EXCLUSIVE: Peter Weller Drops Hints About His Star Trek Sequel Character

Much of the speculation and reporting about the Star Trek movie has focused on the character played by Benedict Cumberbatch (and yesterday we finally got around to talking about Alice Eve), but what about Peter Weller? We haven’t heard much about him, but TrekMovie has an exclusive with a red carpet moment where the actor actually let slip some intriguing details about his Star Trek sequel character. Details below, but beware potential spoilers.

 

Weller: I’ve got my own ship

Peter Weller is no stranger to the world of genre TV and film. Throughout his nearly 30 years as an actor he cemented himself in the annals of sci-fi history through his lead roles in RoboCop and Buckaroo Banzai along with appearances in Naked Lunch, Screamers, Fringe, and of course Star Trek: Enterprise. So he fit right in when cast in J.J. Abrams Star Trek sequel, however very little has been reported about his role. We don’t even know if he is a good guy, a bad guy, or something in between.

The only bit of on the record information comes from Weller’s agent Todd Eisner who sated: “it’s a substantial role and… Peter is playing a C.E.O.” While working the red carpet at the “RoboCop” 25th Anniversary event for the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) recently, I took the opportunity to ask the actor if he could share anything new. At first Weller suck to the JJ-Abrams code of silence, saying:

“I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy. It’s something very cool"


Peter Weller at Dallas International Film Festival  (Photo: Cameron Warren)

I continued to ask Weller if he was going to play an alien like Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lloyd, and others who sometimes have been buried underneath prosthetics and makeup. And that’s when he let slip some actual details on his character, saying:

“No. do I look like an alien to you? No man. Let me put it this way. I have my own ship"

Weller then pulled out his cell phone and revealed a picture of his seven-month-old baby boy sitting in the Captain’s chair on the bridge of a starship – proudly dressed in a yellow captain’s shirt. With the small Blackberry screen, it was hard to see much. The chair was at least similar to the one from the USS Enterprise in the 2009 Star Trek movie. So I can’t say for certain if I was looking at his son on the Enterprise set, the set of a different ship or even a redressed version of the Enterprise set.


Peter Weller with his wife and new son on the red carpet at Dallas International Film Festival  (Photo: Cameron Warren)

Speculating…

Regardless of where his son was sitting in the photo, Weller’s comments are very intriguing. Firstly he implies pretty heavily that he is not playing an alien, so if human, he is likely at least a citizen of the Federation. However, it is hard to fuse the idea’s of him playing a C.E.O. and being the captain of a Starfleet starship. Of course not all ships are part of Starfleet, so Weller could be a private citizen and head of some company/organization that has its own ship, not unlike his character John Frederick Paxton from Star Trek: Enterprise, whose mining station was also a ship that flew from the Moon to Mars. And of course Kirk and crew had encountered other private traders who had their own ships on the original Star Trek series.

 
Peter Weller at Paxton in Star Trek: Enterprise and his Orpheus Mining Colony/Ship heading for Mars

Another possibility could be that Weller’s agent (who probably isn’t steeped in Starfleet lore) could have been trying to say that Weller’s character is a leader of some kind of group, region, facility, etc. In that case he could be part of the Federation, possibly a governor, head of a colony or station, etc. Such a character could also have their own ship. We don’t know if Weller’s character is new to the canon or not, but there are plenty of these types of characters from the original Star Trek series, such as Mr. Lurry (manager of station K-7), Kodos (governor of Tarsus IV), Mr. Hengist (chief administrator on Argelius II), Ferris (Galactic High Commissioner), and others.


Various officials (Clockwise from top L) Lurry, Kodos, Ferris, and Hengist

Another intriguing idea is that Weller’s agent could be confusing C.E.O and one of the higher ranks in Starfleet, like "Commodore." And of course Starfleet Commodores often have their own ships. Returning again to the original series canon, there are quite a few Commodores to chose from, such as Matt Decker, Robert Wesley, Jose Mendez and maybe even Robert April.


