Star Trek Beyond: Jennifer Lawrence inspired new character Jaylah, Simon Pegg reveals

J-Law...Jaylah...it's a natural progression

Jennifer Lawrence had somehow managed to avoid filming a sex scene before Passengers (Rex Features)

Simon Pegg has revealed that he based a new Star Trek Beyond character on none other than Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Lawrence.

The actor and screenwriter told a press conference that female alien Jaylah was inspired by Lawrence’s breakthrough performance as Ree in 2010 drama Winter’s Bone.

He said that himself and co-writer Doug Jung began calling the character ‘Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone’ while struggling to come up with a name. “We were trying to create this very independent character but we didn’t have a name for it, so we just called it ‘Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone’,” said Pegg. “That’s a long name. It started getting tiring always saying, ‘Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone is fighting here’. So we started calling her J-Law and then she became Jaylah.”


 Jaylah features on the Star Trek Beyond poster

Vox describes Jaylah as “more or less a loner, fending for herself and trying to scrape together a living without much help from any sort of parental or authority figure”. She enters the galactic fray after “bumping into” the USS Enterprise crew, apparently.

Jaylah will be played by Sofia Boutella, who joins returning actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana for Justin Lin’s new film. Star Trek Beyond arrives in UK cinemas on 22 July, with Idris Elba another new addition to the cast.