Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

Summary

• Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis play renegade lovers Moll and L'ak, who are hunting for ancient technology, in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.
• Moll and L'ak race against USS Discovery to find powerful Progenitor technology with the power to create life itself in season 5.
• Harlow and Toufexis discuss Moll and L'ak's love story, challenges with prosthetics, and the dynamic with Commander Rayner in Discovery.

Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis are renegade lovers Moll and L'ak on the hunt for Star Trek: Discovery season 5's ancient and powerful treasure. Harlow is new to Star Trek while Toufexis guest starred in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, but, together, Moll and L'ak are the main antagonists of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Moll, a human, and L'ak, a mysterious alien, are a couple in a race with the USS Discovery to find the technology of the Progenitors, which has the power to create life, itself. Moll and L'ak are also being pursued by Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), the new First Officer of the USS Discovery, who is driven by his animosity towards the former couriers-turned-treasure hunters.

Screen Rant spoke to Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis about Moll and L'ak's Star Trek: Discovery love story, the challenges of L'ak's prosthetics, and how Moll and L'ak really feel about their pursuer, Commander Rayner.

Eve Harlow & Elias Toufexis Compare Their Romance To Star Trek: Discovery Season 5's Other Couples

Screen Rant: I'm loving this season of Discovery and the feedback I've gotten across the board is that this is the best season. Have you guys felt the love and the warm reception for season 5?

Eve Harlow: I stay off the internet because the internet scares me. (laughs) So it's kind of like, 'Okay, you can hear nice things. Yes, tell me nice things.' But the bad stuff I'm like, 'Lalala!' But yeah, that's great to hear.

Elias Toufexis: Yeah, [I feel the love.], especially meeting people like you and the fans online. You're always gonna have detractors. it's always gonna happen, but if you can somehow not let them get to you and take in the love... The love is there this season. Everyone's really enjoying it, and I knew they would. I knew when we were shooting this, I'm like, 'This is too much fun. This is too cool.' There's so much cool stuff, so much fun stuff, there's no way people are gonna watch this and dislike it. And I was right. It's too much fun. The first episodes are fantastic all the way through, and then the other half of the season gets even crazier. I'm really happy with the reception.

Moll and L'ak are a love story. Discovery has a lot of couples. There are a lot of love stories going on. Would you say Moll and L'ak are the best couple in Discovery, and what makes them the best?

Elias Toufexis: I’d say they’re the best couple in Star Trek history.

Eve Harlow: Obviously, we’re the best because it’s us!

Elias Toufexis: I mean, look, they’re the coolest. They’re the coolest couple in Star Trek history, that's for sure. They're smart. They're in love. They're passionate. They know what they want. They do what they need to do to get it. And they don't care who's standing in their way. But they're not inherently evil. They're not inherently villains, really. Yeah, they're the antagonists of the show. But they're doing what they're doing for a reason. And those reasons are explained. And that's one of my favorite things about this season, that they're explained. The reasons are shown why we're doing what we're doing.

Bonnie and Clyde have been referenced a lot for Moll and L'ak, but they might be more like Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers or Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction. Did you guys pull inspiration from any of these famous movie criminal couples?

Eve Harlow: 100% But I think that we see these like kinds of characters throughout different kinds of mediums. It was really funny because right before I did this show, there was another show that I did [The Night Agent], and it also had a dynamic of Bonnie and Clyde. I was like, 'I'm going from doing a Bonnie and Clyde on a political thriller to doing Bonnie and Clyde in space. F--- yeah!' So I think you can't help but draw inspiration. 'Oh, yeah, I see this, and I see how this is reflected in what I have'. But then you take it as some amalgamation of everything that you've consumed before, and you make it your own.

Elias Toufexis: I'm inclined to toss out Mickey and Mallory. For me, that never played because they're such psychos in that film. Moll and L'ak are not psychos. They're passionate and they're in love. I mean, you could take the coolness of Mickey and Mallory, and you could throw that in there. But in terms of their reasoning for doing what they're doing.... Even Bonnie and Clyde is a little too much. [Moll and L'ak] are justified in what they're doing. I don't know that murdering anybody is ever justified, but their reason for being there is love and freedom. And that's hard to dispute.

Moll's Wig Was Eve's Idea & L'ak's Prosthetics Were A Challenge For Elias

Eve, you just mentioned you were on Netflix's The Night Agent as Ellen, an assassin in love. You wore a lot of wigs on The Night Agent. How does how does Moll's wig compare?

Eve Harlow: Okay, so fun fact: The wigs... That was my idea. Because for The Night Agent, when I got the script, Ellen was obviously an assassin who has different clothing and stuff. And because I wear wigs in my real life, I was like, 'Wait, this totally makes sense for Ellen to have wigs because when someone asks for a description of a person, its height, hair color, right?' It's the easiest thing to change. And so I was like, 'F--- it. I'm gonna pitch it to the producers, see if they're into it.' They were into it. That worked. And when I auditioned for Star Trek, I wore a wig for my audition. It just made sense. It felt sci-fi, it felt edgy, it felt like all of the things that I felt when I read the sides and the character description.