Commodores (Clockwise from top L) Mendez, Wesley, April and Decker

TrekMovie Editor Anthony Pascale contributed to this article – helping with the Star Trek speculation.

Dallas-based Eric Shirey is the founder and former editor of three-time Rondo Award nominated movie news websites MovieGeekFeed.com and TheSpectralRealm.com. His work is featured on Yahoo! , DC Comics, StarWars.com , and other entertainment websites. Eric has interviewed and worked with actors like Harrison Ford, Brooke Shields, Kenneth Branagh, William Shatner, Michelle Monaghan, Brendan Fraser, and many more. His official website is www.ersink.com. It covers everything from movies to comic books and more.

362 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

He’s playing Carol Marcus.

Nah, he’s playing Khan.

Mudd…

OK, consider this. Think of a interstellar corporation with an overly ambitious leader, stumbling across the Botany Bay. They revive the crew and find out they are genetic superman. Weller’s character and Khan team up to take down Starfleet in some fashion (plot line here TBD), but to keep the identifies of Khan and his crew secret (so that they can infiltrate the Federation), their faces and looks are changed through Gene Therapy (thus, the “face melting” clue from Orci, which also explain how different Khan will look at played by BC). Then the Enterprise gets caught up in it and Enterprise versus Khan redux begins.

Perhaps look for Pike to be killed early on, which will make it really personal for Kirk.

“No. do I look like an alien to you? No man. Let me put it this way. I have my own ship”
___________

I like your style, sir.

C.E.O. Could stand for “Chief Executive Officier”. Weller and his agent could be just being coy with words.

#1 –
“He’s playing Carol Marcus.”

Don’t let his resemblance to Bibi Besch fool you, Ziggy. He could be playing Nurse Chapel. ;-)

#7: Well, he DOES have the ankles for Nurse Chapel, that’s true.

Whoops! That’s a sizable ship, I mean slip! I feel bad for Weller, as I imagine he’s got to regret not sticking with his first effort to maintain silence.

He’s the Commander of the Reliant.

Whats really cool is the guy has a 7 month old kid

He’s playing Kang…or Kor… or Koloth

hes playing Kirk Prime

Mr. Weller, JJ Abrahm’s wife just called and requests that you have your wife return JJ’s eyeglasses to him.

Paxton

“Whats really cool is the guy has a 7 month old kid”
___________

I thought the same.

:)

or maybe hes playing Paxton again? (hed be..what..about 130?)

He’s the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.

Wouldn’t Paxton be really old by Kirk’s time? Also didn’t he have a disease that he was taking alien drugs for?

What first came to mind was Capt Garth. But. Maybe Commodore Wesley or Commodore Matt Decker. Will just have to wait and see.

You know, it’s funny, but as Weller get’s older and loses hair, he is looking more and more like Robocop when he takes the helmet off.

Maybe he’s playing Alex Murphy, C.E.O. of OCP …

“He’s the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.”
_________

‘Can’t be; he’s not Hispanic.

:)

Eric:

Grammar nazi question:

“Eric has interviewed and worked with actors like Harrison Ford, Brooke Shields, Kenneth Branagh, William Shatner, Michelle Monaghan, Brendan Fraser, and many more.”

Sorry, but which actors were they in the end? Were they doppelgangers, or just vaguely similar in appearance and personality to those you mentioned?

If you worked with actors ‘such as’ those you enumerated in the list, the sentence clearly states that those actors have indeed had contact with you in some form, amongst others. If you worked with actors ‘like’ them, it means they were similar in some way, as in “this almond sauce tastes like chocolate.”

You can all kill me now, but I am disheartened daily by people who write loads on the Internet without the benefit of knowing how to write properly. This disease infects Huffpost, Gawker and associated sites, Wonkette, and gets worse as one approaches the geekier sites.

