Web viewQuestion: So Simon, you’re in the movie and you wrote the movie. What was it like when they came to you and asked if you’d help write this film?

EPK Interview with Simon PeggRecorded on October 14, 2015

Question: So Simon, you’re in the movie and you wrote the

movie. What was it like when they came to you and asked

if you’d help write this film?

Simon (17:24:04:00): I was making Mission: Impossible –

Rogue Nation in London with Bryan Burk, who is as well a

producer on Into Darkness in ‘09, and he mentioned that

they were thinking of restarting the process, and we were

just kicking ideas around on the set of Mission:

Impossible. He was sort of talking about you know ways

that we could go and we had these very spirited

discussions and then I was on the set of, where was I? I

think I was - I remember he took me somewhere - oh yeah,

it was Mission, and he took me off - I thought he was

going to assassinate me - took me to a corner and just

said, “Do you want to write it?” And I kind of went

(jibberish - laughs), and then um - but said yes. And

then I met Doug in January, very early January, for the

first time - Doug, who’s now my absolute wingman and

great friend. We had a very interesting sixteen hours in

a hotel room in London with me, Justin, Doug and Lindsey


Weber, and even despite that, we continued to work

(laughs), and we wrote the film.

Question: What was the process with Doug?

Simon (17:25:28:00): There was a lot of phone stuff.

There was a lot of me coming home from Mission:

Impossible, half past eight at night, and then being on a

conference call to LA until God knows when. And then I

went off to LA and Doug and I for the first time spent

time together and we locked ourselves in the screening

room at Bad Robot and covered the white boards in there

with ideas and hashed out a kind of rough structure for

the movie. And then Doug came over to the UK and he

stayed with me at my house in Hertfordshire and we spent

a week just working at it solidly. We got a lot of work

done that week. We watched a lot of Star Treks in the

evening. When we’d done good stuff, we’d go and watch the

original series, just to kind of - not just to enjoy it,

but also to pick little details that we could feed into

our universe as well, you know? The names of redshirts

and various personnel that could also exist in the prime


timeline, and then we kind of got a first draft together

somehow. Then JJ gave us, and Lindsey and Justin, gave us

notes, which made us so depressed (laughs). I sent a

picture of myself with a phaser against my head to JJ.

Like, I didn’t know how we were going to do it. But there

were times during this process where we were like, “We

can’t do this,” but we did it. We just kind of somehow

battled through.

Question: Can you talk about Lindsey Weber’s

contribution?

Simon (17:27:00:15): Lindsey Weber is this sort of

incredible force of intelligence and reason and

practicality, which - and great creative input as well,

which was absolutely indispensible for Doug and I. To

have someone in the room who was kind of - you know,

who’d be able to sort of shout down the more crazy stuff

that we had or help us talk stuff through. And she was a

great sort of third member of the creative team, of

myself, Doug and her - and Justin of course, so a fourth

member. And she was just indispensable and great to have


because she was very impartial. She came at it from a

very pragmatic - you know, she’s a fan of Star Trek but

she’s not like a fan boy or fan girl, like I am, or you

know Doug and I are both a bit sort of nerdy about Star

Trek. She’s more practical and yeah it was just great

having her. I sent her a message when she left Dubai

towards the end of the shoot, just sort of saying,

“You’re my rock. Thank you.”

Question: Can you talk about your relationship with

Justin?

Simon (17:28:13:00): The hardest part of the process was

before we started, before we got to Vancouver. Justin was

always so busy. It was very hard to kind of get any time

with him, and often his concerns and thoughts would come

to us second-hand. I didn’t feel like I particularly knew

him through the initial part of the process. As soon as

we got to Vancouver and we could all be together all the

time and we started to see some of the conceptual designs

for some of the ideas he’d had, some of his pre-vis,

suddenly it began to click in and become a far more


productive and fruitful process. And then when we started

shooting, we were able to prioritize each scene in terms

of whatever was coming next, we would look at most

intensively. And having Justin there to discuss stuff

with was great. He’s got a very visual mind, Justin, and

sometimes you have to kind of eek out what he means. He

kind of does this thing where he sort of like encourages

you to complete his sentences in a way that you’re kind

of trying to guess what he’s thinking. But somehow we

found a rhythm and it worked really well. And I suddenly,

as soon as I started to see Justin work, I got him

straight away and became very sort of fascinated by his

process and really impressed by his choices.

