For its special June/July summer
double issue, OUT magazine sat with the action star of the summer, Chris Pine. Not only will Pine reprise
his role as James T. Kirk in Star Trek
Into Darkness, he’ll also be the newest A-lister to take on the role of
Jack Ryan in the film franchise based on Tom Clancy’s CIA hero. Pine met with OUT’s
Shana Naomi Krochmal to talk about the roles, masculinity, and his bromance
with Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock.
In the beginning
of his career, Pine, a third generation Los Angeleno from an acting family,
came dangerously close to being typecast – not as a brooding, rebellious man of
action, but as a watered-down romantic comedy prince. His first big break came
with 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2,
costarring Anne Hathaway, and the reaction was a wake-up call, he says.
“One review said,
‘He’s a Rob Lowe lookalike with the charisma of a David Hasselhoff,’” Pine
remembers. “I’ll take the Robe Lowe lookalike, that’s fine. But I remember the
charisma part really fucking well. It might have said ‘not even half the charisma of a David Hasselhoff.’ I don’t know why
we’re programmed this way, but all I remember is the nasty shit. And, I swear
to God, if people think it’s going to tear me down, it’s like kindling in my
fucking steam engine.”
Kindling it was!
Pine was soon cast by J.J. Abrams to take over the role of Captain James T.
Kirk alongside Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock in Abrams’s reimagining of Star Trek, which went on to gross over
$400 million worldwide. The chemistry between the two actors convinced Abrams
they were right for the job, and Pine immediately recognized the bromance that
was developing between Kirk and Spock. “That relationship is the core of what
Kirk goes through,” Pine says. “The arc and the trajectory of his journey is
huge, almost Greek. But it’s through his relationship with Spock that he learns
the greatest lessons, about loving someone to the point of being able to do
away with all rules and regulations and constraints in order to save, protect,
and do justice to your friend.”
And that
chemistry was mirrored off-camera as well. Back when Pine was getting side-eyed
for stepping into Shatner’s shoes, Quinto was sidestepping another question:
when the semi-open knowledge that he was gay would be officially confirmed. “It
was something that I knew about Zach from the moment I met him,” Pine
remembers. “It was just who Zach was and that’s that. I’m sensitive, and I
don’t ever want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Knowing that for Zach it was
more about a career thing and that he was not comfortable at the time coming out—it was fine. It was something that we kind
of tiptoed around and I just took it was a given, because that’s what he
wanted.”
But when Quinto
came out in 2011 in an interview with New York magazine, Pine was thrilled: “So happy for him, oh man, I thought it
was rad. It was really, really cool. He did it on his own time, on his own
schedule. And Jonathan [Groff], who he’s dating, is such a lovely man. He’s a
good guy and a great actor, and they make a fantastic couple. I couldn’t have
been happier for Zach.”
There was also a
time when Pine played gay himself on the screen. He costarred with Diane Keaton
in a movie-of-the-week titled Surrender,
Dorothy, in which he played gay with a casual, sweet sincerity. “My first
intimate scene [on-screen] was with Tom Everett Scott,”
Pine says. “He’s an incredible spooner—very warm, very sensitive.”
