The ‘Star Trek’ Reboot Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary: Take a Look Back at Why Each Actor Was Cast

Chris Pine is Captain James T. Kirk

APRIL WEBSTER (Casting Director): We weren’t afraid of recasting these iconic roles, but we knew it was going to be a challenge. We also knew we weren’t going to be able to match people exactly, but we did want to give at least a close indication to people; to give a sense of the characters they’ve known and loved for so long.

For Kirk we weren’t looking for someone doing a Shatner impersonation. We wanted somebody who would embody that spirit. Chris Pine did. He was a lifesaver, because we really wanted someone who could give us the cockiness, but still be likable. If you look at the old episodes of Shatner and that character, he was always cocky, but there was also something enormously appealing about him. We auditioned a lot of people all over the place, but there was something that he was able to bring in, that sort of swagger. Not that other people couldn’t get that, but Chris just fit the bill. We had narrowed it down to a couple of people and he became the guy. Just in watching him with each successive meeting, it was becoming more and more apparent to us.

BRYAN BURK (Producer): J.J. and I were in a casting session and there were three potential Kirks outside. Chris came in and couldn’t look less like William Shatner. He came in and he was amazing. It was also the weirdest thing in the world. He came in as himself, but then he started reading and he became that character. It was such an out of body experience. Coincidentally, Zachary Quinto, who had already been cast as Spock, was around. We asked them to read a scene together and they did. Instantly it was, like, “Yeah, there they are. Kirk and Spock.” It was the weirdest thing in the world and amazing.

ZACHARY QUINTO (Actor, “Spock”): The other thing is that Chris and I knew each other before we did this film. We came to the table with the rapport already being forged. We have a lot of mutual friends and we both worked out with the same trainer before either of us got the movie. He’s a friend of ours and I’d be working out and he’d say, “My buddy Chris is on his way over.” “Oh yeah, I’ve heard about that guy. Never met him.” So we passed each other, then we met and we both ended up working on the film. So we had a history a little bit and built on it. I have a tremendous respect and affinity for Chris as a person and as an actor. We work really well together. We both come from a theater background and there’s a sort of understanding and short hand that comes from that mutual experience. We are, I believe, a good duo.

CHRIS PINE (Actor, “James T. Kirk”): When I heard I’d gotten the part, there’s a period of 15 to 20 minutes or so where you couldn’t be any more excited and you’re jumping up and down and you’re calling everybody you know, and your parents are planning celebratory dinners and all that. And then there’s months of kind of anxiety about the fact that you actually have to do it! And that there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny. So my response was a mixture of absolute excitement and absolute panic, but the great thing about working with the people involved with this project – J.J. Abrams especially – is that you never felt like there was this heavy responsibility on your shoulders. He always made sure that we were having fun and enjoying the experience, because it is a really unique experience that very few people get to have.

Making the character my own, it’s not like I had a checklist of things, like, “I should do this, I shouldn’t try to do that. These would be good things to emulate, and these would be good things to make my own.” I watched much of the original series to get a sense of the aesthetic and the relationship between the characters and what the series had already established, and then I just very simply read my script and tried to do the best job possible to bring to life the character that I read on the page.

Zachary Quinto is Mr. Spock

APRIL WEBSTER: Zachary Quinto was cast as Spock almost right away. At first we weren’t even sure what we were really looking for. Did they want a more human Spock? The completely Vulcan Spock? The combination? We did it, like, 20 different ways, but this is something that Zachary has always wanted to play. I guess when you have intention that strong, it sort of became inevitable in this case.

Susan [Bay], who is Leonard’s wife, said backstage at Comic-Con how scary it was that he looked like Leonard when he was younger. That’s a very tough part for anyone to play. Even if you look like them, it’s a hard part for someone to play. How do you play someone caught between these two personalities? Or caught between these two realities of having been shamed his whole life for being half human and having to keep that aspect of himself in control all of the time? I think that Zachary really found a fine line there for us. In the end, his casting was a no-brainer.

ZACHARY QUINTO: I believe that part of the reason I got the role was that it was a place that I understood. There’s a duality about Spock and a need to understand that duality and wrestle with it to a certain extent that I can relate to in my life. I think a lot of people can. That sort of disparity sometimes between your heart and your head, and I think that there are many experiences that I’ve had that informed this iteration of the character and where he is in his journey.