Question: Let’s talk about the script. It opens with

humor, restlessness, fatigue, the emblematic five-year

mission. Why did you feel that was the right place to

start?

Simon (17:29:55:00): Doug and I both felt that they

hadn’t really ever addressed the practicalities of deep

space travel in this way before, in terms of how being


aboard a starship for that amount of time might have

affect on you day to day in the smaller issues of life,

in terms of just little personal things and how it might

affect your mood and your attitude towards the mission.

We like the idea of questioning the Roddenberry universe

a little bit. Not just conceptually in terms of the big

themes like unity and cooperation, but also in terms of

having to wear the same uniform every day, you know? And

that became something important to us quite early on and

we thought we’d play with that and feed it into the

general ennui that the crew have at this point. And then

suddenly what they take for granted gets ripped away and

hopefully you know they’re invested with a new sense of

belonging.

Question: Why did you choose Yorktown as the victim of

the film that the crew is trying to save?

Simon (17:31:15:20): One of the notes that JJ always

directed towards us was the idea that he wanted the

threat in the movie to have a very far-reaching effect

and in a way he seemed to be keen that it always come


back to Earth. Now Rarth is a very, very long way away

now in this iteration of the story, and it was a slight

dilemma for us, cause how can we make earth a victim or a

potential victim of whatever’s going wrong here with it

being so, so, so far away? Because what we’re trying to

get across in this movie is that they’re not anywhere

near Earth anymore. They’re light years away and Earth is

long gone. So we created a sort of proxy Earth, which is

Yorktown. Yorktown was the name, I think, of Gene

Roddenberry’s – well, the Enterprise was first called the

Yorktown, so we took that name and we gave it to the

space station. And it became sort of a representation of

the Federation, a hub for the Federation and all the

newly inducted worlds and the pre-existing inducted

worlds and it was in that one sort of globe the

Federation itself, so any threat to it was a threat by

association to Earth eventually. So that became our kind

of, our proxy Earth, as it were, I guess.

Question: The movie begins in earnest when the Enterprise

is destroyed. Can you talk about that choice?


Simon (17:33:05:00): I was dead against destroying the

Enterprise. I had several shouty arguments with everybody

about it because I felt like - I don’t know, maybe it was

partly my Scotty side just being protective of the ship.

My initial argument was that it’s been done. It’s no big

deal to destroy the Enterprise. We’ve seen it in Star

Trek 3, we saw it in Generations. You know, the

Enterprise has been destroyed before, but the fact is it

hasn’t been destroyed on someone else’s terms. It’s

always been kind of like a sacrificial move or something

that’s kind of - they’ve been partially - sort of

involved with doing in order to save something. This is

an attack, which succeeds against the Enterprise, so once

I came around to the idea of it and watched the pre-vis,

which was very exciting and kind of amazing, I sort of

grudgingly accepted that that was what was going to

happen. It was actually told to me that it was going to -

It was like a fait accompli. I remember Lindsey just

saying, “Simon, they’re going to destroy the Enterprise.

Just deal with it.” So I was like, “Okay.” And have since

kind of come around to the idea of what the Enterprise

means, and the removal of it is such a hugely significant


deal for everybody, you know. It’s the taking away of the

family linchpin for the entire crew. And so it’s -

symbolically it’s a huge thing. And I’ve come around to

agreeing that it should’ve been blown out of the sky

(laughs). Because the Enterprise is an idea, it’s not a

spaceship, you know. And there will be an Enterprise B.

Question: It creates a special plot mechanic. Instead of

having a crew together, we have different members coming

together. Can you talk about why that was the right move?

