Check out the entire interview over at SMH.COM.AU

When you’re the second person to portray one of science fiction’s iconic characters, Chris Pine notes, it’s easy to second-guess yourself about nearly everything. The American actor should know, having inherited the role of the USS Enterprise’s Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek universe from William Shatner. Millions of dedicated Trekkies have kept the internet afloat with their views on him as Shatner’s successor.

Pine went a long way to making the part his own with a swaggering, committed take on the 23rd-century hero in director J.J. Abrams’ highly successful 2009 Star Trek reboot, but four years, and one highly anticipated sequel in Star Trek: Into Darkness later, he says his response to donning Kirk’s trademark Starfleet uniform is still essentially the same.

Enterprising young man: Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in the 2009 film. Photo: Supplied
“The first thought is always don’t screw it up,” says Pine, who was in Sydney last week along with his director and several of his co-stars for the world premiere of the new movie.

“There’s plenty to look forward to, but you always start with don’t screw it up.”

That belated growing up for Kirk brings the character somewhat closer to Pine. The 32-year-old, who wasn’t a Star Trek devotee before securing the role, is more insular than his alter-ego. Kirk favours bar fights and girls who are literally off the planet, while Pine is more likely to be reading Viktor Frankl’s psychiatric memoir Man’s Search for Meaning or an examination of drone warfare.

A Los Angeles native with an English degree from Berkeley who periodically dips into edgier theatre work, Pine has experienced successes (2010’s Unstoppable, alongside Denzel Washington) and failures (2012’s interminable This Means War) in the wake of his ascendancy with Star Trek, but he remains the most low-profile leading man in Hollywood. Pine is the rare member of the young Hollywood set who doesn’t feel the need to exhibit himself in the VIP section at the Coachella music festival.

“I hope it stays that way,” Pine says. “More than anything, what we do as actors is to sit and watch and I would never want to get so lost in the celebrity bubble that I couldn’t do that because my feet no longer touch the ground.”

Thanks to DEADLINE.COM for the heads up!

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Actors Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana will host the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Scientific and Technical Awards on Saturday, February 9, at The Beverly Hills Hotel. They will present nine awards to 25 individual recipients during the evening. Portions of the Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation, produced this year by David Friendly, will be included in the Oscar® telecast. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network.

Paramount didn’t have to look far for the villain in its untitled Jack Ryan reboot, as the studio is in negotiations with Kenneth Branagh — who’s also directing the film — to star opposite Chris Pine in the action thriller that aims to reinvigorate the blockbuster franchise.
Paramount had no comment on the casting.

Pine’s Jack Ryan is an ex-Marine who works as a successful financial analyst in Moscow. He discovers a plot by his employer to finance a terrorist attack designed to collapse the U.S. economy, and must race against time to save America and his wife.

Branagh is making a deal to play the Russian villain, who with the help of the local government, masterminds a plot to destroy America’s economy by making the dollar worthless.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing with Mace Neufeld and David Barron. David Ellison, whose Skydance Prods. banner is co-financing the film, will exec produce the pic, which is based on the Jack Ryan character created by author Tom Clancy.

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Make sure you check out the interview in full over at USAToday.com

The franchise shot the actor to fame in 2009 when he took on Captain Kirk. And years after filming it, its co-writer delivered just the kind of meaty, dialogue-driven role Pine had been on the hunt for.

Filming the first Star Trek, “I was so focused on not (screwing) up that I just had blinders on to everything and everyone on set who was not in my direct path,” says Pine, who recalls meeting the film’s co-writer Alex Kurtzman briefly.

But then Kurtzman “called me up really out of the blue at home,” says Pine, 31, and he sent over a script for People Like Us (out Friday), a film inspired by Kurtzman and writing partner Roberto Orci’s own lives.
The script was packed with emotional minefields: an absentee father who’s hidden his adult love child, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), from his son, Sam (Pine). A narcissistic, secretive mother (Michelle Pfeiffer). And a payload in the form of $150,000, left in Sam’s hands for Frankie upon their father’s death.

