Chris Pine on His New Version of James T. Kirk and the Humor in Star Trek

Buzzine posted an interview with Star Trek star Chris Pine, the new James T. Kirk, and here are few excerpts.

Emmanuel Itier: How familiar were you with the series before?

Chris Pine: I wasn't a fan. I saw reruns when I was growing up, and my grandmother was a big William Shatner fan, so I watched TJ Hooker...a lot. But I was born in 1980 so I was more of a Star Wars kid, and I'm not really a science fiction buff. I like The Abyss and I do like Star Wars, but I'm not an avid sci-fi fan. I got the encyclopedia and the box sets of the TV show. I tried to do my due diligence and started watching the original series slavishly, but then - and this was a personal choice for me - I felt it wasn't helping me do my job. I would love to sit here and tell you I know everything about it and...I just can't. It just didn't help me. What helped me was reading my script and trying to do the best job I could to breathe life into the character on the pages that I got. What resonated with me from the original show that I did get watching it, is that it's an incredibly philosophical show - there are big ideas that are explored. In the '60s, there are the Civil Rights movements, the Cold War...and here you have a show with a Russian on the deck with an interracial relationship - at least for one episode - absolute equanimity with no regard to sex, class, race, etc. So it's this utopian vision of what the world could be. I never put two and two together and saw how Roddenberry was able to explore these ideas just because it was in space, which you could never have been able to do, had it been set in 1968 in a police station in New York. So I was struck by that.

EI: What was your vision of Kirk - this new version of the character?

CP: This is Kirk - the early years, so Mr. Shatner never got a chance to play the early years, and I'm not going to get a chance to play...well, I haven't done it yet. What was presented to me was this vision of Kirk in the script as an angry young kid who is dealing with some heavy family shit and is angry at the world. He's a rebel without a cause. I think everyone can remember what it's like to be 15, and he's a 25-year-old 15-year-old! He has to mold all that energy and that drive and all that passion and obstinence and the spectrum of emotions into the man that Kirk then becomes, which is the captain of the ship. For our purposes and our script, this is the arc of this character from that kid presented with a challenge to the boy becoming the man he becomes toward the end of the movie.

EI: There's a lot of humor in this version...


CP: I loved it. I had the easiest job in the planet. I got to do everything - comedy, drama...the whole nine. Someone like Zach [Quinto], that takes a real actor too. He's got to take those emotions and make them minimal - to sit on them and play this sort of minimal acting, and I get to explode out into the world. The humor was really fun. I'm hopeful that it will allow people into this world that kind of think of Trek as this campy world where you couldn't laugh at all. It's a lot easier to buy into the drama with the humor. It can connect people to the characters, and J.J.'s got an incredible sense of comic timing, and he's the best person for that job - to know when it's too much. Not being a fan, I didn't understand why it was so appealing, but it's an optimistic series. It's different from The Dark Knight or Watchmen; it's not dark and gritty and Blade Runner-esque; it's bright and funny and done with a wink. How can people not respond to that? I think it's pure, wonderful entertainment with a real sub-current of great ideas...but I loved The Dark Knight. This is a different species of film.

EI: Could a Star Trek movie be dark?

CP: I think it could, but from what I know of the series...I see Star Trek as a... It can delve into the intricacies of psychology and the light and dark of it. It's not a component of the series. In what we've done, it's not a good match. There's high drama in the movie. Life and death things happen, but I guess there's always a pervasive optimism about the future. Humanity can prevail, and that we can overcome together. Through hardship, there's light at the end of the tunnel. You could make the argument for that about Dark Knight, but the world is just different.

http://trekweb.com/articles/2009/07/14/Chris-Pine-on-His-New-Version-of-James-T-Kirk-and-thenbspHumornbspin-Star-Trek.shtml