NEW KID ON THE SPOCK
How does it feel to be the latest actor stepping into Leonard nimoy’s shoes? ian Berriman quizzes ethan Peck…
aS THE GRANDSON OF OSCAR WINNER Gregory Peck, ethan Peck is used to living in a predecessor’s shadow... but nothing can prepare you for the burden of expectation when you glue on the pointy ears. The 32-year-old says he’s keen to do more than impersonate leonard nimoy.
“i’ve really tried to internalise his spirit,” Peck tells SFX. “i’ve been spending so much time with nimoy spock. i read [1975 autobiography] I Am Not Spock, and i’m reading [1995 autobiography] I Am Spock now. in I Am Not Spock he covers who spock was to him, and how he’s become a part of him.”
was anything in those books a useful takeaway, in terms of his approach?
“he says spock is birthed in ‘The Corbomite maneuver’,” Peck recalls. “when this orb appears on the viewscreen, his line is, ‘Fascinating!’ The director was like, ‘don’t say it like you’re afraid – you’re curious. Fear’s a human emotion, and you’re thirsty for knowledge.’ That was big for him, and something i’d come to in my own way. it was great to connect on points like that. i felt like we’d made similar discoveries about who spock is.”
Peck also had the chance to meet with the nimoy family. Their advice was very simple.
“‘Just watch the series.’ That was the best advice i could have got, because spock is an observer. he’s constantly taking in information – both intellectual knowledge and emotional information. You see this great space and empathy within him, but he just didn’t interface with it; you see him feel it, but he executes very logically. so i’ve been paying very close attention to what he did. i feel like he’s with me, in some strange and crazy way.”
For an actor, it’s counter-intuitive to suppress emotion. has he been given notes to dial down the humanity?
“if anything, i erred on the safe side of being more vulcan,” Peck reveals. “There are times i’ve got direction like, ‘let’s turn up the human a bit’ – which is why we need an outside perspective. i have my own interpretation, and what i, as my spock, might do in a certain situation. he starts in a place where we may not fully recognise him. But everything’s done with all due respect for what nimoy’s done.”
Finally, how’s his vulcan salute? did it come naturally, or with the aid of sellotape?
“i used to do it as a kid! and i was a cellist, so i have good dexterity in my fingers!”
“it’s really the fulcrum of the season in many ways,” Kurtzman says. “The intersection between the plot, which is ‘what are the seven signals?’ and ‘what’s the red angel?’, and how spock and Burnham work their relationship out against that. This is not the spock that you know from TOS yet. he is not comfortable in his skin yet, and he’s seen, in the red angel and the seven signals, something that’s broken his logical brain. he can’t emotionally make sense of it either. so logic and emotion have totally failed him, and he’s struggling to figure out what his journey of discovery will be. and it’s through his relationship with his sister that he works that out, to become the character you know in TOS.”
Though it’s been done before, in the JJ abrams films, it must, we suggest, be daunting presenting a new version of spock, given the vulcan’s iconic status.
“everyone has a preconceived image of spock,” Kurtzman acknowledges. “so it’s, ‘how are we painting him with a brush where it’s a version you haven’t seen, yet that’s entirely consistent with what you have seen?’. Figuring out how he wrestles through his identity, and where on the line between logic and emotion he’s going to end up, is a tricky balancing act – especially since so much of that has to do with his fractured relationship with michael. But also it’s the reason to do this show, because this is the only season you can tell that story – and you’ll understand why by the time you get to the finale.”
HUGH GOES THERE
we can also expect to see more of the Klingons – who’ve grown back their long locks – as mary Chieffo’s l’rell struggles to win respect as their new Chancellor. There’s an intriguing return for discovery physician hugh Culber (wilson Cruz), despite the small matter of him having had his neck snapped last season. and michelle Yeoh is back, rocking a badass leather cloak as the ruthless mirror universe Philippa Georgiou. she looks set to have a key
role to play in the way season two reflects the increasing insularity of Trump’s america.
“like all the best Trek shows, we’re examining how it’s a mirror to the world that we live in now,” Kurtzman says, when asked about the season’s themes. “we live in a world now where we’re talking about building walls around ourselves, literally, to keep people out, and i think that’s not in keeping with the vision of Star Trek. what are the freedoms that we’re giving up in making choices to protect ourselves? how does that chip away at our essential understanding of starfleet doctrine, and what it means to assume diversity? why do we need to keep people out? all of those things are questions.”
as a scene deleted from the season one finale revealed, Georgiou has now been recruited by section 31, the shadowy intelligence agency first introduced in Deep
Space Nine. Presumably, her missions for them will serve what you could call a “Federation First” agenda…
“we’re not saying starfleet has gone dark,” Kurtzman stresses. “starfleet is very black and white – there are certain things you can’t do. But section 31 does not operate that way; it operates entirely in the grey area. They’re affiliated with starfleet, but loosely. They’re the Jack Bauer of the starfleet universe! and what they’re doing to keep people safe is something that bears a lot of scrutiny in season two.” if one thing really impressed us about
Discovery’s debut run, it was how unpredictable it was. it took a Tv franchise which had, before dropping off the air for 12 years, sometimes felt like an exhausted seam (hands up if you ever watched a Voyager or Enterprise episode and thought, “This is a Next Generation script with the serial numbers filed off!”), and produced the most “wTF?”inducing show on television. But can they keep that up? or does unpredictability become its inverse, once the audience gets wise to it? “i think you’re talking about the Game Of
Thrones effect,” Kurtzman acknowledges.
“once people started realising that you’re going to fall in love with characters who are going to get chopped in half, that in and of itself becomes predictable. we love the idea of turning over cards, but we feel that any great story twists have to come for an organic reason, not just to have a great story twist. You have to have a really strong reason to tell that story.”
and he’s not too bothered if more perceptive viewers guess what’s coming anyway – as some did with the big reveal about ash Tyler’s identity last series.
“There are a lot of things that people guessed early last season,” Kurtzman notes. “But it didn’t change the viewing experience, because even though you may have seen it coming in some way, you got there in a way you didn’t expect. People guessed the Tyler/ voq connection really early on, but i don’t think they understood that we were actually telling this whole story about PTsd, and that we were subverting a lot of the traditional understanding of a male/female Klingon relationship. so we love that, and we love the surprise of that kind of thing!”
here’s hoping we’re not smart enough to predict all the twists and turns to come, because if season one is anything to go by, those red lights should signal a wild ride ahead…