“Star Trek: Discovery” fans got a much-anticipated eyeful — and earful — Thursday night when actor Ethan Peck gave them their first look at his version of the pointy-eared Starfleet officer Spock.
The half-human, half-Vulcan debuts as a babbling, bearded mess, hiding out in a cave on his home planet while on the lam from accusations of murder. It’s quite a contrast to the unflappable character played by Leonard Nimoy in the original “Star Trek” series on NBC (1966-69).
Tantalized Trekkies have longed for this moment since “Discovery’s” second season premiered in January (the show was renewed for a third season on Wednesday) — but the wait was just as unnerving for Peck, who along with the rest of the cast and crew wrapped filming in December.
“To have done it and known it’s out there and not yet seen, I’ve never felt anything like it. I have a lot of expectation and a lot of fright as well,” he tells The Post. “I hope people like what we’ve done with him.”
Peck as SpockJames Dimmock/CBS
What the CBS All Access show has created is a new, tormented backstory for Spock that takes place a decade before the timeline of the original series. In one scene, his mother Amanda tells his teary-eyed, estranged foster sister, USS Discovery Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), “Spock is not how you remember him.”
Fans will likely agree, and Peck wants his new history to help fill in a few blanks. “What I saw in [Leonard] Nimoy’s Spock is this great wisdom, which really only comes from deep emotional experiences and profound pain; we haven’t seen the struggle and strife he’s undergone to become more complete and more whole,” Peck says of Spock’s previously unexplored transformation.
“There’s this really epic conflict within him, which is what I think makes him such a compelling character,” he says, adding that the new material covers “that period of his life that really allows him to become the Spock that we’ve come to love.
“It’s nice to see heroes become heroes.”
Of course, Spock’s voyage will be a rough one if his physical appearance is any indication. Peck says his distracted gaze, long hair and full beard are indicative of the struggle between his emotional human side and his logical Vulcan side.
“I think that’s an externalizing of what’s going on with him internally,” says Peck, whose grandfather was legendary film actor Gregory Peck. “He unravels a bit in order to sort himself out. It’s a direct expression of that unraveling.”
‘There’s this really epic conflict within him, which is what I think makes him such a compelling character.’
But there is one physical feature that hasn’t changed: Spock’s distinctive, pointy ears. Peck is still shocked he gets to wear them.
“Getting fitted for them was so thrilling. It was sort of a point of no turning back, and to put them on for the first time was crazy,” says Peck, who says he got a new set of ears each day of filming. “It was kind of scary because he’s such an iconic character. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m playing him.”
Thankfully, he got the blessing to do so from a good source: Nimoy’s children, Adam and Julie, whom he visited in LA last summer. (Nimoy died in 2015 at age 83.)
“When I got the role I felt, ‘Why is this opportunity in my hands?’ and they really were just warm and courteous,” says Peck, who will turn 33 on Saturday. “What I really took away from that meeting was that I had permission to venture into the mind and the soul of Spock. It really made me feel worthy.
“I took away from it a curiosity for Spock that I wouldn’t have had without their blessing.”
