Yelchin: Character Comes First
2 min readWorking on both independent and action-filled blockbusters, Anton Yelchin (Chekov) has been fortunate in his roles.
While fans enjoy lots of action in a movie, it’s the characters that hold and catch their attention. “In the best sort of spectacle action movies, character comes first and that’s why you buy the action,” said Yelchin. “I got lucky with [Terminator: Salvation and Star Trek XI] because there was a lot of character work to be done. Terminator was challenging and interesting and definitely there was a lot of work to do, which is great because we don’t often expect to go into these movies and have challenging work to do. But I was lucky with Star Trek as well because it was the same thing. There was this whole other character to work with, different, totally different, different physicality, more joyous and light, but the same idea. They were both challenging.”
Working on both films will help Yelchin with future projects. “I think that being in two films like this helps you to do other work,” he explained. “There are actors that I really admire, actors that can do both. I think that you can do it. As long as you stick to finding interesting characters and believing in them, you can do that.”
Yelchin likes to work and is not a fan of down time between movies. “It is a weird transition period unless you have a job right away when you can start working again,” he said. “When you don’t, you start feeling like you have to get back into your life and adjust to not being with the people you just spent months with and the people that you have come to care about and that have become your friends. You have to adjust to not working really hard and not having a definite purpose to your life. I feel like every time I am on set, there is a goal, there is an objective and there is a life to be lived.”
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