Laurence Luckinbill’s interviewer mentioned the cameo of a new actor playing Sybok in Season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Assuming another appearance is in store, Luckinbill was asked if he had any advice for a new Sybok actor.
He had advice, including insisting Sybok wasn’t a villain.
“I would tell anyone who’s got the new Sybok robes to remember, really, that his impulse is good, is really good,” Laurence Luckinbill said. “He is not a villain. He is someone who has made mistakes… And in terms of trying to change your family or hold the community better, or something like that, you might get nuts and say, ‘No, you will do it this way.’ But the impulse [is] to make things better, and really, at its heart, is let me take your pain away… And I told Bill that. I said he’s not a villain. He’s a heroic guy.”
In fact, as Luckinbill points out, while Sybok starts out as an enemy to the Enterprise crew, he ultimately sacrifices himself to save them. When it becomes clear the entity who contacted him is not God, he uses his abilities to distract the thing while the Enterprise crew escapes.