Star Trek: Section 31continues the story of Emperor Georgiou, who first debuted inStar Trek: Discovery. Georgiou is played by Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, whose character is now inStar Trek’s Lost Era, which takes place betweenStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryandStar Trek: The Next Generation. Though the franchise has seen many television spin-offs in recent years, the new Paramount+ exclusive marks the first film in the series in almost a decade.
The titular Section 31 refers to a small, covert intelligence group that partners with Georgiou to avert the threat of a dangerous new weapon. Alongside Yeoh,Section 31introduces several fresh faces to theStar Trekuniverse, includingEastEnders' Rob Kazinsky andPulse’s Sven Ruygrok. The two play characters Zeph and Fuzz respectively; the former is an agent living in an exoskeleton, while the latter is a Vulcan who bucks many of the stereotypes of the race by having a much larger range of emotions.
Star Trek: Section 31 Review - I Wanted A Bit More Star Trek From Michelle Yeoh’s Otherwise Fun Sci-Fi Adventure
Star Trek: Section 31 goes where no Star Trek has gone before with a fun sci-fi spy adventure led by Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Philippa Georgiou.
Screen Rantinterviewed Sven Ruygrok and Rob Kazinsky to discuss the unique qualitiesnew characters bring to theStar Trekuniverse, working with Michelle Yeoh, and what secrets are left to be explored in a potentialSection 31sequel.
Zeph & Fuzz Bring Unique Qualities To Section 31
“All of this makes him a little bit of a wild card, a bit unhinged…”
Screen Rant:You play a Vulcan that is quite unusual from Vulcans we’ve seen in the past, Spock being the most notable. I’d love for you to talk about the unusual characteristics that your character of Fuzz has.
Sven Ruygrok: The unusual characteristics for Fuzz - he’s highly energetic. He is easily provoked, particularly when he is belittled. He has a wonky emotional spectrum, and I think all of this makes him a little bit of a wild card, a bit unhinged, so you never quite know what you’re going to get with him.
Rob, your character of Zeph, he’s a bit of an action star, comedic relief, but underneath all of that, there’s a very interesting loyalty he has to Alok in this movie, and I feel like there’s a backstory there that we hint at, but we don’t necessarily fully grasp all of it. Could you speak to what that backstory is between Zeph and Alok?
Rob Kazinsky: Yeah, Zeph, he’s been a body modder basically his entire life, an augmenter and engineer, and he keeps augmenting these body parts and things like that and he ended up disabling himself. He ended up injuring his spine to such a degree trying to save himself that he ended up paraplegic. And that’s when Alok came along, saw his talent as an engineer, and started feeding him Section 31 technology to build into his exo suit.
Throughout everything, Zeph has been with Alok the longest. He’s his longest, trusted, most right-hand man. And for Zeph, Alok is everything. He’s his best friend, his brother, the one person in life who’s always been honest with him, who he can trust entirely, and he loves him like you’d love - not a father or a brother, but you love a best friend, and that loyalty has no bounds. If Alok’s loyal to the federation, Zeph’s loyal to the federation; if Alok isn’t, nor is Zeph, and it’s that simple.
Michelle Yeoh Taught Ruygrok How To Fight
“Her physicality is phenomenal…”
You guys are both Section 31, so you find yourself opposite Georgiou quite a bit in this movie. Michelle Yeoh is such a delight in this. I’d love to just know about the action scenes you guys had with her, the fight choreography. Were you actually opposite Michelle? What was it like to shoot those?
Sven Ruygrok: I think incredible. And I think a little bit of the backstory is like Michelle, every single day, two hours prior to call time, she would wake up and she would stretch. So I knew when I was ever complaining like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so early,” I’d be like, “Hang on, Michelle Yeoh is up two hours prior to a call time to stretch.” And this is daily, whether she’s doing a fight sequence or not, this is just part of her daily routine.
And then getting up close with her and doing a fight sequence with her, you realize her physicality is phenomenal to the point that she taught me how to kick - high! Oh man, there was this one kick that I did and she was like, “No, no, you need to lift, really get up there with your hips like [mimics kicking] this.” And I was like, “[timidly] Okay!”
Rob Kazinsky: Yeah, she can do it.
Sven Ruygrok: Phenomenal, just phenomenal - her level of ability, her skill, her accuracy, and she’s able to do things so quickly but not even touch you. I was like, “I’m blown away.”
The Biggest Secrets Left To Tell In A Section 31 Sequel
“Georgiou is the crux of all of it…”
One final question for you both: Section 31, you’re both spies. Obviously, your job is to dig up secrets within theStar Trekrealm. If we are to explore more ofSection 31 in a sequel, are there anyStar Treksecrets you both have your eyes on?
Rob Kazinsky: I think about it a lot. It’s interesting to me, because Georgiou is the crux of all of it. Georgiou was the present, then she got taken to the future. She’s informed how Michael Burnham and the Federation is in the future, she informed how it was in the present, and now she’s in the lost years, and that period of time, the past as well, and the - not formation, obviously, of Section 31, that happened a long time ago. But in the development of how Section 31 becomes the force that it becomes, unfettered and unchained from the Federation itself, and how Rachel Garrett as a character goes on to become captain of the Enterprise will obviously have an awful lot to do with Section 31 before we go into war with the Romulans, which we’ve never seen how the Treaty of Algeron comes to be and kind of things.
We saw it was all hinted at in “Yesterday’s Enterprise, but that’s what I’m excited to see: how Section 31, which you should never ever hear about their existence, is kind of the backbone and pillar of how so many parts of the Federation history have come to be.
Sven Ruygrok: Yeah, look, I don’t know so much about a secret as I think continuing exploring moral dilemmas. What is the cost of maintaining peace in a galaxy? That is a little bit scary and that I would like to continue to explore. How do people, species of all types, explore that a little bit further?