When my kids read screeds on genre sites about their favorite shows/franchises (Pokemon, Warriors, Harry Potter, Transformers, etc.), they should be properly written or edited, so the mistakes are not repeated in school writing exercises.

If you cannot write in English, buy E.B. White’s “Elements of Style” and read it straight through. Live it.

Or become a lawyer.

Nice way to welcome Eric and his breaking news to TrekMovie AJ…or not

let’s not hijack this thread into Grammar Police Squad

@ 24

AJ says, ” If you cannot write in English, buy E.B. White’s “Elements of Style” and read it straight through. Live it. Or become a lawyer.”

OUCH.

AJ

Get a life – seriously – I hate grammar Nazis.

You are seeking proper writing from blogs and pseudo news sites. You seriously beg it from Gawker?

If you need it so badly go pay for it. Buy a New Yorker for Pete’s sake.

But don’t seek it on the internet. You are like someone going to Macdonald’s looking for fois gras and fillet minion!

Don’t lose your crap over one word. Seriously, get your expectations straight!

I’ve already thrown out the theory or guess that Weller reprises Paxton. And that his hatred for aliens fuels his desire to enlist Khan to drive them off Earth. And I will agree there are too many arguments against that estimation.

But I do have a feeling that Weller’s character will be the guy that defrosts Khan. They’re not remaking Space Seed. So somebody has to do it, if it’s not the Enterprise.

if Khan is not one of the villains, why don’t they actually come out and say it officially.

Yes, mignon was spelled improperly. Oops! I’ll go crucify myself now.

24. AJ

Oh please. This is an internet site. Not War & Peace. The occasional spelling error or grammatical error is forgivable in my books. It’s really not that big of a deal. I think you are being a little harsh with comments like this…

” If you cannot write in English, buy E.B. White’s “Elements of Style” and read it straight through. Live it. Or become a lawyer.”

@ 26

Cut AJ some slack. I totally missed the point until he showed it to us. I think it’s great that he wants to raise the quality of our writing. Yeah, it was a little tough. But he did remind us of a great book on writing.

By the way, AJ regularly links articles from the New York Times. I’m guessing he would link articles from the New Yorker if it had more genre news.

Weller will be playing either Captain Decker, Tracy or Garth. Take your pick!

Grammar Nazis… I hate Grammar Nazis

@31

You are a gentleman, sir.

He was never playing a CEO, that’s just his agent having no idea what Star Trek is about. He is playing a CO, Commanding Officer. Maybe like Sisko when he took over DS9, he isn’t quite at the rank of Captain. Maybe a smaller ship, scout or science vessel.

Montreal_Paul:

I always try to be tongue-in-cheek.

The first thing we were presented in writing class in 1981 was a legal brief which was absolutely incomprehensible. If you like to write and be read, you will inevitably confront people who are sticklers about language.

If you cannot write correctly in your own language, you should be edited by someone who can. Why does the Internet have to always dumb it all down? Anyone can open a site and say “I liek Star Trek bekaus its nice” and upload links but the best ones actually assume the readers are intelligent. This site does that, and I thought this one error was worth a note because it makes no sense in English. If your English teacher in Montreal caught you out on it, would you just tell him to “chillax because The Internet?”

For all I know, Mr. Shirey may make a note and say “Hmmm. I’ll remember that next time” and pick up that little book.

And I hope it’s not Paxton.

Sorry, Anthony.

Case closed.

#24/37 – AJ, I could nitpick YOUR grammatical errors–two (at least) in post 24–but that would be petty. Besides, you should be able to find them since you are perfect. Oh, and there’s at least one in post 37.

To say that using “like” instead of “such” is something that “makes no sense in English” is wrong. You knew what was meant from the context of the sentence, so even though the wrong word was used, it still made sense.

For example, in YOUR post #37, you wrote, “If you like to write and be read, you will inevitably confront people who are sticklers about language.”