Karl Urban is Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy

APRIL WEBSTER:  Who would have ever thought that a guy from New Zealand would be Bones? We had a general meeting with Karl Urban about the project, and when he left both J.J. and I said, “Bones!” He’s got those blue-blue eyes and the dark hair and a DeForest Kelley element. We just had to see if he could do the accent. Karl was just amazing in the role. He did a great, great job. He has a wonderful sense of humor, he’s a man of heart and that so totally came through with the scenes with Kirk he had to do. Besides being the grumpy curmudgeon, which is also part of the role, he got to bring the heart to it, which was a friend of Jim’s who really cared about him. That was sort of what he brings to it.

KARL URBAN (Actor, “Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy”): The way it worked was that I took a meeting with April Webster and J.J. and really felt it was up to them to determine how they could see me fitting into their vision. At that point, like everybody, I knew nothing about the story. So went along and after that meeting we got word that J.J. would really love to see me try out for Bones, and I was thrilled to bits, because I’ve always had a very strong affinity for Bones and for what DeForest Kelley did as being such an integral part of the original triumvirate.

McCoy is a character full of compassion and pain. He has an amazing personal prime directive to help and heal others, whether friend or foe. That’s his calling in life. I see him as a staunch and avid supporter of Jim Kirk. Through the course of the film, we get to see their friendship develop from their initial meeting to their days in Starfleet, and we come to understand the bond of their friendship. To me, that was often the most interesting dynamic in material I got to play, because there is a distinct difference between how McCoy feels about Kirk or, say, any given situation and how he reacts. At the beginning of this film, when we find McCoy, he is literally running away to join Starfleet. At the same time, he has this incomprehensible fear of space flight and space itself. You know, Alex and Robert wrote the most amazing dialogue for me. Lines like, “Space is full of disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence” – that, to an actor, is just gold.

Simon Pegg is Montgomery “Scotty” Scott

APRIL WEBSTER: We love Simon Pegg. He did Mission Impossible 3 for us, so any time we do a film we have to try and have Simon in it. He’s so delightful, so inventive. He always brings something special to the part. We saw lots of Scottys, but we kept coming back to Simon. We didn’t know what his availability was and ultimately we went to him, because he and J.J. have a great relationship. Simon is a character actor, so he becomes whoever you want him to be. You look at Mission Impossible and he was that tech guy. You look at him in this and he is Scotty. I think people like seeing him, as opposed to feeling, like, “Oh, what’s Simon Pegg doing in that movie?”

SIMON PEGG (Actor, “Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott”): Because I’d worked with J.J. on Mission Impossible, I didn’t think there was a chance for Star Trek. But then I received an email asking if I would be interested in playing Scotty. I couldn’t believe it. I told my wife and she laughed, because she’s Scottish and also because it’s a major iconic sci-fi character. I thought about it for a few days and I just wasn’t sure. But then J.J. came back to me and said, “The worst thing that can happen is that every couple of years we get together and have some fun.” That seemed like a very good argument for me, and I said yes. Next thing I knew, I was on the bridge of the Enterprise.

APRIL WEBSTER: Simon brings wit and speed and cleverness and a very dry humor to him that I just adore. I know I use the word “unexpected” a lot, but you never know what’s really going to come out of Scotty’s mouth. That’s the way you feel when you’re watching Simon, because he just embodies the character so well that the character has his own language and rhythm. It’s not just him reading lines. He adds a little bit here and there. It’s like when Will Smith did Independence Day. There were a lot of things that they let him improvise, because he brings so much of his Will Smith-ness to it. It’s the same thing with Simon.

SIMON PEGG: I wanted to reach out to someone in Doohan’s family, but his son, Chris, beat me to the punch. I said to him, “Look, I’m not going to do anything that disrespects your dad. This is something I want to do in honor of him and in tribute to him and carry on in the spirit of a character that he created.” And, really, one that he made one of the most iconic sci-fi characters ever. For a supporting player, if you say Star Trek to people, chances are they’ll bring up, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

Zoe Saldana is Nyota Uhura

APRIL WEBSTER: We saw a lot of really good ladies for Uhura. It was a very tough audition, because we weren’t using scenes from the script to find someone who could give us that “I’m smarter than you” quality without being obnoxious. But Zoe Saldana was able to do it with some humor, so that she wasn’t only defensive, because she has to have an attitude of, “I’ve got to set these guys straight.”

There’s this whole interaction she has with Chris and what their relationship is. He tried picking her up and she’s, like, “Yeah, I don’t think so,” whereas another woman might have said, “He’s cute.” But she has a great insight. You get a sense that that character is enormously perceptive, and that’s Zoe. She has a deepness to her, a depth that she wears on her, yet she’s fun and being beautiful doesn’t hurt. You wanted someone you would believe had the authority.