Simon (17:35:16:00): We wanted to separate the crew quite

quickly and have them all in disparate parts of the story

and the geography of the film. And the pairings came

about sort of, I wouldn’t say randomly because we

certainly put characters together who haven’t really

spent much time together. Spock and McCoy was a key one,

because I felt and Doug felt that we’d seen the Kirk-

Spock relationship quite extensively in the previous two

films. It’s time to let that go for awhile and come back

to it later on when they’ve known each other a bit

longer. I feel like they’ve been through almost a


lifetime’s journey in the first two films. We don’t

really need to kind of linger on that too much now, and

the relationship between Spock and Bones has always been

fascinating, to coin a phrase, and very funny because

they are so diametrically opposed to each other in so

many ways, and yet somewhere there is a great friendship

and we wanted to explore that. With Scotty and Jaylah we

liked the idea of Scotty finding a kind of adept, young

engineer, like someone who has a mechanic skill, which

impresses him. With Uhura and Sulu, that changed around a

little bit. There was a time when it was just Uhura in

there, and then Sulu. I think Sulu was somewhere else and

then came to the thing. But we kind of liked the idea of

those two as an odd pairing. And in terms of Chekov and

Kirk, it’s just that you’ve got the boy and the man.

There’s a great sort of interplay, juxtaposition between

Chekov’s very excitable enthusiasm and Kirk’s now faintly

jaded attitude towards things. So those pairings all felt

kind of right, you know?


Question: You acknowledge that Sulu has a family, and it

felt like it’s a step away from a lot of other things

happening in the story. Why’d you do that?

Simon (17:37:23:00): That’s the whole big thing that we

decided to do early on, was that we’d not only give Sulu

a family but we’d make it a same sex relationship. And

that was partly in deference to George Takei, in terms of

his - not because he ever played Sulu in that way. His

Sulu I’m sure he played straight, it was more to his

activism as a person. And also this is the prime

universe, so we’re not necessarily the same people, we’re

not necessarily the same embryos. We are the same

characters but there is a chance that this is a different

person altogether. We didn’t ever want it to seem like he

could’ve chosen his sexuality cause that’s impossible to

do, but we did sort of float the idea that we are all

completely separate people, albeit with the same names,

with the same genetic makeup, same parents, but there

could be significant differences which might explain why

we look slightly different and perhaps have different

aspects to our character. And we decided, in such an


inclusive universe as Star Trek, in a universe where

everybody is considered equal, that there wasn’t really a

really strong gay character in Star Trek. And we thought

wouldn’t it be great if one of the main characters, it

wasn’t just an ancillary character, it was one of the

main characters, and that aspect of their character had

no bearing on who they were or what happens to them in

the film. It’s just a detail of who they are. And that

became Sulu, and we had a long chat with John about it.

We didn’t want it to be anything to do with the story,

other than the fact that he has a family. He doesn’t

learn a lesson about his sexuality or his sexuality has

no bearing on anything other than the fact that he has

someone he cares about in Yorktown. And it was a bold

move, I feel. It was one that we kind of talked about a

lot. But I really felt like it was right thing to do

because it just would be most likely someone in that part

of the ship would probably be gay, if not more. Maybe

Scotty’s gay. I don’t know. But it just felt like

something that we wanted to do, and it also gave us the

idea of Sulu having a vested interest in Yorktown as a

place that he obviously did not want to see under threat.


There’s going to be a lot of discussions about it, I

think. And anyone who is upset about it, hopefully we can

talk them out of being upset. Anyone who thinks it’s a

bad idea just because he’s gay shouldn’t be a Star Trek

fan. The only thing I can foresee being a problem is the

idea that someone would say, “Well, how come the other

Sulu isn’t gay?” But I think we can explain that in a way

that’s credible and canonistic.

Question: Can you talk about the creation of the villain

core? How they fit together and why they had to have the

philosophy that they have?

Simon (17:40:23:19): Yeah, it’s interesting because with

this story, for a story which takes place so far from

earth, the bad guy ends up being a human being and that

kind of felt like - rather than being a not very

imaginative in terms of, well this goes back to Earth

again, it felt like a really interesting idea in that

there is an incredible parallel between Kirk and Krall.

They are the mirror of each other, and at some point they

separated in their decision making and one became one


thing and one became the other. And so we wanted to

create a subterfuge really with the bad guys, so that you

didn’t see that coming and in Kalara and Manus and Krall,

you have seemingly three aliens who we learn later were

all at one point human and were changed genetically. And

it just felt like a really interesting idea, you know?

