Chris Pine started out like many promising actors on the small screen in TV programs like ER, The Guardian, and CSI: Miami. He has made his way to the silver screen in mainly romantic comedies like The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Just My Luck. Now the 28 year-old actor’s latest role is one that what will undoubtedly make or break the actor, as Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams new film version of the classic science-fiction TV series Star Trek. He first explained to us what it took for him to ultimately manage to play a role as dauntingly iconic in pop culture as Captain Kirk. “Well, doing my due diligence, I started watching the first season of the original series pretty feverishly, just to acquaint myself with the dynamic between the characters and the aesthetic and all of that,” Pine recalls, “But I found myself, midway through doing that, that I was, if anything, trying to create the perfect William Shatner impression of doing Captain Kirk and I felt that that was not the best move for me.” “And it was against the mandate that J.J. put forth in the beginning of the process, which was really to reimagine these characters and to bring as a unique and specific take on them as our predecessors had done,” he adds, “So, then, it really became a matter of having a conversation with J.J. about what little nuances I could take from Mr. Shatner’s performance to use in my own to give it kind of a sense of continuity between the characters. But it was really a matter of trying to strike a balance the two.” Pine says he knew William Shatner had made Captain Kirk one of a kind on the TV series and was determined to make his similarities to Shatner’s portrayal as subtle as possible. “You watch the show, you know what Kirk does,” he explains, “What resonated for me were certain physical things. There’s a way that he holds his body and moves about the deck of the ship that’s very, it’s almost theatrical, you see his kind of theatrical training in his gait and in the way he carries his body, in the way he sits in the chair.” “If I could sit here and talk about very little things, I’d probably sound like a moron,” Chris continues, “But I just picked up on certain things that I talked to J.J. about, then he agreed with me and said how can we chart the growth of my character into what Mr. Shatner had done throughout the course of our movie and that led to certain inclusions, you know.” Pine notes that the real challenge ended up not being so much playing Captain Kirk, but the rigorous martial arts training that ended up being involved in preparation for the film’s stunts. “All of that was preparation before we started, that what we had was a two month Star Trek boot camp, helmed by Joey Box and Robert Alonzo, who are both two incredible stunt guys,” he says, “We learned everything from boxing to Muay Thai boxing to krav maga to self defense to all these different martial arts and disciplines. And then, we learned the choreography for the specific fight scenes.” “It’s been a bumpy road,” Chris continues, “I just didn’t quite realize that it would be quite as difficult physically demanding shoot as it turned out to be, so after the six month shoot, however long it was, I just kind of took a long, long break and slept a lot and didn’t do much of anything. I really practiced semi-retirement. There were long days and it’s strange living in that bubble for so long. You don’t have room to do anything else. I mean, you work, you go home and you sleep and you wake up and thank God honestly that if you’re going to spend that much time with these people for hours and hours a day, I mean, thank God we liked one another. We really liked one another, so that helped.” One particular cast member Chris said he was impressed by is Karl Urban, who plays Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in the film. “Yeah, I think people will be blown away by what Karl brought to that role,” he believes, “Thank God none of us had to manufacture any on-screen chemistry. I have a great love for Karl. You know, actually, the first time that we worked together was the first time we meet in the Trek world, was on that ship the first day.” “And like so many meetings on this movie, like the first time I met Zach[ary Quinto], I knew that we’d work together well,” Pine continues, “The first moment I met Karl, I knew that we’d have something special to bring to the screen and I really feel that way about everybody.” Plenty of the media buzz in anticipation for Star Trek’s centered particularly on the decision to have Leonard Nimoy from the original TV series in the new film and not co-star William Shatner. We asked Chris if he had got to meet the original Captain Kirk yet. “Yeah, I met him the night before this here and he’s a wonderful man and does a lot of wonderful work with these charities he’s involved in,” he replies, “My time there then I wanted to make it less about the big kind of diplomatic meeting about Kirks and more about showing support for this wonderful man and the work that he does.” “So our meeting was very brief, but he’s very kind and similar to the letter that he wrote to me, wish you the best of luck,” Pine adds, “And I hope that sometime soon, I’ll be able to sit down with him a bit longer and just kind of shoot the breeze with him.” However, Pine says his desire to make Kirk in the film his own made him actually kind of relieved that Shatner did not end up participating in the new film. But he says having played Kirk and met Shatner, he looks forward to another, more personal encounter with him next time around. “I know how I work,” he explains, “I know if I had the kind of indomitable presence of Mr. Shatner, it would have been hard for me to kind of carve my own niche. And I felt that was the most important part of my job was to feel free enough to do my own work. What Mr. Shatner did will never be copied, ever again. I mean, it’s that specific and that unique and clearly that culturally iconic. So the best that I could do, literally watching the series was…a lot of help for me was pick up a lot of little nuances here and there.” “But having finished now the process of doing it, I can’t wait to kind of pick his brain about his experiences,” Chris continues, “And I won’t lie, I know that I’m definitely jealous of Zachary [Quinto’s] relationship with Mr. [Leonard] Nimoy. Mr. Nimoy is just a fantastic, complicated, interesting, kind of sage-like man and I hope to, in some way, foster a relationship with Mr. Shatner.” Chris adds that he was indeed starstruck meeting Shatner the first time around. “I was a little nervous meeting him,” he says, “Definitely, it’s one thing to write a letter and another thing entirely to kind of, ‘Hey, man, nice to meet you. I’m that young kid who is playing your part.’ But, then, again, he’s a warm, wonderful guy, so there was no kind of sizing each other up or anything like that, anything more dramatic than shaking hands and saying hello.” His co-star Eric Bana had remarked to us about how he felt Star Trek was more positive than many of the other big Hollywood blockbusters of recent years. We asked Pine to comment on whether he agreed with Bana on that notion. “I guess, and not to disparage these movies, The Dark Knight and Watchmen really explore the darker side of human psychology and I have way more of a nihilistic viewpoint than our story,” Chris believes, “I really think our story has a certain niche in storytelling, which is that really at the end of the day when people finish this movie, people will really end up smiling that the crew is together, they’re working together, they’re overcoming the obstacle, they’re looking to the future, and it can sound cheesy and people can laugh, but I can’t think of a movie that’s ended like that in a long time.” “And I think why not have a story that’s positive and that ends with people leaving the theatre smiling, especially in today’s age that’s kind of wracked by the economic crisis and people losing their homes and there’s wars,” he adds, “We try to kill each other more often than not and granted, there’s plenty of stories that are needed to be told about that, but why not tell a story that ends a little bit differently.” Finally, we asked Chris if he feels the world is ready for a Star Trek revival, particularly a whole new generation of people who may have little familiarity with the large and all-encompassing world that Star Trek has entailed. “I think we all certainly hope so,” Pine answers, “You look at the team J.J. assembled, J.J.’s kind of the self-professed ‘non-fan’, or at least, that’s how it started out that way, but then you have people like Damon Lindelof, who is one of the producers, and Bob Orci, who is a huge Trekkie, so that kind of balance that was struck behind the scenes, kind of, I think, hopefully showed up on screen. I think there’s plenty of details in the minutia of the Trek canon to keep hardcore fans connected to the material and I think there’s plenty of new stuff that will hopefully invite a whole new generation of fans into the fold.”