This week, several media outlets who were lucky enough to visit the Vancouver film set of STAR TREK BEYOND back in August released expanded interviews with the cast, covering many topics from writing to production.

We’ve poured through five different reports out in the past few days, and have picked out the most interesting segments – the below excerpts are sourced from Collider, Nerdist, io9, Slashfilm, and this other Collider report.

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Simon Pegg and Chris Pine on the flexibility of the writing team to cast input:

Simon Pegg: We sent an email out to the cast whenever we got here saying, “Look. Look at your character. If you have any feelings or any kind of impulses, you know them better than we do. Let us know.” And that’s been really helpful. And it’s been great to be part of both sides of it in a way.

Chris Pine: If one person has a great idea then you go with that’ if the script that’s written is great then we go with that. If Karl [Urban] has a great easter egg he wants to throw in from the Original Series we’re like, “Oh that’s fucking great!” If I wanna do like a side gag or something, you just kind of –There’s a lot of trust I think, there’s a lot of trust to Simon, Simon has a lot of trust in us, and Justin as well, that we know where the characters are, what in the dynamics work, and what might be fun to do. I guess it evens the playing field and everybody has the room to play.

For BEYOND – unlike the two previous films – the Enterprise bridge and corridor builds were built on gimbal systems to shake and turn the constructed sets as if the “ship” was really rocking in space, rather than leaving it all up to the actors and camera motion.

Zoe Saldana: It’s fucking awesome. That made me want to kind of do a little more. It looks amazing. … So it keeps you always…it keeps you at the edge of your seat kinda going, ‘Oh, my god. What’s going to happen?’ These people are being tossed everywhere. It wasn’t the kind of set where they are jerking the camera. You have to see it. It’s really comical. You always have that one camera guy: ‘And, action!’ It used to be J.J. too! He’d be, like, jerking the camera… This time, the set really moved. So they went all out to give us that experience, and it was cool. There is one set that rotates 360 degrees, and there are two sets that shake a lot.

Anton Yelchin: I feel like a kid playing make-believe. Except now someone has invested millions of dollars into making your make-believe really fucking awesome.

Chris Pine: What did we do the other day? We were in some dark places of the ship and it was slanted 65 degrees so you had to run up and being tackled by someone, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s actually way more physical in that regard than the first two films. Something I could equate it to would maybe be in the first one when me and Sulu have this fight outside. It’s definitely the most physical film. I would say once the setup is established, three quarters of the film is just nonstop action beat after action beat. I wouldn’t wanna scare anybody, I don’t think it’s kind of senseless blowing shit up for blowing shit up’s sake, but I think it has a real drive to it and I think that Justin’s aware of not wanting to dumb the audience down that way.

Director Justin Lin has also brought a new eye to the Enterprise, changing up how the camera presents the vessel’s interior.

Karl Urban: I think it’s one of the great things about Justin — he’s got his eye keenly on the macro. It’s all about enhancing the performance and enhancing the visuals and actually bringing space into the bridge. Whereas, perhaps in J.J.’s version, the bridge was really brightly lit and stuff but space is out there. Justin really wants to bring space to us. I think that’s a really interesting concept.

There’s been a great deal of talk about the vast number of new creature designs that have been created for BEYOND, up to fifty new aliens (in honor of the franchise’s fiftieth anniversary).

Zoe Saldana: There are a lot of 3:30 AM call times. I heard one time there was like a 1:30 AM call time for somebody. It was brutal for that person and the crew that was handling them. So it’s great. It’s always a fun thing to see just the opportunity that each department has to showcase their work. And you are going to have a lot of aliens. That’s one thing that I always like to see. If we’re doing a film in space, I don’t want to see just human beings in space. It’s so boring. We must be like the dullest species ever. So we have a variation of a lot of species.

The opening act of the film starts out as “a day in the life” of the Enterprise crew, years into their Five Year Mission – but the time alone in space has taken its toll on the Starfleet officers.

Chris Pine: What I love about the beginning of this film is that it takes into account what it may be like if you’re on a submarine or something and you’re with the same people day in and day out for months and years. It’s the second year of a five year mission, so what is that kind of repetition like? How you kind of get out of the day to day doldrums and doing nothing but kind of flying the ship and trying to find stuff. And these films always take place during big moments of high drama, but what happens the day before the high drama?

Zoe Saldana: They’re at that point when you see them for the first time. … We’ve been working for two years straight. We’re exhausted. I think we kinda need a break. It’s not like we hate each other, but we need a break as people. We’ve just been working and sharing the same space. That’s how you start the movie. That’s where you see us in the beginning. Every relationship in this movie will be tested on a very, very high scale. The great thing about this installment is that it’s not only Kirk and Spock and J.J.’s Spock and Uhura, his twist, it’s also Chekov and Scotty. It’s Sulu. So I’m really excited about this because now it’s an ensemble more than ever.

Lastly, Zoe Saldana took some time to address the status of Spock and Uhura’s relationship.

Zoe Saldana: Everybody’s relationship, all of their dynamics are tested. Spock and Uhura are going to be tested as well. To what extent? I don’t know. But I mean they made it in the show. They were old in the show. [laughs] What more can I say without giving it away? They are in each other’s lives in a very passionate way. So you will see that. To what extent? I don’t know. But I think Spock is absolutely in love with Uhura. I think he’s crazy about her. And if Uhura is done with him, it’s going to kill him. [laughs] I’m joking. But he really loves me more than I do him.

STAR TREK BEYOND hits theaters July 22.