The irony of them being faintly anti-inclusive, anti-

other. They were kind of racists in a way because they

didn’t want the human beings to combine with aliens,

became aliens themselves and found strength in their

alien-ness. There were so many intricate complex ideas

floating around that it felt too sort of fruitful and

weird not to pursue, so yeah. And we didn’t want him to

be, Krall specifically, we didn’t want him to be just

another guy out for revenge. We kind of wanted him to

have a complex reason behind his bad guy-ness, it was

more like he made a poor decision and in not being able

to take it back, just exacerbated his situation into

galactic autocracy. And we kind of liked that, that he

was just pissed off a little bit - cause he was too proud

to ever realize what he was doing was wrong, he became

this monstrous despot when the root of his problem was


something as simple as sour grapes - cause that happens

sometimes.

Question: It feels like there’s a moment at the end of

the movie where it feels like he might switch back.

Simon (17:42:44:00): Ee had a conversation about Edison

in the final moments of the movie where he becomes fully

human that the return of his humanity would give him a

massive crisis because emotionally he would start to

become human again and things like his conscious might

start coming back. His human self might start to question

the actions he made. Not as alien because being an alien

isn’t bad but becoming what he did which is a bizarre mix

of things and a confusion of ideals and genes. We had

this thought what if he in a moment of redemptive guilt

helped Kirk save the day and we tried to explore this a

lot and every way we came back to it didn’t ring true

that he would actually go “you know what I was wrong”.

But we love the idea that it might be there in the

shadows- this feeling like, “Oh my God, what if I have

been terribly wrong the whole time. What if this whole


thing has been a mistake? What if I was wrong?” So we

came up with this idea where he would have this crisis of

conscious and be about to save Kirk, be about to help him

when suddenly he catches sight of himself and in that

moment he realizes exactly what he is which is lost and

he fights the urge to be good. And he becomes what he is

which is a monster, whatever he looks like - whatever

physical appearance. He is in his heart a monster and

that is his own doing.

Question: How did you feel about Jaylah?

Simon (17:44:46:07): I love Jaylah. Also have grown to

love her more and more. When we first started talking

about her - I don’t know if I should tell you this story,

it’s a funny story - when we first started talking about

her we referred as Hana Solo. And it was because we

wanted a kind of resourceful, pirate, kind of young girl

who was cool and people would want to be. But because of

the cross pollination of that name just felt wrong and I

said we can’t call her that even in kind of discussions.

We had to give her a name. Then we started talking about


who she reminded us of and who she was. Jennifer Lawrence

in Winter’s Burn was incredibly tough and sort of

independent resourceful girl so we started calling her J-

Law. And that became Jaylah. So Jennifer Lawrence if

you’re watching the extras on the Star Trek DVD, which

I’m sure you are, we kind of named her after you. But

yeah, it was a character on paper that seemed kind of

cool. She had this strange, syntactical way of speaking

cause of where she’d learn English. She was super-

resourceful and tough. But as soon as we got Sofia

involved, Sofia Boutella, who just inhabited the

character in such a way that charmed the socks off of all

of us. All of us love Jaylah. JJ loves Jaylah. I got

emails from JJ after he watched dailies going “Can we

have more of Jayla in the film?” Cause she is just so

awesome and 3D. It was a real joy to be her foil in the

movie and to kind of be there for her journey, which is

sort of an orphan surviving in this ship, which becomes

the savior of the entire crew. This old jalopy, which is

hidden in the undergrowth on Altimid. She’s such a great

character. I am very proud to have been a partial parent

of hers, you know?


Question: Can you talk about the process of deciding to

have the Franklin be on Altamid? This massive, ancient

spacecraft whose existence pre-dates Starfleet?

Simon (17:47:14:23): We loved the idea of them thinking

they were the first humans somewhere and discovering that

they absolutely weren’t. And that there was this old

Federation technology. The Franklin had got there via a

worm hole, which had almost destroyed everyone on board.

