Just who is John Harrison?  We likely won't find out for sure until Star Trek Into Darkness officially opens, but director J.J. Abrams and star Benedict Cumberbatch did shed a little light on the character in a recent interview.  While you won't get any surprise identity reveals or confirmations of rumored characters, you will get some insight into what makes Harrison so damned dangerous.

Star Trek Into Darkness, opening May 17th in the States, stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin and Alice Eve.  Hit the jump for more.

In the latest issue of Total Film (via CBM), Abrams and Cumberbatch spend a bit of time highlighting the personality traits and physical characteristics of Harrison.  Here's what Abrams had to say about the antagonist as compared to Nero (Eric Bana) from 2009's Star Trek:

"[Nero] was just a raging, vengeful lunatic. All he wanted to do was destroy Vulcan, Earth and the Federation...He had backstory but was kind of irrational. The beauty of Benedict's [John Harrison] is that he's completely rational. He's someone that you can have conversations with. You couldn't sit down and talk to Nero - he'd bite your head off!"

And here's Cumberbatch's own contribution:

"I did a lot of close combat training. He's a kick-ass warrior, as masterful with his hands and body as he is with weapons...You will have a great discovery during this film, which I think is great...[My costumes] look great. Some of them were (no pun intended) cumbersome and heavy, but some were very snug; you can almost see what religion I am..."