Yelchin On Playing Chekov

Chekov was an odd character, according to Anton Yelchin, who will portray younger Chekov.

As reported at Ign.com, playing young Chekov meant Yelchin had to decide what to bring from the original Chekov character. "...All of us had to make the choice of what we wanted to take from the original one and what we sort of wanted to bring to it," explained Yelchin. "And there are certain things that I took from him. Like, the fact that he replaced every 'v' with a 'w', which is weird. Like, I don't really know where that decision came from. But regardless, that's a decision that he made. And I thought it was important to bring that to the character."

According to Yelchin, Chekov was "the weirdest guy. Like, watching the old show really makes you realize just how strange, but incredible it was. First of all, that they brought a Russian character on right smack in the middle of the Cold War. Like, there's one scene where they're talking to Apollo or something, or the god that used to be Apollo in the old show. And Apollo is like, "I am Apollo." And Chekov is like, "And I am the czar of all Russias." That's not how I'd choose to do the accent, but it's like they gave him these lines. I mean he really is the weirdest, weirdest character."

Yelchin recognized that even though this is new Star Trek, faithful fans will be looking for familiar things. "I think people want to see what they love. And so we're all sort of trying to find things that will remind people of the old characters. And so that's been interesting sort of picking up little things."

Although not a Star Trek fan, Yelchin was impressed by the new Enterprise. "Oh, it's pretty great," he said. "We were shooting a scene yesterday, and you really just realize how epic it is. That word is so overused, but it really is, kind of. It's pretty epic. You just sit there and you're like, 'God damn, I'm on the Enterprise.' Would I ever have thought that I'd be on the Enterprise? No. And it's pretty great. It's a pretty different experience, though. Very different."

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