Michelle Yeoh to play ship's captain in 'Star Trek: Discovery'

For the highly anticipated new series coming to CBS, 'Star Trek

One of the show's producers Nicholas Meyer let slip in an interview that the 54-year-old Chinese-Malaysian actress was on board to play a ship's captain in a recurring role, reports ew.com.

The 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Tomorrow Never Dies' actress will play a character named Han Bo and will be the leader of another ship named the 'Shenzhou' in the show's first season.

The new show will be set at least a decade before the original series, which followed the exploits of Captain Kirk.

"Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast. . Our lead of the show is going to be subject of that same level of who's the best actor and also what can we say about diversity on the show," former showrunner Bryan Fuller said back in August.

"We've seen six series from the captain's point of view; to see a character from a different perspective on the starship - one who has a different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context," Fuller added.

CBS Network pushed the show's expected premiere date from January 2017 to May because the project was taking longer than expected, partly due to its struggle to find an ideal cast.

Shortly after that, Fuller stepped down from the production's command chair and was replaced by Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts.