The Big Challenge Ethan Peck Faced Playing Spock On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
"Strange New Worlds" offers a little something bold and a little something familiar to long-time "Star Trek" fans. The show takes place years before the events of "The Original Series," so there are plenty of beloved faces making glorious returns. For example, a younger version of Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) makes an appearance as the USS Enterprise's foremost authority in linguistics. And there's the perennial fan favorite that is Spock (Ethan Peck), who's the ship's science officer.
Spock has long been one of the most famous faces affiliated with the "Star Trek" franchise. He's known for his iconic hand gesture indicating "Live long and prosper," as well as his unique mannerisms and method of speech. As a Vulcan, he's prone to subdue his emotions, only thinking in the most logical of terms. While such behavior comes naturally to Spock, actor Ethan Peck, who's the latest in a long line of thespians to take on the role, found that always behaving logically came with its challenges.
It was all about striking the right balance for Ethan Peck
Humans are irrational creatures. Vulcans are only supposed to do what makes sense, so Spock often behaves in sharp contrast to the other characters on board the ship. This can be seen most readily in "Strange New Worlds," when other characters may be feeling the magnitude of a situation, but Spock confronts it with the utmost sincerity.
Actor Ethan Peck spoke about this dichotomy in an interview with TrekMovie.com. The outlet brings up how the original Spock actor, Leonard Nimoy, struggled with finding the balance in the character. This could be seen in an interview Nimoy did with BBC and later republished by The Washington Post, where he stated, "I think it's a matter of interpretation. There are those who would say he has no emotion. I think the opposite is true. He's a very feeling, sensitive person who does have emotions, but he also has emotional control."
To TrekMovie.com, Peck responded, "Being Spock is quite a pressurized experience and a delicate endeavor because he is in control of so much of his emotions. It's quite challenging, at least for me as an actor. What's too much emotion? What's too little? What's too Vulcan? What's too Human? So I'm constantly wrestling with those things." It's clearly a natural reaction to playing Spock, but judging from his performance on "Strange New Worlds" so far, he's nailing it.