shapeshifter, you wanna look good, yeah, I’ll make myself Iman. For me, it’s like I wanna look good, I’m gonna make myself Sam Richardson. I’m’a accept it.
TrekMovie.com reports Sam Richardson’s Star Trek: Section 31 shapeshifter is named Quasi.
How Sam Richardson’s Star Trek: Section 31 Chameloid Could Compare To DS9′ Odo
Chameloids are different from DS9’s Changelings
Sam Richardson’s Chameloid in Star Trek: Section 31 is a change from Iman’s Martia in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, who was a criminal imprisoned on the Klingon penal planet Rura Penthe. Richardson’s Chameloid being a physicist marks the first instance of that shapeshifter species being an expert in science. A changeling physicist’s value to Emperor Phillipa Georgiou’s (Michelle Yeoh) Section 31 black ops team speaks for itself.
Odo’s primary interests were justice and his love for Major Kira Nerys.
On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, science and physics weren’t Odo’s forte, nor was it evidently something Odo’s people, the Founders, concerned themselves with. For his part, Odo was an investigator inspired by the Earth detective novels he read, and Odo’s primary interests were justice and his love for Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), and not always in that order. Regardless of how intelligent Sam Richardson’s Chameloid may be, it remains to be seen if he’ll have the emotional depth in Star Trek: Section 31 that Odo displayed on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Source: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
