'Star Trek 4': Simon Pegg Shares Cast's Excitement Over Director Reveal

There's a new energy in the Star Trek film franchise thanks to the announcement that Star Trek 4 finally has a director, and the cast is feeling it too.

Actor Simon Pegg, who plays Mr. Scott in the Kelvin timeline films, shared some of the cast's excitement in an interview with JoBlo.

"[T]here's so much more to do with those characters," Pegg said. "I'm very excited about SJ Clarkson being hired. JJ emailed us about that just before it was announced. Everybody was so excited. I think Zach [Quinto]'s actually worked with her. I've seen stuff she's done, and I think it's a great choice, and it's about time."

Clarkson is best known as a television director who has worked on series such as Doctors, Casualty, EastEnders, Footballers' Wives, Life on Mars, Heroes (which is where she worked with Quinto), House, Dexter and Ugly Betty. She also directed the film Toast.

Star Trek 4's director search is now over and Pegg previously clarified that he and writing partner Doug Jung, who wrote the script for Star Trek Beyond, are not writing the script for the sequel.

"Doug [Jung] and I were never going to write the fourth [Star Trek]," Pegg said in a previous interview. "That was never the deal. Doug and I are doing something together at Bad Robot, which I probably can't talk about just yet. So, [J.D.] Payne and [Patrick] McKay, who wrote the abortive third [Star Trek] script with the previous director [Roberto Orci], they are writing a fourth one. That as far as I knew was the kind of [Chris] Hemsworth thing. That is as much as I know."

That "Hemsworth thing" is the return of Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk, Captain James Kirk's father who died in the opening scene of 2009's Star Trek when he rammed the USS Kelvin into the time-displaced Romulan vessel the Narada.

It's unclear how Hemsworth returns, but Jennifer Morrison, who played George's wife and James' mother Winona in Star Trek, doesn't know anything about the next film. After appearing to drop a spoiler at a Calgary convention, Morrison took to social media to make it clear she knows nothing about Star Trek 4.

The first three Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies - Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond - are all available now on home media. Star Trek 4 still does not have a production start or release date.