“Star Trek’s” recent Captain Kirk aka Chris Pine, is taking a break from the big screen and enjoying treading the boards in his new play, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.”

Playing an Irish terrorist on a quest to save his cat, Chris told “Extra” that this play is like “being a rock star. It’s two hours, it’s quick, it’s fast.”

Pine is best known for his role as Kirk in “Star Trek,” but the eligible bachelor doesn’t plan on jumping into another sci-fi superhero role anytime soon.

“I don’t think I’d look good in a spandex outfit, to be quite honest with you, so, um, I think Superman is definitely out,” he told “Extra’s” Lauren Sanchez.

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Pine, 29, is turning the big 3-0 next month, and this bachelor is perfectly happy being single. “There’s something about… the feeling that I can pick up at anytime and leave, leave no trace kind of a thing,” he said. He’s also content living in his apartment with the same couch he’s had for nine years.

Chris didn’t always have the desire to be an actor, and was more drawn to sports while growing up. “I played basketball and baseball. I was no good by any stretch.”

It wasn’t until college that Pine used theater as a way to make friends. “It satisfied everything I enjoyed about using your mind and being in front of people and the charge of that… it was just a good fit for me. Ironically enough, I had been around it all my life.”

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Chris’s voice when discussing what everyone has said about the play is just adorable. So funny!

Christopher Pine hasn’t let Captain James T. Kirk get in his way.

In fact, “Star Trek’s” gung-ho starship commander would probably admire Pine’s “I’ll do it my way” approach to his career.

Pine, 29, is a serious theater actor, and unlike most stage-trained performers who find sudden Hollywood fame, he hasn’t abandoned live performance.

Playing Kirk in last year’s blockbuster movie “Star Trek” has put the handsome Los Angeles native on a career fast track, but he’s still a regular on L.A. stages, too. In 2007 he appeared in Neil LaBute’s “Fat Pig” at the Geffen Playhouse; last year he starred opposite Chris Noth in the tense political drama “Farragut North,” also at the Geffen.

Now Pine will tackle one of British theater’s hottest and most challenging playwrights, Martin McDonagh, in the blood-soaked, pitch-dark 2001 comedy, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.” It opens July 11 at the Mark Taper Forum.

We talked to Pine recently about “Inishmore,” his love of theater, and his career.

The Orange County Register: Did you see this play before landing the role of Padraic, its dark-hearted leading man?

Christopher Pine: I did not. I was more familiar with McDonagh from his film work, the short he won the Oscar for and “In Bruges,” which I was a huge fan of. From there I discovered his theater work. In college I had done a scene from “The Cripple of Inishmaan.” And I had heard from a lot of my friends in New York about how much they’d enjoyed (“Inishmore”).

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So it’s official. First Alec Baldwin, followed by Harrison Ford, then Ben Affleck for a hot minute, and now Chris Pine. The “Star Trek” star will take over the role of Jack Ryan in the first adaptation of Tom Clancy’s book series since 2002’s “The Sum of All Fears.”

Just before this confirmation dropped—courtesy of producer Mace Neufeld—MTV News spoke with Pine about the prospect of becoming Ryan on-screen. After blowing people away with his reworking of William Shatner’s iconic take on James T. Kirk, how hard could it be to make Ryan his own? No easy feat, Pine said, but undoubtedly less daunting than his “Star Trek” challenge.

“I think it’s because Mr. Shatner’s portrayal of the character was so specific, [Jack Ryan] is a different beast,” Pine explained. “If you were to poll people, I think eight out of 10 people could tell you what role Shatner made famous. I think a lot fewer people could make that specific association between those actors and Jack Ryan. As great a job as those actors did, it’s just a different deal.”

Is there one Ryan –- Baldwin in “The Hunt for Red October,” Ford in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” — that stands out for Pine as the finest take on this CIA superstar? “No hyperbole, I like ’em both so much,” Pine said of the first two Ryan actors. “They’re both huge heroes of mine. But I might prefer Baldwin doing the Canteen Boy sketch on ‘SNL’ the most!”

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A couple weeks after “Star Trek” opened with a $75 million first weekend and Chris Pine went from largely unknown actor to global superstar, the 29-year-old actor found himself a target of the paparazzi, who convinced there was something going on between him and “The Hills” star Audrina Patridge.

A couple weeks ago, MTV News honored Chris as one of the people we’re most thankful for in 2009, and during a wide-ranging conversation about the “Trek” franchise and the future of his career, talk inevitably turned to one thing Chris ain’t so happy about in 2009: those pesky photogs that targeted him earlier in the year.

“I certainly despise them with all my soul,” he said.

As prepared for the intrusion as he was before the blockbuster success of “Trek,” Chris admitted there’s truly no way to prepare for the reality of paps staking out your home and waiting to snap snap snap as soon as you emerge into daylight.

“In terms of the private life stuff, I understood what would or could happen because of my involvement in something so big, but you don’t really understand it until it starts happening and people are waiting outside your house,” he said. “And I live in an apartment on a busy street. It was pretty brutal when the movie first came out, and then it dies down and the paparazzi lose their interest and go after the next flavor of the day.”

For all the hassle of increased media attention on his personal life, Chris characterized the tabloid spotlight as a fair trade-off, or as he put it, “the deal with the devil you make.”

“I would say that artistically it’s been everything I wanted,” he continued.” ‘Star Trek’ has afforded me the luxury of choice in terms of what I want to do and where I want to take my career,” he said. “I don’t know how long that will last for, but certainly right now I’m enjoying that immensely.”

source: mtv.com

Star Trek’s Chris Pine was looking for a challenge. Then two of them arrived. Making the decision helped him clarify his goals — and changed his career

You’ve been great in ungreat things. Your career has had few opportunities. And then you’re offered two big jobs. Two different jobs. One is suited to your talents and ambitions; it is your vision of yourself. The other will make you gobs of money.

How can a man choose between self-satisfaction and well-being? Between two different versions of success? Two jobs, two women, two investments: It’s always like this. The two elements you most desire, split down different paths.

Chris Pine had a week to decide between the two jobs. And the 28-year-old actor agonized, because, well, the pinnacle of his career to that point had been The Princess Diaries 2. Not even the original! But now two movie studios wanted him: He could take a role as a disgusting, chemically imbalanced detective in the kind of gritty, actor-driven gig he’d dreamed of. Or he could play James T. Kirk in a Star Trek prequel. The character is uncomplicated. William Shatner already claimed it. Pine would be wearing spandex. But man, it’s a big movie. Big and career changing.

And he was afraid of choosing. He often is. We all are, with decisions like this. You look at each choice and weigh the regret of not going for it. Catch yourself the next time you do this: You aren’t looking forward because you’re too busy imagining what it’ll feel like to look backward, wondering what you should have done instead.

“I think the most dangerous word in the English language is should,” Pine says. “I should have done this. Or I should do that. Should implies responsibility. It connotes demand. Which is just not the case. Life ebbs and flows.” But he has still spent his life fighting the word. He can’t always forget it. So when the two jobs were offered, he talked it over with everyone he could, and spent a lot of time by himself, wondering what he should do.

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