The upcoming Star Trek: Section 31 movie introduces new faces to franchise. TrekMovie had a chance to speak to three of the new actors in a roundtable interview with other media outlets at New York Comic Con: Omari Hardwick who plays Alok Sahar, Robert Kazinsky who plays Zeph, and Kacey Rohl, playing a younger Rachel Garrett. They join Michelle Yeoh, reprising her role of Emperor Georgiou from Discovery. The three actors offered some insights into their roles in the streaming movie that arrives on Paramount+ in January.
The Section 31 team… and ships
The Section 31 movie brings together an unusual “misfit” group of operatives for a mission outside of Federation. Actor Rob Kazinsky comes to this project as a big Star Trek fan, so he can talk the lingo when describing the film, as he did during the NYCC panel. In the interview, he expanded on how he felt Section 31 fits in with Star Trek’s ideals.
Rob: I get it, because every Star Trek fan, including myself, doesn’t want Section 31 to exist… I was like, we’ve moved past this. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? And then I come back to the Maquis and come back to DS9, to Sisko and his wonderful, incredible speech when he says my favorite line is Star Trek, which is “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.”… Sure we can have the flagship of the Enterprise going out there and living in this optimistic universe that we’ve created and it should, and it’s great. But that’s only within the Federation. The whole point of “In the Pale Moonlight,” and the whole point of the Maquis, was to show that what it’s like to be outside the Federation. The reason the Federation can exist in this optimistic, utopian idea is because of Section 31, because of people like us… And the idea is actually just an expansion of the universe. It’s not not a negative thing within the Star Trek universe. I do think that to make the general universe even more believable, even more real and even more important, you actually have to show the Section 31 of it all.
Kazinsky also draws some Trek comparisons when talking about the Section 31 team:
Rob: What you’ve got is you’ve got a team like you’ve not seen before on the show, and you’re kind of going with archetypal, kind of extreme levels of character that you might not have seen before, other than maybe Q and Lore and extreme aspects of identities… And you’ve got Alok coming in here, who’s the fucking shit, by the way. He was written to be like James Bond, so much more than James Bond, so much more than just sexy and smart. And I’m an extension of that. I am the left hand that crushes whilst his right hand caresses.
He and Omari also revealed some behind-the-scenes logistics that helped add some humor to the film:
Rob: The beautiful thing about this show, which I didn’t expect, was that Olatunde shoots with three cameras. … So they allowed me, Sam [Richardson], and Omari just to improvise. And we improvise. The last count was 18-ish pages we added to the script. We got to add but to still stay within the vein of what Star Trek is. Like, we were talking about toilets on the spaceship…
Omari: To Rob’s point, there’s a moment within our story, again, beautifully written by Craig Sweeny and produced by THE Alex Kurtzman and obviously Olatunde at the helm. There is a moment, Kacey’s in it, the three of us are trying to figure out what happened to this one particular ship, and I think Rob just goes and says, “I broke the toilet.”
The group talked about how the film saved some money is by redressing the Star Trek: Discovery sets, but Rob did offer some details on the ships we can expect to see in the new movie:
Rob: We’ve got three different spaceships: We’ve got Georgiou’s, and then ours, and then “The Scow.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 19: (L-R) Kacey Rohl, Omari Hardwick, Rob Kazinsky and Olatunde Osunsanmi attends the Lower Decks reception during New York Comic Con at Bar Primi on October 19, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Paramount+)
Alok Sahar a leader with a LOT of history
Omari Hardwick plays Alok Sahar, the leader of the Section 31 team who puts together the mission in the movie. The actor offered a bit more on his character and the storyline:
Omari: Alok Sahar is a character who runs a very motley crew of individuals who, in their own way and in their own right, are policing all the galaxies. They happen to be specifically on a mission and rectifying some things that Michelle Yeoh’s character has done, which you will learn about. And in charge of this policing agency group is myself. And Zeph, played by Rob Kaczynski, is a very, very hands-on, boots on the ground, in the trenches on the left side and on the right side of my character. And he does it in such a beautiful human way. Rob can tell you more about how he was able to create the humanity in his character. [Rob interjects: Yeah, I’m the, I’m the, I’m the handsome one. (laughs)]
Hardwick also discussed developing the backstory for Alok:
Omari: Tunde definitely gave me enough backstory to know prior that I was living during a time when there was a different level of chaos, and that in a very Han Solo way that was a preservation of my character. It strengthened him, but it also, in many ways, figuratively, weakened him. And so he gave me enough of that to say: Okay, so I need to have empathy for this character who’s been beaten up and beaten down and is now left to make a decision as to whether he’s to do the same thing to the crew, the band of brothers and sister and who he’s brought together. Or should he stay on the path that is – as Rob always reminded us on set – Star Trek is about morality. It’s the moral compass, about what side of the of the line drawn in the sand are you on?