Elias, you and I talked a little bit about the makeup process for L'ak, wearing the head, and the makeup, and everything. How do you feel now that you've seen it on screen and seen how it plays? It looks awesome.

Elias Toufexis: You want to know the truth? This is how messed up being an actor is, like the body dysmorphia of an actor. I'll look at it and be like, 'Oh, it looks so cool.' And then, 'Nope, I look fat in that scene.' Even under the makeup. It makes no sense. It's completely ridiculous because the makeup is the makeup. But you're looking at it like, 'I don't like that shot, I like this shot.' I would only tell that to you, John. But having said that yeah, the process was tough. When it was over, when when the season was done, and I was done, I remember going, 'I don't know that I would do this again because it is very difficult.' I didn't realize how difficult it would be.

I remember that first day of sitting there for five and a half hours, and then seeing [me as L'ak], and I'm like, 'This is the coolest thing ever! This is no problem.' And four or five days in, I'm like, 'This is exhausting.' And you don't realize that. You're putting it on for five hours, then you're wearing it for like 12 hours, and then you're trying to get it off. There was a week when we were shooting where I was more L'ak than I was Elias. I would take it off ,go home, sleep five hours, come back, and put it back on. There were times where I'm like, 'Can I just leave it on?' 'No, you can't.' So it was tough.

But being removed from it now for over a year, you look at it, and you go, 'Okay, it was worth it because it's so cool.' And the makeup is what I was concerned about. I think I talked to you about this a little bit. What I was concerned about was [my performance] getting through the makeup. That his love for Moll [came through.] That was my big thing. Will you be able to see that he loves Moll through these contacts and the makeup? Yes, you can, and I'm very happy with that.

That was my big concern and the fact that you could see the emotion... Because it was tough to get through. I had to be bigger than I normally am on-screen. I'm normally a very quiet, subtle actor. That's how I like to be, and I had pushed through the makeup to get it across. I was worried about being melodramatic, and it worked out. The director, Olatunde [Osunsanmi] was talking to me about it a lot. And he was right. And I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Why Commander Rayner Has A Grudge Against Moll and L'ak

L'ak has his own ship. He's one of the few Star Trek characters who actually owns his own starship. I want to get really nerdy about the ship. What are the cool things it can do? Does it have a name, model, registry number, all that nerdy Star Trek minutia?

Elias Toufexis: I want to give it a name, Eve. We should give it a name. I think he'd call it The Moll. I think he would do something like that. He would call it The Moll or the Malinne or something like that. I mean, again, as a big Star Trek fan, my own ship? Like, come on, it's the coolest thing ever. I love the detachment cells, and then it could spin and the nacelles spin around it, and then giving off the different warp trails and stuff, That kind of stuff is top of the line cool, man. I love that stuff, and I hope there's a million toys and ships and models. I'll buy 'em all.

Callum Keith Rennie's Commander Rayner is another awesome addition to season 5. Rayner really has a bug up his ass - a time bug, as it turns out - about Moll and L'alk. Can you talk a little bit about what his problem is with you? Because it's only been hinted at.

Eve Harlow: Oh, I don't remember what is revealed in what episode. What's a spoiler and what isn't? Because it's all fused together.

Elias Toufexis: Callum is great. I've known Callum for years. He's a very famous Canadian actor.

Eve Harlow: And I worked with him like over 10 years ago on this TV show he was on. And he remembered, and I hadn't. I was like, 'Oh dang. Hey again, years down the line.'

Elias Toufexis: He's a great actor and I love Rayner. What's great about Rayner, for me, is it could be a very one-dimensional character. It could easily even be played one-dimensionally. And Callum is such a wonderful actor that you see layers getting broken down episode by episode. That's what's great about him in terms of his relationship with Moll and L'ak. I don't want to get into too much. I don't know what I'm gonna spoil,. But he definitely does have, as you say, a time bug up his ass. But they don't care about him. I'll tell you that much. They don't.

Elias, you're on the Star Trek convention circuit. We've hung out in Vegas. Eve, are you looking forward to doing Star Trek cons? You're part of Star Trek now. It's going to be part of you forever. There's gonna be Moll and L'ak cosplay.

Eve Harlow: Honestly, I'm excited to see that! That would be fun. When I first got on set, being welcomed on set, it was like, 'Welcome to the family.' So I'm just like, I'm excited to be here!

About Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well … dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.

Check out our other Star Trek: Discovery season 5 interviews here:

• Sonequa Martin-Green
• David Ajala and Doug Jones
• Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman & Blu del Barrio
• Alex Kurtzman & Michelle Paradise
• Callum Keith Rennie

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+