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.
With a worldwide box-office haul of $384 million, “Star Trek” was one of the biggest movies of the year. But more important than its cash haul was the mere fact that director J.J. Abrams pulled the franchise from the cinematic dustbin and gave it a sleek, big-budget sheen. “Trek” was finally back, and perhaps it was cooler than it’d ever been. A lot of the credit for the cool factor goes to Chris Pine, who took on the iconic role of James T. Kirk and made it his own.