He also revealed how Alok isn’t what he may appear to be:
Omari: Alok is a storied guy who’s been around for a very long time, and he’s having to deal with the pain of his past, but remain optimistic about the future… I’m like, super older than 100. Alok is old. I said, “Tunde, am I gonna have makeup?” “No, you’re gonna look like you, but you’re beyond old.”
When asked if he was playing an El-Aurian, like Guinan, Omari (with some help from Rob) explained it’s something different:
Omari: No, not an El-Aurian. I’ve been augmented, and I have been cryoed. I am cryo chambered, and I am super old, but my young gun can live for those years of the pain and or rectify the years of pain. And I think he a lot does a lot of that, he is trying to get past his stuff with the use of the team.
Rob: Your backstory was in the script. You had the eugenics, yes, the Eugenics War stuff. And my character was not at all. So Craig and I sat down one day and wrote his backstory. And I love it.
Much of this movie centers around Georgiou, played by Michelle Yeoh. Omari expanded on Alok’s relationship to Georgiou:
Omari: He recognizes the leadership in her. I think one of the greatest adages in life is: ‘game recognizes game’ …Everybody wants to be seen in life. Babies die if they’re not touched, but every human wants to be seen. And so I think I saw Georgiou, and I think my genesis of it all is: I see that you’re a leader. I absolutely am open to her showing wrinkles that I’m not aware that are there, but I’m super aware that however that the character played by the legend Michelle Yeoh is that of what he sees when he brushes his teeth looking in the mirror. So there was this sort of like, “Come be with me, because you are this.” And by the way, the things that I have connected to pain that I’m still rectifying, help me with that. Maybe I’m not aware of me being a person that is more like you. Maybe I just simply see that you’re like me. But I was wanting Michelle’s character to basically go “You’re like me in this way.” It was a tug of war, but we were definitely a game recognizes game.
Rob: It’s funny, it’s like you’re the only person that she could ever trust, because you recognize each other. You guys create this immediate kind of chemistry where they meet head on in conflict and then she’s like, “Okay, we’re even.”
Omari Hardwick as Alok in Star Trek: Section 31, streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Sophy Holland/Paramount+
Zeph is a mech soldier ready for (any) orders
When asked about HIS relationship to Georgiou, Rob Kazinsky (with Omari) explained that his mech-suited Zeph doesn’t need one, as he is all about doing what Alok wants:
Rob: It doesn’t matter. [laughs] Yeah, absolutely it doesn’t matter… I could love her, love her, love her, love her. [Alok] says kill her., I’ll kill her. He doesn’t question…
Omari: He questioned enough. I don’t know if Alok would really trust you if you didn’t question a little bit.
Rob: Probably not, but I will do anything for Alok. That’s the thing. I might not enjoy it. I might be like, “Dude?” … But I’ll go and do it.
Omari: And that is the confines of Star Trek that Rob always reminded me, always the line of sand and it’s drawn. Roddenberry drew it. Figure out where your line is. He [Rob] kept reminding us of that because he’s such a Trekkie.
Unlike Alok, Zeph didn’t have a lot of backstory in the script, but as a Trekkie, Kazinsky wanted more and explained how he and writer Craig Sweeny developed a story behind his mech suit:
Rob: We wrote the backstory that he’s actually paraplegic. He did it to himself by trying to augment himself. And the suit is his wheelchair. He’s completely dependent on the suit, but the suit gives him all that extra power and strength… Obviously, in the future, we’ve moved past debilitating diseases, but there are still reasons that you might need assistance or a wheelchair. And the idea was to do a really positive iteration of what a wheelchair is by it being a suit. If we ever did more stories, would it lead to who is he without the suit? I think if we can do it, and still be sensitive, if we ever get to tell the story of why he’s in the suit, we will.
Robert Kazinsky as Zeph in Star Trek: Section 31, streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Sophy Holland/Paramount+
Rachell Garrett brings the Starfleet book
Star Trek is all new to Kacey Rohl, best known for The Magicians and Hannibal, so she “did not know anything” about Rachel Garrett until learning the characters was “kind of a big deal.” But since taking on the role she has “delved” into Trek and become a fan, saying it has been an “incredible pleasure” learning about the character, noting Garrett’s destiny as “the first female captain of the Enterprise is pretty cool.” The actress added:
I definitely watched that episode [“Yesterday’s Enterprise”] a bajillion times, and I think, I mean, she [Tricia O’Neil] did such an incredible job, and it’s cool to have that endpoint. I think I came in with an idea of borrowing more, but I didn’t want it to be like a mask or like a costume that I put on, I wanted to bring my own juice, my own humanity to it, and not feel like I had to completely copy what she was doing. So I watched the episode, and I sort of took that as it’s going to go in — that’ll be part of the soup that I’m making, and then gave myself permission with [director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s] guidance to bring myself to it.