Well, that’s grammatically incorrect. It should be “…you inevitably will confront” or “you will confront inevitably.” You essentially split the infinitive. (To be clear: The verb is “will confront,” which means the adverb “inevitably” must go before or after the verb, but not in the middle of it.

But guess what? IT STILL MADE SENSE. Why? Because I, as a reader and writer of English, know that context is as vital as grammar. I also understood it because, in casual speech, we say it the way you (and Eric) wrote it.

In fact, unless you can find at least two more errors in Eric’s article, YOU are guilty of more grammatically incorrect writing here than he is.

I think you owe him an apology.

Well, the most hackneyed, unoriginal and stereotypically Hollywood move would be to make him the head of an evil greedy corporation who ends up controlling/creating/warping Khan and/or his genetic supermen crew to his own selfish ends.

So, given the writing credits, I’d say the likelihood of that is high.

37. AJ

Well, I work in the Entertainment industry in Canada and I also write. So far, the only things I have had published is poetry. My girlfriend is an ESL teacher. If I am reading a novel, a typo or grammatical error would definitely bother me. In an article here on a message board, not so much. Never to the point of creating a long winded speech regarding “how to write 101.” There’s nitpicking and then there is NITPICKING. Others can correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think anyone was confused by the error.
Anyway, I just found your comments to be a little harsh. They did not come across as “tongue in cheek” at all.

Eric Shirey, welcome aboard! Thanks for the breaking news!

AJ-

You’re trying to polish a turd. I’ve seen more ill-conceived, nerdish, Aspergers’-affected ideas expressed in Trek Movie posts than in any other hobby forums. The quality of the typing (let’s not call forum posts “writing”) should be the least of your criticisms.

Mmmm maybe Robert April :)

DiscoSpock:

This is not German, and “you will confront inevitably” sounds like Borat or Thanos speaking. Go read about those split infinitives again. Everything I wrote was grammatically sound.

I’m sorry to have brought it up, and I’ll take your advice and say “Sorry, Eric” because this is the article I was waiting to read, and I would like him to feel welcome to get us some more insight into our mysterious new film.

44 – I teach writing at a university. I’ve been writing and editing for more than 20 years. My last post was correct. You are incorrect.

When you pull the grammar-Nazi routine while being wrong yourself, you look pompous and foolish. You should admit to being wrong since, well, you are.

Oh, well. I should know better than to engage in arguments with wannabe grammar experts or Trekkies, and here I am doing both at once. Shame on me!

#35. Hey Anthony. New movie coming out.
Grammer Police Squad.
Starring Harry Ballz as Sgt Ball. Commodore Mike as Draw and Anthony Pascale as The Grammer.
(Don’t let them catch you making a mistake.) Or Else!.

@43.

Yeah, why not Captain April…?? They made a mention to Captain Archer and his beagle in the last one, and I know they’ve turned to the animated series for inspiration, which is where April was first mentioned, isn’t that correct? It’d surprise me if they just ignore April in continuity because they love that stuff just like the rest of us. Maybe he, instead of Pike, was captured by the Talosians, only this time the Klingons show up and then Khan… okay I give up.

Hey AJ. How dare you put down the poor lawyer’s. So not nice. For that. i WIll maKe Lot’ss of MistakeS. loL.
I Keed’s I Keed’s.

I’m just going to say that I agree with AJ. My teacher-vision is always on.

Back to topic: Weller’s character is probably an original one. It also does not make sense that a CEO would have a starship. So, my guess is that Weller is probably a Commodore and the agent is just dumb.

Ahhh…isn’t speculating fun?

I would not be surprised if he played Capt April. But I more suspect he will play Capt Garth. Or Lord Garth. He very well may start out as Captian Garth. What they may do is Show Captian Garth’s Victory at Axanar which helped preserve the Federstion and his Accident that caused him to go insane. Then we see him on the planet Antos IV and how he learned his power. Then later as Lord Garth and his ability to transform he find’s Khan and they team up to take over.