Star Trek and You have turned Ed Speleers into one big walking spoiler

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 4 and the entirety of You season 4.

Ed Speleers finally has the official go-ahead to answer a basic question about himself: what are you doing for work these days? It's the one thing the 34-year-old English actor of Star Trek: Picard and You has been trained to avoid, given what's going on with both of those series. Even when the necessary press embargoes have been strictly agreed to, even when all the assurances are given to Speleers as he sits down over Zoom with EW, he's still overtly aware of everything that comes out of his mouth. He can't help it.

Speleers turns his eyes away from the camera, looking off towards the righthand corner of his Los Angeles stay, which remains dreary with all the rain battering the city. His nose crinkles and his eyes squint. He's working out in his head how best to address the question. "I've never had to overthink it before, even in interviews," Speleers admits. "Even when people are saying, 'Don't worry, that's free rein, you can talk about it,' I get so confused now. My peabrain can't keep up."

It's a stress most actors have to deal with in some capacity. "Spoiler culture" has become a new reality and fandoms grow more ravenous for those leaks, prompting studios and networks to keep their most precious secrets locked away in some underground bunker. Speleers has double the pressure because (spoiler alert!) he's playing Jack Crusher, the secret son of Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard and Gates McFadden's Beverly Crusher in the Trek offshoot's final season, and (spoiler alert!) a serial killer in the London-set season of You that ends up being a figment of Joe's (Penn Badgley) imagination. And both shows are running simultaneously, which has created quite the minefield.

Speleers only sees the positive of these spoiler warnings attached to his characters. In his mind, it means people are excited about them. "I love the fact they are so juxtaposed. And they're both so multifaceted, but in such different ways," he remarks. "The process of putting both of them together was actually really different."

Star Trek's next generation

Speleers' Star Trek journey began with what his generation does best: binge-watching. Terry Matalas, the showrunner on Picard's third season, queued up a watchlist of relevant Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and movies to study in advance of filming. Which episodes specifically? Speleers' nose tightens again. He doesn't want to list off too many. "There are two that... If we get the chance to revisit this conversation, I will tell you them, but I can't say yet because it'll give the game away," he explains.

He does, however, point to "The Measure of a Man," the two-part "Chain of Command" arc, and "Inner Light." It wasn't about emulating specific mannerisms from the early performances of Speleers' on-screen parents. Matalas wanted to instead impress upon him the themes. How does Picard view his own existence? Why didn't he start a family for all these years?

The season's fourth episode, which arrived on Paramount+ Thursday, highlights the many differences between Jack and Jean-Luc as the two converse over drinks. "I was given the luxury to explore Jack as his own entity," Speleers says. "Because he wasn't brought up in and around Picard, I think that would have probably been his makeup: he has tried to push away everything Picard stands for. As a result, I think he's embodied a way of being, he's trying to be very different."

The character was pitched to Speleers as an amalgamation of various space cowboys. Yes, Captain James T. Kirk, he confirms, was one such touchstone. Kirk is a figure that triggers warm feelings of nostalgia for Speleers; his father's Trek love was William Shatner. He remembers sitting on the couch after class in high school with his pops, watching The Next Generation.

"There's a swashbuckling nature to Kirk I suppose, isn't there?" the actor muses. "There's a devil-may-care approach, and we felt that was important for Jack to have, this rogue quality, but hopefully enough where people can get on board with him rather than want to see him sucked out into the universe and never be seen again."

Speleers understood early on that Star Trek is about generations, like a father introducing his kid to the show for the first time. Generations also play a more literal role in Picard, as in the veterans from The Next Generation are an active part of season 3.

Speleers remembers having a drink with Stewart off screen. The first was on their first meeting over lunch in Los Angeles, where they enjoyed white wine. Stewart would later invite Speleers' family to swim in the pool at his California home. The drink of choice then was rosé. "Very civilized," Speleers says, chuckling at the memory. "When Patrick and I are sharing a glass, we tend to talk about football a lot of the time, or sports in general, or his love of the theater."

Speleers also can't shake the fact that he and another Trek instituion, Wil Wheaton, who played Crusher's son Wesley, are half-brothers because of his Jack role. "Space brothers," he calls their relationship. "That guy is so engrained in Star Trek..." Speleers doesn't want to say "canon." "When I think of canon, I think of ships in the armada," he says. "Mythology" is the word he runs with. "Talking at length with [Wheaton] was very entertaining."

Picard's final season is only on the fourth episode, but Speleers doesn't want the ride to end. He speaks with a schoolboy giddiness about the potential to do much more with Jack Crusher. Matalas has said the whole point of season 3 is the proverbial passing of the torch to the next generation of Trek characters, but it's ultimately up to the powers that be as to whether Jack continues crushing.

Speleers makes clear, "I 100 percent want to do it. I feel that I was given the chance to do so much, whether it be the big emotional scenes, the drama, the action. And I'll be honest, as an actor, I've been striving towards getting to a point where I could be given the chance to be more of a lead, I suppose. I'd really, really, really love to keep playing this role for many years, if it's at all possible."

He has a good outlook on it all: "If nothing ever happens, I know that I had these 10 episodes and this eight-month experience."

Split personalities

Speleers' other big gig, You, also leaves the door propped open for him to return beyond season 4, which is now streaming on Netflix. That, too, is a big question mark at the moment. "It's so hypothetical," he says.

Speleers was still shooting Picard when he flew back home to London for You, in which he plays Rhys Montrose, who's first presented as a British author and London Mayoral candidate in the posh circle of friends Joe stumbles into.

It was a different way of working than Speleers' experience on Picard. He knew all the big beats from series creator Sera Gamble: how (spoiler alert!) Rhys is the murderer who's trying to frame and also befriend Joe, but also (spoiler alert!) Rhys is actually a figment of Joe's imagination and it is technically our favorite demented stalker who's been killing all these people.

Speleers didn't have all the scripts laid out in front of him. There was no clear-cut backstory laying out the small, nuanced details to this character. "I was slightly terrified when I was first told what I was gonna be doing, 'cause it felt like a huge amount of pressure," he recalls. "But once the scripts started coming in and I was able to break it down more thoroughly, it just appealed. It seemed to click quite well playing a complete nutcase." Speleers takes a moment to laugh at what he just said. "That's not good, is it?"

No one would ever accuse the approachable, happy-go-lucky Speleers of being close to Rhys, but he does enjoy playing the villain. The fun came in Part 2 of season 4 when the illusory Rhys reveals himself. The actor felt like the shackles came off and he could lean into the true nature of this character.

He and Badgley worked closely together to develop that Joe and Rhys connection. "You could have taken one approach: Joe and I could have moved in certain ways, we could have done similar things so there could have been a crossover," Speleers says. "But I think the reason why it was interesting to both of us was actually to create this pure manifestation of this other being. It makes Joe really question himself. 'How could I possibly come up with this creation?' It has to feel so different to him."

"I keep trying to say he's got shades of gray, but there's nothing gray about that man," Speleers jokes. "He's just trying to cause all manner of sin and get Joe to do it for him."

At first, Speleers' mom, who's been watching You and Picard, was dismayed over how tightlipped her son was about his characters. She even pulled one of those, "I'm your mom, you should be able to talk to me about these things," according to Speleers. (Blame the NDAs!) She's since come around, having enjoyed the twists and turns of both shows as an unaware viewer in real time.

Speleers is just grateful to be able to talk about both of these parts now, because he doesn't know what comes after this moment. "This could be it and I may never work again," he says. (Something tells us that won't be the case.) "I wanted to be able to talk about it to save this moment and sing from the rooftops because I relish playing these parts."

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