Last week, CBS finally announced the first new members of the STAR TREK: DISCOVERY cast – Michelle Yeoh, Doug Jones, and Anthony Rapp – and in a new interview with IGN, producer Alex Kurtzman shared his thoughts on each actors’ addition to the franchise.

Regarding famed genre actor Doug Jones, taking on the role of alien Lt. Saru:

Doug Jones, you know, one of the greatest. What he did in Pan’s Labyrinth has embedded itself in my mind forever. What you want to do when you’re creating a creature of some kind is cast an actor who has the ability to pull off the bulk of it in a practical way and that requires a real understanding of movement.

On Anthony Rapp, playing scientist Lt. Stamets aboard the Discovery:

I’ve been a fan of Anthony’s for a long time. He’s just a brilliant actor. It’s always just about how do you find actors who are, it’s always who’s right for the part, but it’s also there’s a lovely diversity that Star Trek has always been about.

As we build the cast, because there are still a lot of parts to cast, we were excited that people seemed to be so excited about our first three choices.

And finally, Kurtzman discussed Yeoh’s role as Captain Georgiou of the Shenzen:

I will not give you one detail about the show other than to tell you that I think that Michelle gets to play a part that has so many dimensions to it and is so perfect for where we want to go over the course of the season and maybe even beyond.

With filming on the new series expected to begin after the holidays, it’s likely we’ll be hearing more on the STAR TREK: DISCOVERY crew in the coming weeks – stay tuned.