- 6/20/2025
Director Olatunde Osunsanmi, Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman and cast members Omari Hardwick, Kasey Rohl, Robert Kazinsky and Sven Roygrok talk to The Inside Reel about perspective, approach, tone and the art of war in regards to their new Star Trek movie on Paramount+: “Section 31.”
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Whatever you believed your mission was, is worse than you thought.
00:21How do we stop it?
00:22We work together, and don't get dead.
00:27I'll try my hardest.
00:30You ready?
00:32Let's get messy.
00:34You don't answer her questions directly.
00:37She will punch you in your face.
00:39What?
00:40You said that she was going to be doing the face punching!
00:43I lied.
00:45You have no idea where you started.
00:51This is going to be bad.
00:53Five, four, three, two, one.
00:58We survived together.
01:01Even just talking to you two about these two characters, there's so much parallels, so many
01:12diametric, there's so many different things going on about how you harness chaos in certain
01:17ways.
01:18But you have to do it in different ways.
01:20Can you each talk psychologically, without obviously giving too much away, what appealed
01:25about the gravitas of these two, but also the fact that they can find humor sometimes in
01:30the situations.
01:31I appreciate you asking that question.
01:34I like that.
01:34There is mental warfare, absolutely, that is happening between not just Alok and Michelle's
01:42Philippa Georgiou, but also in terms of Alok and all the humans and the non-humans he encounters.
01:49I think for him, it is a lot of the art of war.
01:58I read that book so many times in life, and I get the template more than ever as it pertains
02:06to this individual.
02:07I love that you can equally experience levity with him, and I think ironically, the dear
02:17friend to my left, my castmate, you're right, who played obviously a very significant character
02:24because she's reprising a legendary character from Trek, she might be the only one I'm not
02:30having to play mental warfare with, because I have such a motley crew of bandits whom I've
02:36casted or hired, and partly because they're able to play mental warfare.
02:41They're able to play it so well that I have to be on my A-game in terms of trying to see
02:48through them and make sure that I'm equally, while seeing through them, holding them accountable
02:52for what I hired them to do.
02:54With Casey's character, it's interesting.
02:56I think my guard is let down a bit.
02:58All she's doing is making sure I'm not on bullshit.
03:00So it's a little bit easier in terms of being in front of her, but from Michelle's character
03:05all the way to Sven's character, with Rob in between and Umberley in between and Sam in
03:11between, there is a real definite, like, I got to really make sure they're not trying
03:17to pull a fast one on me, because I am in charge.
03:21There's a customer hoping for a word with you.
03:31Bring him.
03:36What are you doing in my space station?
03:38I'm giving you a chance to get back in on the action on a galactic scale.
03:42The only way this works is if I know exactly what I'm dealing with.
03:54We're facing a threat unlike anything Starfleet's ever seen.
03:57And with specifically this, because it's a different monster, a different structure, can you guys talk about, was it a different approach?
04:22A different mindset?
04:24What did you have to do different than, say, disco?
04:26Yeah, we talked quite a bit about what would this visual design be?
04:31And what would the tone feel like?
04:32What would it feel like?
04:33And as an audience member, what would you feel?
04:35And the words that I kept coming back away from those conversations with were fun, and wild, and outrageous, and a little bit of drama, and a lot of emotion, but we kept coming back to the word fun.
04:53And, you know, we've done a lot of disco episodes, and we wanted to make sure that this felt separate and of its own, particularly Star Trek.
05:01And Alex has talked a lot about that over the years, about it's got to be, if we're going to do Star Trek, it's got to be different to a degree and have a reason for being different.
05:10And we really enjoyed being able to play in color outside of the Federation lines, because this takes place outside of the Federation, which was the reason for having Section 31 to have to go out and do it.
05:25And it was wonderful having a character like Michelle Yeoh, like Philippa Georgiou, and being able to extend the different visual designs, the colors, the production design, the costumes, out from that character, which is wild, which is fun, and which is learning, who is learning kindness throughout her arc in Section 31.
05:47One last mission.
05:50Listen.
05:52Do you believe in fate?
05:55Because I do.
05:56You can't hide from it.
05:59You're nothing here, Georgiou.
06:05I'm giving you a chance to get back in.
06:08In on the action on a galactic scale.
06:12Stop running from it.
06:16Be who you are.
06:20Or stay at Ten Bar for eternity.
06:25But you guys find a nice balance of sort of gravitas and humor with each of your characters.
06:31Can you talk about finding that energy on set?
06:33Because you have to keep up the tension, but also play with the idea of it.
06:37I think what really helped, and this was great directing, I think, from Olatunde, was that Alok kind of holds it all together.