Rohl offered some details on representing Starfleet on the Section 31 team:
I think when we first come to her in this adventure, she’s very by the book, very tightly wound, black and white, there’s no gray area in her life. It’s right or wrong. Yes, she’s a stickler for that kind of thing, and so she appreciates the systems that she exists in. She feels comfort in knowing what’s expected of her… I’m there to look over things, to make sure we’re coloring inside the lines, at least in the beginning. I’ve been placed here as a little bit of a taskmaster, stickler for the rules, and maybe the ebbs and flows.
But hanging out with a bunch of “misfits” apparently has an impact on Garrett, as she explained:
I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’ll say she goes on a journey. I think self-discovery… Where the hard and fast rules of Starfleet are absolutely the right thing to do, and where softening some things might work and her own internal [struggle] with that.
Director Olatunde Osunsanmi, who was also at the NYCC press roundtables, offered this about Rohl’s portrayal of Rachell Garrett:
What I love about the way Kacey played Rachel is that that’s Starfleet. She grounds us into what we’ve grown up watching and love, and I think it’s so important, such a brilliant move, for [writer] Craig [Sweeny] and [executive producer] Alex [Kurtzman] to make sure that Rachel was in this movie for precisely that reason. Star Trek has to have Starfleet or some representation in order for it to, at least for me, to feel right…. That was really what was great about the character, and also the way Kacey played her.
Kacey Rohl as Rachel in Star Trek: Section 31, streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Sophy Holland/Paramount+
Section 31 movie in January
Star Trek: Section 31 will premiere on Friday, January 24, 2025, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and international markets where the service is available. In the movie, Michelle Yeoh reprises her Star Trek: Discovery role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou who joins Section 31, a secret division of Starfleet. According to the brief synopsis: “Tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, she also must face the sins of her past.”
Section 31 also stars Omari Hardwick (Power), Kacey Rohl (Hannibal), Emmy® winner Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso), Sven Ruygrok (One Piece), Robert Kazinsky (Pacific Rim), Humberly Gonzalez (Ginny & Georgia) and James Hiroyuki Liao (Barry). Miku Martineau (Kate) portrays a young Philippa Georgiou.
More from NYCC
Check out our coverage of the Star Trek Universe panel, which also included the Section 31 movie, Starfleet Academy, and Strange New Worlds.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
NOTE: Interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Despite my past skepticism, this sounds better, sort of.
Zeph’s backstory certainly feels like a casualty of the move to a tv movie from a series. Even if his character wasn’t part of the original plan. Just not enough time for that.
I miss also in front of the because.
And because (most of?) the
peoplecitizens of the Federation are willing to do the hard work just as we were shown in many episodes of the past TV series (especially, but not exclusively, in the Roddenberry + Braga-Berman era), i.e. they worked hard to get there and, well, you know: It’s been a long time, to getusthem from there to here…I do not deny the occasional need for secret missions, with or without involvement of Section 31, a clandestine organisation known only to (few) selected individuals (I found this element strangely missing in ST:DSC).
And now, I hope the movie does have a heart, an interesting story, character development and is not mostly a combination of stunning visuals, fast-paced cuts and frenetic action scenes stamped with the label Star Trek (because you know, Star Trek can be [stamped to] anything <wink, wink>).
I found the trailer emphasizing the latter which did not raise my hopes high thus far and the actor’s comments seem to indicate they also [tried to] put in the former. Good. Now, let’s wait and see.
his character may think that, but we know it not really true.
I don’t really care how much they change what Section 31 is since it was introduced on DS9 because it was pretty forgettable even then. I just want to know why all of the promotional marketing looks campy and lowbrow. Is that what is to be expected from the movie? It’s not going to have a serious plot at all?
On the one hand, a Star Trek show about Space Hitler doesn’t interest me at all. And the trailer and promo material is truly terrible in my opinion. I won’t be watching it, unless it gets rave reviews. I stopped watching DSC when I realised that I was just watching out of some weird sense of obligation to something that I used to love. Strangely, I only watch the kids show, Prodigy now.
Robert Kazinsky on the other hand seems to know why many (not all) of the fans are so anti a Section 31 movie. His answers show a pretty deep understanding of that, so either he’s been well prepped for addressing this issue, or he’s a pretty big Star Trek fan. Honestly, they should cut a trailer together with some of his words as soundbites.
Kazinsky is a big fan.
Yeah he definitely sounds like a big fan, that’s for sure.