Pine signed on to the Kurtzman-directed dramedy within days. “I love the character,” he says of Sam, his cocky, fast-talking salesman. “I thought he was flawed and funny and dark but in a really human kind of dark way.”

Sam, an “epic plate-spinning, super-adroit cocktail-party chatterer,” is challenged with ditching his honed salesman shtick and facing his boxed-up past.

For Pine, the beauty in this family was in its flaws.

“What I loved about (the film), which was on the page, is that there are no golden pink bow ties by the end of the film,” he says. As his character navigates the waters after his father’s death and confronts the women in his life, including his hard-edged mother, Lillian (Pfeiffer), and his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde), “they all kind of still hate one another, and Sam doesn’t fully get along with his mom, (but) he chooses to love her for all of her faults. He and Frankie, they were all just kind of entering the town of people — almost becoming human to be like, ‘I’m screwed up, are you?’ That was kind of the message of it I liked.”

You can read Chris’s interview in its entirety over at PressTelegram.com, which I highly recommend doing if you find what you read below of interest. It’s a great interview. 🙂

One of the contributions that Chris Pine made to his new film “People Like Us” was to suggest a location for a key scene – Henry’s Tacos in Studio City.

“We used to go to Henry’s Tacos all the time when I was a kid,” says the now 31-year-old Pine, who grew up in North Hollywood and Studio City.

“People Like Us,” opening Friday, is the directorial debut of Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote it with Roberto Orci. The script is a bit of a departure for the longtime writing partners whose films include “Transformers,” “Mission: Impossible III,” “Star Trek” and the upcoming “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

Partially based on Kurtzman’s own life, “People Like Us” is about a high-energy New York City wheeler-dealer named Sam (Pine) who returns to Los Angeles when his estranged father – a successful music producer – dies. There he finds out about a half-sister, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), he didn’t know he had.

The film is also an L.A. story, with action taking place downtown, up Laurel Canyon and in the Valley.

There are few films set in the city that really show more than Beverly Hills, palm trees and the Hollywood sign, notes Pine.

“I love the fact we used the real places like the Laundromat in Tarzana. There are all these places in the Valley that I remember as a kid.”

The actor knew Kurtzman a little from the first of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movies (“I kind of had my blinders on in that film. I just wanted to do a good job and

not get fired.”) He says he’s not sure why the director thought of him for “People,” but was glad he did.
Pine says his attraction to the film was that it was a well-told story.

“That’s just a rare thing. I liked the journey Sam goes on, from day one as a selfish, emotionally detached person to someone who is at least working toward being real and authentic and communicative.”

Still, Pine was a bit concerned that the drama of the situation might overwhelm it. So he talked to Kurtzman about trying to bring as much humor as he could to the film. The director agreed.

“Alex also had Liz Banks, who is incredibly funny,” adds Pine, “and sometimes he would just let us rip on one another, like in the scene at Henry’s.”

Chris recently spoke with Access Hollywood while attending CinemaCon, see what he had to say below…

“I do know about ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ because Alice Eve, who’s in our film, [the ‘Star Trek’ sequel], has been reading it like crazy, so yeah, I’ve heard about it,” he told Access Hollywood at CinemaCon 2012 in Las Vegas on Monday.

When asked if he’d play the novel’s Christian Grey, the square-jawed hunk didn’t say no.

“It’d be a hell of a choice for me, I think,” he smiled. “It sounds like an interesting film.”

Chris is currently reprising his role as James T. Kirk in the J.J. Abrams helmed “Star Trek” sequel, and he said the film is going to impress.

“Of course I’m gonna tell you I think it’s gonna be better,” he laughed. “You pick up the characters from where they left off, and the development of the characters — I think — is just as exciting as the first one.

“And it’s relentless,” he added. “I think that’s the best adjective I can use.”

Chris said the team is actually close to wrapping up the second installment in the sci-fi reboot.

“We’re almost done,” he told Access. “It’s wrapping up very soon. It’s just as action-packed as the first one.”

You can check out the interview in full over at AccessHollywood.com