Paul Wesley, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
This week, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds set its Season 4 forays into whimsy — including recent episodes about puppets and soap operas — aside in favor of a classic Trek framework: “Orders of Magnitude” is built around a collision course with a high-ranking officer who appears to have deeply lost their way, and in the process, put the lives of the whole crew, perhaps even the entire Federation, at risk.
It’s a formula that’s worked to great effect throughout the history of the franchise, as far back as The Original Series episode “The Doomsday Machine” and Commodore Matt Decker (William Windom), driven mad by the loss of his crew by a mysterious rampaging construct. There are echoes across the various Trek series, including The Next Generation‘s “The Wounded” and Captain Benjamin Maxwell (Bob Gunton), Deep Space Nine‘s two-part “Paradise Lost” and Admiral Leyton (Robert Foxworth), Voyager‘s “Equinox” and Captain Rudy Ransom (John Savage), even Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) throughout the first season of Discovery. Indeed, it’s the kind of potent, volatile dramatic set-up that has long rippled into popular culture, from Mutiny on the Bounty and Apocalypse Now to A Few Good Men and Crimson Tide.
This time, the plotline offers an opportunity to test the mettle of Paul Wesley‘s James T. Kirk when confronted with a respected superior who’s gone dangerously off the deep end. At the same time, it allows Kirk and his brother Sam (Dan Jeannotte) new insight into the long-concealed history of his father George’s inability to attain the rank of captain. Of course, in the alternate Kelvin timeline of J.J. Abrams’ films, George Kirk — played by Chris Hemsworth — valiantly loses his life at a young age leading a space battle just as Jim is born, setting the junior Kirk on a more rebellious path. But in the mainstream continuity George lived out his days as a dependable but seemingly not command-worthy Starfleet officer — until Kirk’s perception is changed in this episode.
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The story also requires a heavyweight actor of exceptional presence and authority — not to mention a convincing strain of madness and arrogance — to cross swords with the junior officer, and “Orders of Magnitude” delivers in spades with its indomitable Admiral Simon Reiger of the legendary USS Constitution, hero of the Klingon War, as played with steely grit and volcanic fire by guest star Joe Morton, best remembered for his turn on Scandal.
TV Guide opened hailing frequencies with Paul Wesley to take a deeper look at his take on what the episode meant to his development of captain-to-be Jim Kirk, who will be known to go rogue on occasion himself in the future, as well as the joy of knocking heads opposite the fiery Morton. He also reveals what it was like to go mano-a-mano in a recent magazine interview with the highest-ranking Trek entity of all: William Shatner.
What got you excited about what you were going to be able to do with James T. Kirk in this particular storyline?
Paul Wesley: I think family history is so important and I think Kirk needed… I don’t know, I think in the back of Kirk’s mind, he questioned himself because he questioned his father. He didn’t really understand his dad. And I think in many ways that played into his inability to understand himself and lack some of the confidence to lead. And I think in finding closure with his father and understanding his father more and actually seeing his father as an unsung hero gave him the ability to believe in himself.
You also got to really explore the dynamic between the Kirk brothers, which I imagine was kind of fun for you and Dan Jeannotte to work out. Give me a little insight about figuring out exactly how the two of you were going to play off of each other and illustrate how these two young, very different Starfleet officers get along.
Wesley: Well, I think there’s a tension between Sam and Kirk all the time because brothers are always competitive with each other, and Sam’s super intellectual and he’s sort of more less of a daredevil, but in many ways more accomplished in his academics, so to speak. And I think that this was a way for them to bond, actually. This was a way for them to unite over something that they both needed to understand about their family history and why they became who they were.
So I think this was a rare moment in which Kirk and Sam weren’t butting heads in a brotherly kind of loving way, but they were actually on a united front, which was actually really refreshing.
This story has elements of classic Trek episodes throughout the franchise featuring a commanding officer who’s gone a little off the rails, and how you deal with that in a chain of command structure. What was fun about working that out with a great actor like your scene partner, Joe Morton?
Wesley: Yeah, it’s that you have to follow orders. There’s a rank and he’s an admiral and you can’t really question an admiral’s decision-making because obviously he’s your superior. But at the same time, Kirk is a very instinct-driven guy and I think he sensed something was off. He just sensed something was off and he was just like, “I am going to follow my instincts” — which is what we love about Kirk.