06:46He locks us down to some degree.
06:48Like, did he play?
06:49Absolutely.
06:49Does he have quirks?
06:50You betcha.
06:51But as a leader, he's able to bring the anchoring.
06:55Because without an anchor, we are just a whole bunch of farts flying in the wind, to put it mildly.
07:02Because we had so much fun.
07:05It felt illegal.
07:07It felt illegal.
07:08And without that center character being like, pull it together, lock it down, we've got a mission, it wouldn't work.
07:15And I think that's what made it hold and bring gravitas, as you said.
07:21None of our characters fit in in society.
07:23That's the point.
07:24You know what I mean?
07:25Yeah.
07:25So the idea that Alok would go out and find these people who are brilliant in their own right, but have things off about them, which you certainly do, and put them together into a team.
07:36We wanted to bring that together.
07:38And on our first day, it was all of us around doing like a 12-page scene for the whole day, just standing there.
07:45And none of us had, we'd had a table read, but we didn't really know what we were going to do.
07:49And that was when Tunde started letting us, like pushing us to improvise and play.
07:53And we found out where these characters belonged in the group dynamic of it all and started finding the humor and things like that.
08:02And then you would always bring it back to, you know, there were moments like, I don't know, can we do spoilers or is this no spoilers or is this spoilers?
08:08Yeah, keep a spoiler low if you could.
08:11You know, but there were moments where, you know, you would lose one of the characters or a character that somebody cared about.
08:16And we were like, no, we need to have a moment where we feel that kind of thing.
08:20And Tunde would be like, you're absolutely right.
08:22And then they would pull it, we'd pull it in.
08:23And it all just, it was so organic and just so came together really well.
08:28And I think, I think after day two, we all knew exactly the tone that we should each be hitting.
08:35Philippa, Giorgio, meet my team.
08:38This is Mel.
08:42Zeph.
08:43You look like a Swiss Army knife.
08:46Oh, hold on.
08:49I don't know what that means, but I'm not going to just stand here and get insulted.
08:52I'm not talking about you.
08:54I'm talking about your suit.
08:58You're new.
08:59So I'm going to just explain this one time that when you are talking about the suit, you're talking about Zeph.
09:05Zeph suffers from what we call mecha dysmorphia.
09:08And I may not know what that is, but I'm also not going to take that from you, Quaz.
09:11And personally, I'm offended.
09:13I think you should know.
09:14I mean, the great thing is, in fact, it is Star Trek, but it's outside sort of the norm, which gives you guys license to sort of play, as you said.
09:23Could you talk about that?
09:24Because you want the boundary.
09:26And of course, you know, the director will tell you how far to go.
09:30But can you talk about that and finding sort of those lines, like to sort of mess with a little bit?
09:36Sure.
09:38Yeah.
09:38I mean, look, it's it's Section 31.
09:41It's not the Federation.
09:43It's not in Federation space.
09:45It doesn't obey the rules of what the Federation stands for.
09:48It doesn't have the same moral relativism that the Federation does.
09:50It's aside from that and tonally in the terms of the show, we wanted to do a type of genre that hasn't really been done in Star Trek before, bringing a new audience, like give people something else.
10:01And so when we were putting this show together, like when we were being cast and we're finding all these things, we wanted to present something that felt like Star Trek, but like a new kind of Star Trek.
10:13And I think with Craig Sweeney, Kirstman and Tunde that they did all that.
10:17And I think they cast it very well, if I do say so myself and put together a bunch of people who could work with three cameras and improvise and find characters because this was a low budget production.
10:29We didn't have a lot of time.
10:31We had a couple that we had like a week of rehearsal of just sitting around and doing costume fittings.
10:35Then we were shooting and like it was fast.
10:38Like I've done movies like this and they take a year and we were done in three months.
10:43So we they cast people like obviously Michelle knows Georgiou well, but the rest of us were finding who we were.
10:49And if they hadn't cast such brilliant actors, I mean, they found things that you wouldn't even think to put on screen.
10:56And if I think we're putting Dadanos' life in danger by tinkering with that implant, I will unleash the full weight of Starfleet on this whole operation.
11:04Oi, we're talking about a bloke who's selling super weapons to any third-rate terrorist in a Latin car.
11:09Listen carefully, Junkyard. Starfleet does not do assassinations.
11:13I don't get your prime directives in a bunch.
11:16You are not going to get your hands dirty and mess up your chances of becoming captain.
11:21I'm a top-tier science officer.
11:22Bodge Pretzel.
11:23Tight-ass.
11:25So disrespectful.
11:25Garrett knows her art of war, too, from a different angle.
11:28Yes, she does know her art of war.
11:29Could you talk about that?
