"It's kind of overwhelming": Ethan Peck shares his feelings about Star Trek's peak fandom 

Sci-fi show Star Trek has been a cultural milestone for over six decades. Even though the original series aired in the mid to late 1960s, the show became a huge part of the cultural environment beginning from the 1970s and has remained iconic ever since.

The original show spawned a host of other series, and the Star Trek media franchise is one of the most loved fictional universes in the popular imagination of viewers. Recently, Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet created yet another new Star Trek series called Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Featuring Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, and others, the series is a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery and is set a decade before the original series of the 1960s. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (Mount) and his crew aboard the starship Enterprise as they carry out various missions.

The show began airing in 2022 and has three seasons so far. It has been positively received, and in an interview with Josh Horowitz, actor Ethan Peck, who plays the iconic role of Spock, talks about the massive fandom of the show and how “it’s kind of overwhelming”. More on this below.

Ethan Peck talks about the huge popularity of the show and how it affected his portrayal of Spock on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

In an interview with Josh Horowitz on Peak Talk, actor Ethan Peck was asked about his role as Spock and how he went about portraying it. Especially, since Spock is a memorable character from the original series and has been strongly imprinted upon the cultural imagination of the viewers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds offers a fresh perspective on the iconic character as it explores Spock’s more humane side, even though he is half-human and half-Vulcan and was more robotic in the original series. Ethan Peck talks about the all-consuming prevalence of the character, as even though he was in the fourth grade, he was himself trying to do the famous Vulcan salute, which was a famous part of the character. He notes,

“I actually have a memory...in like fourth grade doing the Vulcan salute because it was so prevalent. The character was just in everybody’s minds, in culture, in society...”

Therefore, Peck agrees that it was a huge responsibility stepping into the shoes of such an iconic character and becoming part of a famous franchise. When asked about the massive fandom that Star Trek has and which spans generations, he remarks,

“Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of overwhelming. At the same time I know that it’s...I’ve been plugged into this thing that’s so much bigger than me, that’s existed before me, and I feel the fortune of that because he is so special, and he is so special to so many people. He has so much integrity, I aspire to be more like Spock and I think many people do, and should.”

Ethan Peck on how the character influences him and vice versa

Interviewer Josh Horowitz talks to Ethan Peck in the interview about how he decided to make the role his own, and even though there have been many reprisals of the character over the years by different actors, how Peck approaches the role of Spock.

Ethan Peck remarks,

“The best way I can answer it is, I’m Ethan Peck and I’m not Leonard Nimoy, I’m not Zachary Quinto. My life experience, who I am as a person, I’m just essentially different.”

He therefore notes that he brings his own personality to the character by being true to himself. Talking about the close connection between him as an actor and him as Ethan Peck, he mentions,

“There is sort of an inner transformation that occurs with the external transformation, which is lasting during my time on set and for months after...It’s impossible to separate Ethan Peck from my Spock, as much as I wanted to in the beginning of it, my experiences inform the experience of this character and then this funny thing happens where the experiences of the character inform the life and person that is Ethan Peck.”

The fourth season of the show is expected in 2026, and the fifth and final season is already in production.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is available on Paramount+.

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