Saldana: Spock-Uhura Romance Woes

Zoe Saldana explains what will happen to the Spock-Uhura relationship in Star Trek into Darkness.

Spoilers are behind the cut.

In this second new Star Trek movie, the romance between Uhura and Spock has developed some problems. “Spock is such a committed person,” said Saldana. “He’s always willing to give up his life for his team and for what he believes in – and I don’t think that’s starting to sit well with Uhura.

“She definitely would like to feel – like anybody who’s in love – she would like to feel that she has some kind of relevance in his psyche that would compel him to go, ‘Wait a minute, let me think it. Let me recoup myself.’ And he just doesn’t, and obviously that causes her to question why she’s with him. She asks herself, ‘What is it about Spock that I’ve always been taken by?’ And I was really happy with that dynamic and that continuation of the relationship, of their relationship.”

Uhura doesn’t choose the best of times to confront Spock about this. “I love that scene when we have that conversation,” said Saldana. “It’s in front of their boss too, the Captain is in-between us. We’re getting shot at and I ask him to commit to more. It feels like a typical, contemporary love story. That’s one thing that’s great about working with J.J. and his team of writers, in that you’re going to be stepping into shoes of human beings – whether they’re superhuman, or whether they’re fighting battles. Even considering what they do as work, they’re still being challenged with everyday matters of the heart, you know? And they’re still being challenged with politics and self-discovery.”

So the story and the journey between Spock and Uhura is, in my opinion, she’s learning the kind of person he is, and she’s encouraging him to cater to his human side, to his human half. And there’s a conflict there, because he doesn’t want to be compromised, because he feels like if he’s to be compromised he’ll be weak and a lot of people will suffer.”

So Uhura will need to learn how to “understand his Vulcan side,” explained Saldana. “She’s with a man who has duty before anything else, she needs to accept and embrace that when he tells her that she’s important to him, that she is. But that’s really hard for us ladies, we often want more. So that’s the conflict. But I liked the way in that scene that it was presented how we would have it out, you know? It’s not just us sitting down having a cup of tea; our lives are in danger. With the levity of the situation it’s really humorous.”