11:30Yeah, absolutely.
11:31So I think when we find Garrett at the beginning of this film, she's definitely one of those people who finds deep comfort in, you know, in operating within systems that have very clear rules and what's okay, what's not okay.
11:46And what was fun about this film is she's plopped into section 31, which is total chaos in a way and coloring outside the lines in the gray area.
11:55So the journey I got to go on with her was the goodness that can come from mess, right?
12:00Like the goodness that can come from a lack of perfection.
12:04That's actually, there's more richness and more solution that can come sometimes from it tumbling out in a way that doesn't follow all of the strictures we have in place, you know?
12:16And I think that provides a lot of humor in a way.
12:20Like, I know for myself, I have sort of, I have many sides, but there is a very deeply serious, earnest side and there is a real goofy side.
12:30And if I can tap into my goofy side and look at my earnest side, she's hilarious.
12:35Like, if I'm taking something very seriously, too seriously, the ultimate antidote for me is to try to lighten up and have a little laugh.
12:43So part of Garrett's story within this film, I think, operates in that ground of how can we soften to both accept the mess and also, like, have a little bit of humor about dealing with challenging situations.
12:58I think she does a good job of adjusting after an understanding of, I'm not actually going to be able to execute what Starfleet sent me here to do if I'm doing it, only it just doesn't work.
13:09You kind of got to think of criminality to deal with criminals a bit.
13:12And so she, she, she does a, I think, and I think you brought that.
13:17I know you brought it.
13:18And I think the fans will really take that.
13:20That's, that's, you were an amalgamation in a, in a really good way.
13:24But the movie is that, right?
13:25The movie is criminality meets justice meets failure meets forgiveness meets redemption.
13:31And I think that's the part that the fans will go, okay, I buy it.
13:36An emperor can only be loyal to duty.
13:47Thus does the empire remain strong.
13:53Thus does it grow.
13:58All hail the emperor!
14:09Filippo Giorgio, you're a tyrant who murdered our own people by an amelius.
14:16The past always catches up with you.
14:19And Alex, could you talk about, because Omari and I were just talking about the art of war and the art of war speaks to every single different character, you know, within this, you know, Garrett, of course, is, is a big part of that.
14:32But so with Filippa, her art of war, can you talk about those thematics, but bringing those elements of mythology into it, of the Star Trek mythology that interweaves so well in this kind of story without giving too much away, but the importance of that.
14:46Yeah, sure.
14:46I mean, I think if you're a Star Trek fan, what you love is Roddenberry's essential vision of a future where our better angels have led us to, to a place where all the things that divide us now are in the rearview mirror.
15:05And it's an ultimate, not just a utopia, but it's an ultimately optimistic vision of the future.
15:12And the thing about Section 31 is that there's the controversy that surrounded 31 since it was conceived of on Deep Space Nine is this idea that it's somehow not part of that vision.
15:25And I think that what I would argue is that Star Trek in its best form, and I think it's one of the things that's most valuable about Star Trek, and it's part of why it has endured for so long, it always reflects the moment in which it's made.
15:38So if you look at the original series, it's talking about what was going on in the 60s, and you can say that about Next Generation, and you can say that about Deep Space Nine, and you can say that about everything that we've done.
15:47And the question of who has to operate in shadow in order for the light to exist is a very relevant question, and one that we're asking ourselves all the time.
16:01And so to me, it feels like it is actually doing what Star Trek has always done at its best, which is ask a question about who we are, about how we live our lives, about how we relate to each other, and about what is the price of freedom, you know?
16:15And at the same time, so you have this, that's my heady answer.
16:19My other answer is, it's really fun.
16:21It's really funny.
16:22It's actually, while talking about some dark things, it is not fundamentally a dark movie.
16:28And that was really what we were trying to do.
16:30We wanted to just have a very fun action movie that was also touching on some larger themes.
16:34And ultimately, I would say that it does reinforce Roddenberry's vision of a utopian future, because while these characters are not the kinds of people that could don a uniform and exist on a starship, they're just too rebellious for that.
16:48They're actually fighting for the same things that any other Starfleet officer would be fighting for, which is to protect a better future.
16:54So I do think it's very much part of Star Trek.
16:59You're Section 31.
17:01Section 31.
17:02Section 31.
17:03Section 31.
17:06Okay ladies, now let's get information.
17:0931 is a black ops division.
17:11Spy work.
17:12Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder.
17:14What a cute idea.
17:17Who don't mean you got some coordination?
17:31You're a bad bitch.
17:31We can't trust you with our lives, but here we go.
17:34Somebody's got to keep it lively, right?
Recommended
1:41
1:52
2:53
1:25
17:12
14:32