British-born comedian, actor, and showrunner Gina Yashere plays tough, no-nonsense Cadet Master Lura Thok on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, making history as the franchise’s first half-Klingon, half-Jem’Hadar character. Thok and Commander Jett Reno, played by fellow comic Tig Notaro, are a lesbian couple in the series.
In real life, Yashere is married to New York college professor Dr. Nina Rose Fischer. They wed in April at their new home in Costa Rica, and now split their time between Brooklyn and the Central American paradise.
Yashere’s proudest moment of 2026: “Bounced back from losing everything I owned in the Altadena fires, and setting me and the missus up living our best lives in Costa Rica.”
Her biggest obstacles? “Busting out of the boxes that people felt I fit in as a Black queer, non-Halle-Berry-looking woman in this industry, and finding success and joy on my own terms,” says the two-time Out100 honoree.
This Christmas, the “truth-telling entertainer” will return to her native London, home to her Nigerian mum, for three sold-out shows.
Yashere’s message to the world: “Don’t let these dinosaurs think they are winning. They are going extinct, and the only fight they have left is making you think you have no right to exist,” Yashere says. “Fuck ’em.”
