Cast Chats
4 min readWith the U.S. release of Star Trek XI, the actors have been out and about interviewing, talking about Star Trek XI and their latest projects.
Zachary Quinto spoke with Lyons & Bailes Reel Talk about Spock (Star Trek XI) and Sylar (Heroes) and how they are similar in some ways.
“These are both characters who have deeply rooted internal conflict, a duality they’re really struggling with,” said Quinto about the two characters he plays on Heroes and Star Trek XI. “So for me, the point of departure was not completely dissimilar but where the characters go in terms of their emotional journey is very different obviously.”
Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto spoke with People about the Vulcan eyebrows and the popularity of the Vulcan with the ladies. “I didn’t have the severe problem with the eyebrows because mine weren’t so prominent to begin with,” said Nimoy. “I would pencil in the missing portion of the eyebrows so that I could get away with it.”
Quinto had more issues with the eyebrows. “The eyebrows for me were probably the biggest challenge, just because my eyebrows are such a big part of my face,” he said. “There’s really no way around it and to lose three-quarters of them for six months…! Did you have any irreparable eyebrow damage over the years? Did they always grow back?”
Nimoy reassured him that they did, except that “They told me that they would and they did, but I think that over the years the more and more I shaved them the less and less they came back!”
Spock’s emergence as a sex symbol was a surprise to Nimoy back when he played Spock on the original series. “I didn’t see that coming. I really didn’t see that coming.”
“It’s really a fascinating thing to have happen when it’s the last thing that you would ever expect,” said Quinto. “I’ve already gotten messages from people that I know either well or not so well saying, ‘If you put on those ears, I don’t even know -!’ It’s a strange phenomenon.”
Eric Bana was promoting the independent documentary Love the Beast, as well as Star Trek XI, as reported by Lyons & Bailes Reel Talk. Bana’s car was in an accident, seen in Love the Beast, and repairs await Bana’s return home . “I’ve just started planning [to fix it,]” he said, “and it’s been waiting for me to stop making movies and stop talking about movies and pay it some love and attention.
Bana also spoke about how he got through the daily three-hour makeup process required to transform him into Nero on Star Trek XI. “Luckily for us, we had an insanely funny group of makeup artists on Star Trek to work with” he explained. “We would just swap music. We would just talk a whole bunch of crap.”
Anton Yelchin spoke with TrekMovie.com, where he explained why he chose to overemphasize the Russian accent in Star Trek XI. “I wanted it to be close to the Chekov accent,” he said. “I have no problem doing a real Russian accent, but that wouldn’t be Chekov to me. The interesting thing about it is that his accent is a cold-war stereotype of a Russian person. And when I watched the series and the films, that is what I found interesting about it. And I adjusted it, it is not entirely the same, but Walter [Koenig] came on set and was like ‘that sounds like me.’ And that is what was fun for me. As a person familiar with a Russian accent, and someone with Russian roots who can speak Russian and knows what Russian people sound like, it was fun to purposefully mess around with the Russian accent, to purposefully change what I thought a Russian accent was to suit that stereotype they had in the sixties.”
When asked if he had the passion to play Captain Kirk one more time, William Shatner told OnMilwaukee.com that he was game. “Well, I know J.J. Abrams a little bit,” said Shatner, “and what I would say to him in the moment which I hope I get in the near future, is why not write something for the Kirk character as he approaches death once again? But as he dies, with having lived a full life, what would that do? How would that work in an action movie?”