ZOE SALDANA (Actress, “Nyota Uhura”): There’s an androgynous essence to Uhura. Even though she’s very beautiful and her feminine presence is obvious, there’s this energy and leadership to her that sort of gives you that feeling that her sex appeal is probably observed and admired by the audience, but her coworkers just acknowledge her energy and authority. And I love that. She’s in charge of so many things and she has so much control of herself, her emotions and she is considered capable enough to run the linguistics department on her own, and I just find that amazing.

In the first movie, there’s definitely the curiosity that all the characters have for each other, because they are meeting for the first time. That’s one thing I absolutely loved. Here you’ve got Kirk, who is a very cocky young man who was born to do this. It’s a gift. Whether he wants it or not, he possesses it. Things are very easy for him whereas a character like Uhura is someone who has had to work really hard for everything that she’s earned. There’s just an awareness of each other and she’s, like, “Why is he so the boss of it all and so disrespectful and so funny?” And I’m pretty sure Kirk goes, “She’s sexy, she wears that little dress, she knows what she’s doing.” Maybe he’s not used to dating smart girls or something. So there’s definitely a very awesome sense of intrigue that all of the characters are possessing that I absolutely love.

John Cho is Hikaru Sulu

APRIL WEBSTER: We were really concerned about finding someone Japanese for Sulu because of George Takei. We saw so many people for this role, but John Cho just brought the best to it. We actually asked George about not casting a Japanese guy, because we were very concerned about that. George said it wasn’t Gene Roddenberry’s intention that only a Japanese be considered for that part. He explained to us about how the character was to be a representative and that made us feel a lot better.

We were all very familiar with John Cho. I needed someone who was manly and could be a swashbuckler, because the thing about Sulu is that he was someone who had enormous authority himself, would take a lot of risks and when you think of that fencing scene where he went nuts, he was obviously daring. What’s important whenever we cast these parts is that people have humor and are able to see the lighter side. He was also someone in the scenes we were reading who stood up for what he believed in. He had great conviction and integrity. In the read that we did, John was the guy for that. Not that other people couldn’t get there, but he just had all of the elements combined. That really makes a big difference when you’re representing the character.

Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov

ANTON YELCHIN (Actor, “Pavel Chekov”): I wasn’t just going to make Chekov some Russian character, because that defeats the purpose of playing him. The accent has to be Chekov’s accent in terms of past episodes and films.

APRIL WEBSTER: When we said that Chekov was going to be a 19-year-old whiz kid, I did bring in a couple of other guys, but I immediately sent Anton’s press kit and tape to J.J. because there was no question in my mind that he was the guy. Not a single question in my mind. The nice thing is that Anton is really Russian, can speak Russian and was raised by Russian parents, so it wasn’t going to be Boris and Natasha Russian. The idea for the character in the film is that he was recently recruited and hadn’t had an opportunity to perfect his English. Anton is such a smart young man and that comes across instantaneously as far as I’m concerned. I think he brought his innocence to Chekov.

ANTON YELCHIN: I thought a lot about the spirit of Chekov and his genial nature. I think that partially came from the fact that they kind of brought him on as a [The Monkees] Davy Jones-esque comic relief in the second season. And also from the way Walter Koenig played this character and the way that they had Chekov exist. Something I use as an example for how I felt about Chekov is an episode where they land on this planet and are researching it. Instead of doing his work, Chekov spends most of his time with his girlfriend. He’s dedicated and hardworking and he’s a brilliant navigator, but he has no qualms hanging out with his girl. Just funny things that I wanted to bring to the character to make him both funny and perceptive and intelligent, and yet somewhat awkward the way he is in the series. All these nuances that were there that I wanted to take from, from the way he walked and talked to the way he addressed Kirk.

Final Thoughts About Casting From J.J. Abrams

J.J. ABRAMS: These actors truly blow my mind with how great they are. It really was because they embodied these characters. They just brought their own wonderful personalities, their great energy and knowledge of what had come before. There were moments when Zoe as Uhura would touch her ear, listening to an incoming message; or when Chris Pine as Kirk is sitting in the captain’s chair and would hit the communication button; and certainly Zachary as Spock who looks so much like Nimoy that it’s eerie – watching him raising an eyebrow or walking down the corridor of the Enterprise. There were moment when we were shooting and where I would get chills, because it was this weird thing where it was so alive. It felt so right, and yet I felt like I was watching this weird resurrection of these characters. As someone who had become a fan by the time we were shooting, it was like watching these old favorites being reborn.