Anton Yelchin has been acting since the age of 12. His breakthrough role was as Tommy Warshaw in David Duchovny’s House Of D. He has since gone to critically-acclaimed roles in films like Alpha Dog and Charlie Bartlett. Now, at age 20, Yelchin is about to score the biggest role of his young career as Russian Starfleet officer Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams’s new film version of the classic science-fiction TV series Star Trek. We first asked Anton how he prepared for a character that had instant recognition with one of the most longtime and devoted fan base in the history of pop culture. “Well, I watched the original series quite a bit,” Yelchin recounts, “And I really thought there was something so special about everything that Walter [Koenig] did and the decisions that he made and the kind of natural joy that pervaded everything that he did. It came out in the accent, it came out in the physicality, and I tried to adapt that to this kind of interpretation of this character as much as possible.” “I didn’t want it to be an imitation, but I did want it to be that character and have that general spirit,” he continues, “And, of course, there’s the accent, so a lot of watching the series I used to sort of figure that accent out and figure out how I wanted to do that. I just think he created such a great character. It was really important for me to be able to capture that.” The character of Pavel Chekov was one of the pivotal breakthroughs of the original Star Trek series as it was one of the first positive portrayals of a Russian on TV during the era of the Cold War. As a Russian born in Leningrad, Yelchin says he was particularly careful not to risk turning Chekov into merely a stereotypical caricature in the film. “The thing about Walter’s accent is that it’s miraculous in that it shows you the greatness of [Gene] Roddenbury’s vision that he even had a Russian character in the middle of the Cold War on an American TV show,” he notes, “But it is more a stereotype of a Russian per se during the Cold War than it is actually Russian, which I kind of thought was great. It goes with the camp of the whole series. I don’t find any of it grating.” “I picked up on things I didn’t think were accurate and kind of given the choice between really adjusting them and changing them or leaving them as is and using them,” Anton adds, “I went with using them. Because I think that’s what makes that character that character. I did adjust them slightly because our film isn’t campy, you know. So that decision had to be made, not that it’s not in itself funny, but just not campy.” Rigorous and thorough martial arts training that was said to be involved in preparation for the film’s stunts, which had been likened by fellow cast member Chris Pine to a “Star Trek boot camp”. Anton makes one simple remark about a particular fight scene between him and Eric Bana, who plays the film’s villain, the Romulan, Nero. “Eric’s a big dude,” Yelton says. Star Trek is not the only franchise about to be facelifted that Yelton is participating in. He also plays the role of resistance fighter Kyle Reese in the film Terminator: Salvation, set for release May 21. Yelton gave us his perspective on how it felt to play two familiar characters reinterpreted in two franchises that are both long-running and beloved by generations of fans. “I think I’ve been lucky to always been able to play interesting characters,” Anton feels, “This was a great challenge. This is a great character that has been around for 40 years. And suddenly, it’s up to me to sort of work with that forty years of history and see what I can do with it and it’s a great challenge, I think, as an actor and it’s a really interesting challenge. And same thing with Terminator, it’s another iconic character. I’ve been really lucky, so hopefully, I’ll be able to continue doing things that I find interesting and challenging.”