They found their way there by luck. The Enterprise had

been traveling for a long time to get to this part of the

galaxy. And Altamid is a planet which is very, very, very

far away that hasn’t been visited by the Federation on

purpose ever. But we loved the idea of them discovering

this, like an old car in the bushes. This idea of a very

early Federation ship. And we kind of went back right

into the past with the help of Memory Alpha, which is –

the guys who made this amazing website, which is

completely fan-driven and created and is so reliable and

so full of incredible detail. It was enormous help for

myself and Doug. Not just to watch the TV shows, but get


back to pre-the original series stuff – the Enterprise

show, the M.A.K.O. – the kind of, the beginnings of the

Federation. We wanted to put that in there as well. And

we also liked the idea of them having to use very old

stuff to win the day. Not least kind of old music and old

human things to try and win out.

Question: It also marks the third appearance of the

Beastie Boys. Why are the Beastie Boys such an integral

of these Star Trek films? Was that a J.J. thing?

Simon (17:48:50:00): I think it was a J.J. thing! I know

the Beasties were pretty – you know, there’s references

to Star Trek in some of their songs. And it felt like

because we’d done it twice, we should do it again. And we

had this idea of disrupting this kind of cyberpathic link

with the swarm with noise somehow. And it really felt

like a cool thing to do with music. It just felt cheeky

and hopefully extremely fun. And “Sabotage” is one of the

greatest pieces of music ever created. And it seemed very

apt to be the song they use to sabotage the swarm. And I

really wanted to see a lot of spaceships blow up to the


sound of the Beastie Boys! (laughs) The idea was just

kind of – it was too much fun.

Question: It’s an audacious choice, and one of the two

elements in the film that I think could really go south

if not done right. Can you talk about that other big risk

– the motorcycle piece?

Simon (17:50:06:09): The motorcycle was Justin’s idea,

and it was something that at first we were like, “Okay,

but how in the heck are we going to do that?” So we

started thinking about it and it suddenly started to make

sense that they probably have land transport on the ship.

The ship was most likely a sort of mineral survey ship, I

think initially. It was an exploratory ship and probably

would have certain ground transport available. We came up

with this idea for the Hilts PX70 and that was named

after Steve Mcqueen’s character in “The Great Escape.” We

thought it was it was a nice irony and it was being used

to get into a prison camp rather than to get out. So we

called it a “Hilts PX70”. Justin to his credit was like -

should I do this because people obviously associate me


with kind of land transport movies but it just felt like

another nice (inaudible) and would be fun to see. It’s

always nice to see kind of low teach destroying high

tech. Doug and I had a crazy evening in L.A. And the

Paramount lot - I don’t know what of the night it was but

we had “born to be wild” on the iPod and every time we

spoke about the motorbike we put it on. It was almost

this idea of cutting into Kirk “keep the motor running”

and it was one of those ideas that it was so out there

that we could not not do it.

Question: Can you talk about the fight? Did you have a

sense in your head when you ran it?

Simon: (17:51:42:22) We tried to. I can’t claim it was

our idea because it was an idea Justin had in a very

Justin way. Doug and I were constantly going “What do you

mean” we eventually began to sort of - as soon as we

started to see the model - the idea was there a nexus in

the middle of the station where by gravity it was very

questionable. It shifted and changed because it was a

nexus with four different gravity points. And that sort


of created a sort of - a force that was going to take

place in this place where the gravity was very uneven and

enabled us to really do some crazy stuff. Yeah, that was

one of those director–writer interfaces that took a long

time to sort of get.

Question: At the very end of the film, is the plan to

have Jayla in Starfleet?

Simon: (17:52:50:12) I would love to see that, we seem to

be accumulating a lot of crew members left, right and

center and I don’t know at this point if the character of

Kevin will have featured, but you know we love the

character of Jayla very much and we would like to see her

become part of the universe. The non-human characters of

Star Trek are more important and the more of them the

better. To some degree they are racial (inaudible)

anyway, to keep things different and not have it been all

one note. I would love to see Jaylah come back because

she feels like a character that has lots more to do. I

feel like maybe a spin off would be great.


Question: You just mentioned Deep, he had his moment in

this movie and why was that the moment?

Simon: I laugh with Deep all of the time. I love Deep and

he’s such a great guy and such a seasoned professional.

