While Chris Pine is definitely best known for starring as Captain Kirk in Star Trek and its upcoming sequel, he also not only has experience in smaller films like People Like Us but also in theater.
In an interview with Theater Mania, Pine speaks about how he made the transition to film from the stage, a creative luxury he had during shooting of People Like Us, and why he won’t stop performing in theater.
Pine reveals that he had a totally different plan in place for acting his career before fate intervened. He explains, “I took part in a theater festival in Massachusetts two summers after I graduated from college. Then I was in Los Angeles, thinking ‘I am going to go to New York.’ So I bought a plane ticket and found a place to live and packed my bags. And suddenly, a week before I was supposed to leave, I had three job offers — and one of them was my first movie. I think that when you let go and throw it all away and say ‘whatever happens, happens,’ things work out.”
Despite starring in over a dozen films, Pine confesses that People Like Us was a new experience for him as an actor. He says, “It’s the first film I’ve done where we got to rehearse before shooting. It’s a total luxury in film-land. The great thing about theater is that you have so much time to prepare, and to fail, before presenting it to the public. In film, the high-wire act seems to be that much farther up, and the net seems to be less there.”
But regardless of his Star Trek stardom, Pine says he is committed to theater. He says, “Theater will always be a huge part of my life. The high I get from doing theater is not, quite honestly, matched by many things. I like the fact that when you step out on the stage, for that given night, for better or for worse, you are the master of the boards. I love it to death.”
