Star Trek: Section 31 Cast Talks Plot Details, Embracing the Weight of the Franchi

The cast of the upcoming Star Trek: Section 31, a direct-to-streaming Paramount+ film starring Michelle Yeoh (Everything, Everywhere, All At Once), Sam Richardson (The Afterparty), Omari Hardwick (Power) and Kacey Rohl (The Magicians), stopped by Variety Studio, presented by Google TV, at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con.

The cast of the upcoming “Star Trek: Section 31,” a direct-to-streaming Paramount+ film starring Michelle Yeoh (“Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”), Sam Richardson (“The Afterparty”), Omari Hardwick (“Power”) and Kacey Rohl (“The Magicians”), stopped by Variety Studio, presented by Google TV, at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con.

Richardson, Hardwick and Rohl were joined by director Olatunde Osunsanmi and executive producer Alex Kurtzman to talk about the franchise’s upcoming interstellar venture.

A spin-off from the series “Star Trek: Discovery,” the film follows Philippa Georgiou (Yeoh) as she works with Section 31, a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets.

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“The movie is a lot of things. It’s action, drama, comedy, it’s equal parts all of that,” said Richardson, who plays a Quasi, a shapeshifting chameloid. “So, it’s not just up to Quasi to be funny, everybody’s funny in it, and everybody’s serious and the stakes are there for everybody. So it really is a whole piece.”

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Hardwick added that the film was a unique blend of genres. “There’s still that marriage, the hybrid of the sort of formality that we grew up watching, and yet it still has this dirty, sort of edgy take on it—where a sense of humor is allowed,” he said. “That was just amazing for us.”

Kurtzman, who received the 2024 Institutional Peabody Award for “Star Trek,” reflected on that moment and what it was like to feel the “weight” of the franchise’s legacy when he was surrounded by franchise alumni LeVar Burton, Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Scott Bakula, Wilson Cruz and more during the ceremony.

“That was the most amazing part. You looked around and saw somebody from almost every cast, and you just felt the weight of the legacy and the connection between everybody,” he said. “It was really profound. The feeling of seeing multiple generations of actors coming together for their own unique reasons, connecting over what it means to be in this franchise. I hate the word franchise. It feels like we all work at a McDonald’s, but it’s family, right?”

Though Yeoh couldn’t join the cast for Comic-Con, they described her as someone who “galvanizes” the team and a “brilliant performer.”

“It was incredible to see because, through all the different iterations of it, Michelle was completely committed to doing it. Even after she won the Oscar,” Kurtzman said. “She sort of doubled down on it, and we ended up being able to move forward in the window of time that we had.”

Watch the full interview above to see the cast break down their characters, their favorite “Star Trek” episode and what’s on each of their watch lists.

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