He’s an extraordinary actor and has done many, many

things. Deep and I were one of the few actors that were

in the Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek so we have our

own little club me and Deep. He was a character in the

first film that was kind of - wasn’t supposed to come

back. JJ and I were talking after the scene when scottie

transports off Delta and leaves Keenser like (sad noise)

and were like that’s really sad - we should bring him

back at the end. And then we had this idea what if he has

a staff uniform, or what if he is like a super wiz

engineer. So by sheer accident and a joking conversation

Keenser became a regular character as such “Into

Darkness” and even though Scottie and Keenser get

separated he has his part to play – a corrosive mucus

based one. The prime universe is a different place

altogether, and we are meeting people and they are


becoming part of that crew. So it’s nice to have that

freedom to do that.

Question: Lets talk a little bit about Scottie, where is

he at the beginning of the film? Where is his head-space

and what was your sense of him at the beginning of the

film?

Simon: (17:55:04:20) I feel like Scottie is probably the

least bothered by everything. He’s in his element when he

is in the engine room. He likes his job very much and I’m

sure he complain more than anyone but he’s probably the

most satisfied out of everybody. He’s not in a terrible

place so when we join him he’s kind of doing his thing

which is to be in the guts of the ship, keeping it

moving- that’s what he kind of lives for. And obviously

that is kind of all quickly taken away from him. But he’s

sort of brave and resourceful as ever in this movie. And

meeting Jaylah is kind of an interesting journey for him

because he has to engage his emotions a little bit and be

a little bit more empathetic and less blasé about her

feelings. It’s been interesting. It was strange writing


for myself because I feel like its almost too easy at

times you know. He’s someone I know very well and I was

almost relieved when I was writing Scottie’s scenes

because it came a lot easier.

Question: It feels to me like Bones gets all the lines in

this film. Did you intentionally kind of pull back on

Scottie because you said to yourself I am the writer and

I can’t make Scottie the lead?

Simon: (17:56:28:19) A little bit, I feel also that we

missed Bones in the last movie. He’s a character that

people really love, and I felt like “Into Darkness” we

didn’t see so much of him. And so this was the time to

rectify that. And yes it felt a little bit strange,

giving myself all the cool lines and the best stuff.

There’s probably a conscious effort to not be too

prevalent.

Question: Lets talk about the 50th year. It’s a big deal

and the idea of Star Trek because – it’s not even a film

- it’s an idea because it expands in so many properties.


Why is it still relevant? Why does it still work? Why do

people still get passionate and devoted over it?

Simon: (17:57:28:08) I think Star Trek persists and is

here in its 50TH year because it’s such an optimistic

idea. It’s the rehearsal of the notion that we might not

perish because of own stupidity. It’s the idea that we

might actually succeed and become a noble and productive

and inclusive cooperative species. It’s what we all

secretly hope for I think. It’s a universe where we are

all accepted, it’s a universe where there is no judgment

or prejudice. Its just all about hope and offers us our

own future, the idea of our own future. Large. And its

such an irresistible thing and as long as we have some

hope that we might not become victims of our own

stupidity. People will love it. This one feels like such

a big deal, this one. Not just because of the 50th year

but it’s the first Star Trek since lost Lennon and Maury.

There’s a lot of significance in terms of symbolic

meaning. The weight of that hasn’t ever felt light on

myself, Doug, Justin, Lindsey or JJ I’m sure. It means a


lot to us that this film kind of resonates with the fans

and the people that have never seen Star Trek.

Question: People who don’t know Star Trek know Spock.

Simon: (17:59:15:09) Well it’s yeah. It’s a very easy

responsibility. We lost Leonard during the writing

process and it felt like literally we thought we had to

make some reference to it and pay some tribute. The most

obvious way felt to have Spock join him. And communicate

our sadness of losing Leonard through the sadness of

losing the Spock that we all know and love. And that felt

very, very right and very respectful and we all knew

Leonard and he’s such an important part of the story that

we wanted to make a reference to him and as much as to

his character. And I hope we have done that. I hope we

have done that. I think if what we’ve planned works in

the movie I think it will be a rather beautiful thing. We

all miss him very much.

Documents

Web viewQuestion: So Simon, you’re in the movie and you wrote the movie. What was it like when they came to you and asked if you’d help write this film?