The advancement of technology has probably guided us more than anything else in one direction or another. I don't know, it's hard to say. We're so much more connected, but we've never been more fractured as a culture.

It certainly woke me up to how vulnerable we all are. I think I was much more cavalier about it before I started working on the movie [Edward Snowden], and then the more I read the documents themselves and saw just how sweeping and indiscriminate the intrusions into our privacy have been, it made me more aware.

I try to be as fearless as possible. I don't always succeed, but I like to think I try.

I remember our conversations [with Zachary Quinto] always being frustrated that we weren't doing what we wanted to do, but also filled with the determination that we were going to overcome that.

I saw how vulnerable we all are and how exposed we all are and how this is an issue that affects everyone who owns a piece of technology. Which is certainly most people in this country.

I love playing characters that go to extreme places, and I love to explore different kinds of psychological landscapes, so it is ultimately a kind of fun, but it's also complicated and colored by the depth of the nastiness of it, at certain times, as well.

I've been looking for ways to audition more, because it also keeps me sharp and keeps my ambition at its firm edge. That's something that I'm actively engaged in conversations about now with my reps: What's out there that I can really either put myself on tape for, or meet with the director for and read for? How do we do that? We're now at the end of the Star Trek reboot trilogies and whether we are going to do another movie remains to be seen, and so I feel like I'm at the end of this cycle that began with me coming out of school and auditioning and building my way up.