This is sounding better, though I’m still not entirely convinced. The cast is talking the talk, but that’s what actors on the promotional circuit do – talk the talk. It’s a sales pitch.
That being said, this sounds like it probably would have been better without the Georgiou character. If it was simply an exploration of S31 and its place within/without the Federation, with Garrett as the POV character, there may have been more meat to those bones. You could even have her reporting to Admiral Chekov who sent her on a mission to investigate/expose/undermine/bring down S31. He has experience in security matters after all. Or reporting to Sulu, who we know is still in active service throughout the ‘Lost Years’.
Zeph’s background of being a paraplegic sounds like it would have been interesting had it been more ‘baked-in’ and not so much an afterthought as it seems. It still appears he’s the stereotypical unthinking henchman it looked like all along, which is a shame. We could have had some much-needed representation for the many people among us who are differently abled.
I’m wondering if the mention of Alok being over a hundred years old and the mention of eugenics is an Enterprise connection. Is he a result of Soong’s experiments…?
Yes, I know my comments read as if I have already seen this and are littered with assumptions. However, I really do hope to be proven wrong.
Georgiou is the gateway point due to her links to s31
I get that, but I feel that her presence may detract from other potentially (much more) interesting avenues. Bashir and Reed are also gateway links – though they do not fit into that time period – I just feel that sometimes things are best left to breathe on their own. In this instance the presence of Georgiou, even though she is the entry point, may well detract from the agency of the other characters. Precisely because she is the entry point.
On a side note, I find it a little curious how up until modern Trek it’s been the British characters (Bashir and Reed) who have been linked to this clandestine organisation in one way or another. Scotty, do you have anything to add…?
Oh great…. More Eugenics war / Augment / Khan tie in crap. They just can’t help themselves.
I am actually they said this since it gives me another reason to avoid watching this thing. I have been on the fence, but it’s stuff like this that is pushing me away.
Well… Now I want a Rachel Garret series, lol.
Look up covers of “The Man from Uncle” Gold Key comics from the 1960’s. Almost all have two-toned monochromatic backgrounds featuring agent(s) in action poses, usually holding a weapon.
These S31 posters seem directly influenced by those, IMO. Makes sense as U.N.C.L.E. (“… the fictional United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, a secret international intelligence agency….” – wiki) kind of parallels Section 31.
Nice tip of the hat to an older IP, if I am correct.
They are saying the right things at least but how many times have people said the right things and yet we still got very bad outcomes.
Sorry, for me it’s show, don’t tell. And that trailer showed a whole lot of crap. Maybe my mind will be changed since it was changed with Beyond after that truly awful trailer but the movie still didn’t star a murdering fascist dictator…so that was already a plus.
I just don’t care about Adolf. I hated her in every season of Discovery she was in, not sure how one low budget movie is going to suddenly change that. But I’m hoping Rachel Garret will be worth the watch if nothing else. She’s really the only motivation I have to even watch it now.
I really miss when Star Trek always felt like Star Trek, not this stuff we’ve been getting since 2009.
The trailer is not out yet. Modern Trek is mixed, but the best is far better than TOS. Trek starts with TNG for me.
A trailer came out in July. It’s posted in the article.
And I have always been a TNG era guy myself. And I agree some of it is really good like LDS, Prodigy and PIcard season 3 for me. Others, like Discovery, not so much lol. I just meant in the classic era it all felt like Star Trek even when it was bad. Since JJ verse they tried to make it feel like something else.
The more I hear about this show, the more I’m convinced it’ll be the TV equivalent of when people write on toilet walls in faeces.
So how many people survived the Eugenics Wars? What? When actors start saying things like “Han Solo like” I get concerned. I really think it is time for the Kurtzman era to end. If I was an exec at Paramount I would continue with SNW and blow up everything else he is doing and focus on the Kelvin film with Chris Prine.
Section 31 is one of the greatest concepts ever made in Star Trek and to see it treated like a Marvel Knock off is really disappointing. What about Ash Tyler? Where is he? He would still more than likely be alive in the early 24th century if his Klingon DNA held up.
I was expecting something with intirgue. Notice how they are trying to sell this show. Smh. A show set in the early 24th century. A relatively untapped era in Trek and this what you guys have come up with?
If I was writing Trek, one of the first things I would write is a scene where Q talks about his Starflett Fan Fiction and says
“Did you know I gave the legendary Mr. Spcok a sister? I wanted to tortue the little Vulcan brat with a human sister and see how he would turn out? But it didn’t really work with my audience, I was laughed out of the continuum so (SNAP) I deleted her and her whiny crew. I mean the timeline is already a mess Jean-Luc. I realized that I was only making it worse with my fan fic” (Smile).