Question: How is the new Star Trek film?
CHRIS PINE: Oh, it’s good! What am I going to tell you? Those big films are scary things. There’s so much money behind those things. There’s that hype. You enter a machine. I’m just happy that the people behind it were such good, welcoming types. J.J. [Abrams] runs that ship. J.J. is a wonderful guy. What they bring to this kind of film is a small character-driven story, matched with robots or aliens or spaceships. That’s a very hard thing to do, and a lot of people don’t pay attention to that. It’s really interesting that, in The Avengers, the character that people relate to is The Hulk, and I think the reason why they relate to The Hulk is because he’s fragile and human and faulty.
Do you feel pressure for the sequel with Star Trek because it is so highly anticipated now?
PINE: Generally speaking, the more money that’s involved in anything, the more people are expecting and hoping that it’s not going to fail. If you’re a part of that process of whether it’s going to fail or succeed, you’re only human and you hope that it does well. But, there’s only so much, as an actor, that you can do. People are either going to respond to it or not, and I would drive myself crazy if I tried to control it anymore than that, other than a really fervent desire that people come and watch it and like it. We at least tried to do a really good job. Critics think we try to make bad films. They think we want to spend five months of our lives making something bad. We always go out with the best of intentions, whether it’s fluffy comedy or a drama. It’s always in the effort of, “Please come, like it, enjoy it, take something away!”
