Star Trek into Darkness – Hag’s Question to Cast and Director J.J. Abrams
When you first found out you were doing Star Trek what was the first thing you did? (Hag age 8)
Well, the first thing I did when I was asked if I was interested was call Dan and Bob and Alex and said, you know, do you want to do this with me, because I was not a Star Trek fan but I was very intrigued by the idea of creating a version of Star Trek that would appeal to me and people who were fans of adventure and fans of movies. Luckily those three are significant Star Trek fans and immediately the beginning of the conversations with us and Bryan Burk just was among the most fun, you know, professional experiences ever and was really one of the reasons why doing a sequel appealed to me so much, the idea of working with them and the crew and the cast again.
Chris Hewitt (Empire magazine Editor): I guess we’ll go back to the cast for that as well. Simon what was the first thing you did? and then we’ll work along…
Um I sat down because I got an email, I got an email from JJ, I’d just landed on a flight from New York and I opened my phone and the first email that popped up was from JJ and it just said “Do you want to play Scottie?” and I was totally aware of the project and I was very excited about it and I thought “Oh great, JJ’s doing Star Trek, this will be great.” I didn’t for a second expect to be involved so when I got that very straightforward, blunt kind of request, I literally sat down and asked the plane to take off again, so I could think about it… I didn’t, I was worried, I, to be honest, I was a little bit like “Oh, what do I say?” I can’t just say “yes” It feels like we should have some romance, you know, some kind of …. there should be …. or something. or maybe we’ll go for dinner and have a movie and then I’ll might say yes, you never know. And I felt like such a s*** just going “Yes!” So I took like three days of pretending to think about it and then JJ said, I remember it very clearly JJ said, cos I you know, I was like this is such a huge commitment and is it going to be like, are we going to be doing this for such a long time and JJ said the worst thing that can happen is that every couple of years we get to spend some time together and have a lot of fun and it was just a no-brainer from that point.
Fantastic. Alice?
Ours was a little bit more romantic. JJ phoned me up and gave me a preamble for a good twenty minutes, I had to pull over, and asked me if I was committed and if I was interested in Star Trek and if I understood what the costumes were and I understood what the requirements were and I said yes to all of it. And then I didn’t still know if he was asking me if I’d like to be a part of it or if he just wanted to tell me what he was going to go and do. So I said, “I’m Sorry are you offering me this film? “and he said “Yeah, yeah, I think that’s what’s happening, yeah.” And I said, “All right then…” I said thanks very much and the I went home and I saw my brother who I’d tired from making him run these lines with me and I just went like that … Probably one of the cooler moments.
Zachary, the first thing you did when you got the gig?
I reached out to a friend of mine, I have a good friend from college, who has been in his life to no less than 50 Star Trek conventions who’s now my business partner actually, so that worked out. I asked him to compile for me a booklet of information on the history of vulcans and the life of Spock and the family tree and we began to enter into a session of tutorials which lasted only until the time when it was announced that I was going to play Spock, it was maybe another month and a half or two months later, and that’s the first time that I met Leonard Nimoy and then I fired my first tutor in favour of the second, who has subsequently become someone who is enormously important in my life, both personally and creatively. So, yeah, he used to have that position…
I’m think he understood. And Chris?
I don’t remember what I did, but what I do remember is my audition for JJ I wasn’t all that umm… I had auditioned for it and didn’t get it and then was called back in and was a little less enthused, probably because my ego was burned. But I do remember going into the room with JJ and, you know, it’s the most vulnerable position an actor can be in, is going into a room and you’re basically, you know, selling your wares and, you know, seeing if people like you. It was just such a comfortable room and so much fun and it had been such a long time, I remember, since an audition had been fun and not terrifying and I thought if the audition can be this much fun, I can’t imagine what actually making the film is gonna be like, and any kind of trepidation or anxiety I had about the role or the franchise kind of disappeared completely and I think it was really due to what JJ brings to it and what we’ve been talking about when we go around with this film, is not only is it for the fans, it’s this whole different energy for non-fans alike. It’s for fans of adventure and and for action and for thriller and romance and for, you know, all these different kinds of colours. I think just the term science fiction can sometimes alienate or make people feel alienated from. So, I was just excited by the excitement in the room.
And Benedict, the first thing you did?
I, well I got an email, a little bit like Alice I didn’t pick up on the signals. The email said do you want to come and play and I said what squash? or tennis,? or some kind of racket based activity… and then the penny slightly dropped and then I fell asleep because it was 2am in the morning or something ridiculous… and it had been so frenzied over Christmas getting myself on tape and I’d done it and it had taken a day to compress this little file because iphones are quite cool in taking a lot of information in… and once that was all done and I sort of breathlessly sat back and I got an email back saying “JJ’s on holiday”. It’s fine, he has to have a rest some time, I just didn’t get the tape in on time before the holiday. And I waited and tried to forget about it. So it was just the most thrilling news I was just over the moon. I was a huge, huge fan of the first film for every reason that Chris has just kind of reminded us of, what the strengths of it were and what the strengths of this one are. It’s just such a rich experience to be in his hands, and storyteller’s hands where your on a story of high emotion, comedy, adventure, romance, and comedy and then back through all that again… I knew it would be a riot, I was quite over the moon.
Zoe presumably you didn’t sleep when you got the news?
No I didn’t, my first reaction was… I was shooting Avatar and I was really into it and Igot the call from my agent saying JJ wanted me to come in and read for this role because he was going to direct Star Trek and my first reaction was, like, “Why?” You know, and obviously being of the generation of Star Wars, I look at my mum and what Star Trek represents and it was just, you know, it was like what old people used to watch. I knew very little about the show and then I read my lines and everyone kept telling me, he’s really excited to meet you and that made me very nervous. I came in and I read my scene once and he told me “I don’t need to hear anything else” and I was like oh my god I tanked this he’s going to ask me to leave, security’s going to leave, I’m not gonna read from him again. And then two days, James Cameron tells me, I’m on set and he tells me “I have a surprise for you” and I look, you know, like over there, on the set and JJ is visiting the set and I felt like, well, so happy and humbled, and I thought well I must have booked the part and then obviously that was the beginning of me sitting down with my mum and picking her brain in terms of what Star Trek really is and what it represented to her and to everybody that is devoted to the show and I gained so much respect and I’m utterly excited and blessed to be here with everybody.
And Karl?
Um, well I found out relatively quickly, I guess. I met with JJ and I thought that the meeting went horribly, absolutely terribly, because JJ asked me do you have any questions and I said yeah, what’s the story? and he said I can’t tell you, and I said well, I guess I’ve got no questions. So I walked out of our initial meeting thinking well, that was fun, I’m never going to see this guy again. And then he invited me test for the role of Bones, so I went into the reading and I remember getting half way through and JJ’s laughing and it threw me because I hadn’t done theatre for quite a while and I’m thinking what the heck’s he laughing at? and then it sort of clicked. and then at the end of the teak I remember JJ sort of going oh my gosh, that’s it, that’s Bones. So I walked out of there with a pretty good sense that it went well. And literally within the space of it was like maybe an hour and a half we got the word back that the part was on offer to me and I remember completely thrilled, elated, excited, and then just the most terrifying horror came over me that now I was actually going to have to deliver this and figure out how to make it work because you know unlike many of these, Simon excluded, cast members, I was actually a huge fan of the original show, so I know, it was like I was elated and then absolutely terrified.
Star Trek into Darkness is out now on DVD, Blu-Ray and 3D Blu-Ray (12) For Hag’s review of all Star Trek films and TV shows: CLICK HERE!!!
