Ethan Peck alludes to a secret reason James Kirk is involved in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Ethan Peck is strangely secretive when talking about James Kirk’s involvement in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Ethan Peck is known to many Star Trek fans as the latest version of Spock. Made famous by Leonard Nemoy and brought back to life by Zachary Quinto, Peck is now taking on the mantle of playing the iconic Vulcan. So when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revealed that Paul Wesley would be joining the cast as another iconic Trek character, James T. Kirk, this made Peck happy.

Now Peck and Wesley are both carrying the mantle of iconic Trek characters, something Peck was carrying largely on his own.

While you can say Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn carry that weight too to some degree, it’s very different playing characters with minimal in-universe history than it is to take on two characters that were in Star Trek for nearly 30 and 50 years respectively.

Spock, played by Nimoy, last appeared in the 2013 film Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, while Kirk last appeared (as played by William Shatner) in 1994’s Star Trek Generations. Those characters just carry more weight than arguably anyone else in Star Trek.

Speaking to Cinemablend, Peck revealed that not only is it good to have another actor carrying on the mantle of an iconic character, but Peck seemed to allude to Kirk’s involvement being very secretive.

"I can’t tell you anything, but I will say that Paul is awesome and he has taken this so seriously. I think I see a lot of myself in him, and being burdened with this character and this responsibility. Which is really comforting for me because I care so much about it and I see that he does too. So, I’m really excited to see what he does and I’m excited for people to see him in the role."

Did Ethan Peck just hint at a different William Shatner than expected?

It’s odd to be so secretive about a character everyone knows about. So it prompts the question, is there something to this Kirk that is out of the realm of expectation?

Recently Anson Mount also spoke to CinemaBlend and made a point to emphasize that Kirks’ arrival doesn’t end Mount’s time as Captain Christopher Pike. That seemed like a pretty interesting to state. So either that means that Pike will captain a younger Kirk, or it means that Kirk isn’t the Kirk many expect him to be.

Which is the aforementioned younger, cadet-aged Kirk. Yet, here’s the other wrinkle; Wesley is far from a young man, nearly pushing 40.

All of this is suggesting that either there’s an episode or two set in the future, where the events are told to Kirk from Spock’s perspective. There’s also a possibility that Spock or someone else on the crew, time travels to the future to when Kirk is the captain.

It seems very likely that this Kirk is either set during the events of the Original Series or in years four and/or five of their five-year mission.

The show arrives on May 5, so we’ll get some idea of things then.