The cast and crew of 'Star Trek Into Darkness' are currently on a whirlwind publicity tour. Starting in Sydney, then Moscow and Germany, now London. We had the good fortune to speak with Karl Urban (aka Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy) whose comic relief performance in this sequel is just as terrific as in the first.

He does, however, get to do a little scientific work in the picture, and some of it involves medical tests from some old fuzzy franchise friend – the Tribbles.

Sharp-eyed viewers saw a Tribble in the 2009 picture (it's on Scotty's desk during the Delta Vega sequence) but this time he's front and center. We asked Urban about working with a Tribble and he told us a surprising fact.

As a longtime fan, it must have been a blast to interact with a Tribble.

It was fun getting to work with the Tribble. Here's some inside information. It was J.J. Abrams himself who was animating the Tribble. He was operating the mechanism that brought the Tribble to life. You believe that? He was like a kid in a candy store.

I do. I know he likes to get his hands dirty...I didn't know he liked to get them that dirty. Did he have his hand underneath the puppet or was he working some sort of remote control device?

He was underneath the table, operating the puppet.

Was he looking at a monitor also, or was this all by feel?

I don't believe he had a monitor, no. Though I'm not sure, I can't remember.

He wasn't making cooing noises down there, too?

Uhhhhhhhhh...no.

Check back for our full interview with Urban and more coverage on 'Star Trek Into Darkness.'

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