But yeah, Joe is so layered in his performance and he brings such a vulnerability to what could have been a classic villain stereotype — he brings this kind of empathy and emotion and vulnerability that you question that maybe his motivations and his motives and his desire to destroy this entire planet are justified. And I think that’s what makes him such an interesting actor and makes the character so much more interesting, is that it’s a gray area. There’s a moral ambiguity to the whole thing.
Joe Morton, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
Do you have a standout anecdote on your days on set with Joe? Getting to work out that figurative head-butting with him on set?
Wesley: Look, during the table read, I saw what kind of actor he was, and I understood that he also comes from a theater background. He’s an incredibly present individual. It’s more just like I knew what he was going to bring, and so I needed to bring the same level of A-game and also just be open to improvisation.
Energetically, I needed to bounce off of him, so I had to be fully present and just be open to anything that happens on set, which is really what theater is all about. And I started in theater, so I was kind of like, “Whoa, this is awesome. This is what I want to do.” I miss that. I miss that being present and forgetting about the characters and the cameras and just being deeply present with whoever’s in front of you. I was able to do that with Joe.
Not just in this episode, but throughout this season and throughout the series, what are the elements of James T. Kirk that you feel like you’ve been able to develop and showcase in ways that we haven’t gotten to see before, and in ways that we are able to understand him even a little better after 60 years?
Wesley: I think that had I gone into this Season 1 or Season 2 with a sort of unwavering confidence, there’d be less of an arc for this character and for people to understand why he became who he is. We all know the TOS Shatner. We know this incredible level of confidence that he has, this sort of gravitas that he has on screen, and I wanted to understand why he was that man. I wanted to understand his relationship with his son and his father and love and women and his heart.
And so for me, the writers did such an amazing job in allowing me to have an evolution so that by the time we get to Season 5, which is the final chapter, and then by the time we get to the series finale, we’re like, “Oh, that’s Kirk, but there needs to be runway to get there.” I think that’s a risk that I wanted to take as an actor. And “Oh, well, he may not be the stereotypical actor that we were expecting or the stereotypical character we’re expecting, but now we understand why he became who he eventually was.”
You recently had an opportunity to sit down with William Shatner, who I know you were friendly with before, and pick his brain for Interview magazine. What were your favorite takeaways from that experience?
Wesley: The best takeaway was the fact that we were provided with some questions to ask one another, and then they said, “You can put in your own words, you can change things, but this is the general format [of] Interview magazine.” And in typical Kirk fashion, he was just like, “Throw those questions out. Let’s chat. Let’s just talk.” I was like, “Yeah, sounds great.”
And so it was like, “Of course, of course that’s what he’s going to do. Of course he’s going to do things in a different way.” It was very kind of symbolic of his character actually.
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Is there a performance of his as Kirk, in an episode or a movie, that’s kind of a north star in your head as you play the character, thinking, “This is where I’m going. I’m trying to get to that Kirk that I remember so vividly from that performance.”
Wesley: I mean, my favorite TOS episodes are actually the ones in which we understand him more in terms of showing his humanity. So “City on the Edge of Forever” is where he experiences love in a way that I think we hadn’t seen prior — love and then losing love and being hurt. Those are all important, for me anyway.
When I watched that episode, I was like, “Oh, OK — he can love deeply and he’s not a womanizer.” There’s this kind of like, “Oh, Kirk’s a womanizer.” And for me, it was like, I never really saw him that way. And so little things, moments like that, those little qualities make me understand him as a character better.
The Strange New Worlds viewers are still watching your journey as Kirk on the show unfold even as your own journey is actually completed. I’m so curious how you feel changed or transformed — if that is indeed the case — from your Star Trek experience, how it has shaped you and molded you now that you’ve come out, at least for now, at the end of that particular journey?
Wesley: The risks that I took in order to make the character my own and do something that was a little unexpected and maybe not on the nose in terms of what people wanted — for me anyway, that was worth it because when we got to the end and the journey, as you mentioned, was completed, I felt like I did what I wanted to do and I feel good about it.
That said, would you want to do more? Would you like to revisit Kirk at some point in the future?
Wesley: Oh, yeah! I mean, I’ve been very vocal about it that if they want to continue and there’s a way to do it — in which I know there is because I’ve been told — in a way that brings something new and fresh to the canon, I think it would be a blessing. I would love it. Are you kidding? I’m all game for it. They know I am.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds drop Thursdays on Paramount+.