Chris Pine Talks the STAR TREK Sequel and How J.J. Abrams Chose Scenes That Will “Really Pop” in IMAX

This weekend, Collider got to participate in the press junket for People Like Us, a family dramedy inspired by true events from the life of writer/director Alex Kurtzman.  The story follows Sam (Chris Pine), a twenty-something guy who learns that his father has suddenly died, leaving behind a secret 30-year-old daughter (Elizabeth Banks) that Sam never knew about, and he is forced to re-examine his own life and re-think everything he thought he knew about his family.

While we will post a number of interviews about the feature film closer to its June 29^th release, we did want to share what actor Chris Pine had to say during roundtables about his work in the Star Trek sequel.  He talked about the pressure that they feel now that the first film was such a success, how they all tried to do a really good job with the film, marrying a small character-driven drama with big action, and what it was like to work with the big, loud IMAX cameras for some of the scenes.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Question: How is the new Star Trek film?

CHRIS PINE:  Oh, it’s good!  What am I going to tell you?  Those big films are scary things.  There’s so much money behind those things.  There’s that hype.  You enter a machine.  I’m just happy that the people behind it were such good, welcoming types.  J.J. [Abrams] runs that ship.  J.J. is a wonderful guy.  What they bring to this kind of film is a small character-driven story, matched with robots or aliens or spaceships.  That’s a very hard thing to do, and a lot of people don’t pay attention to that.  It’s really interesting that, in The Avengers, the character that people relate to is The Hulk, and I think the reason why they relate to The Hulk is because he’s fragile and human and faulty.

Do you feel pressure for the sequel with Star Trek because it is so highly anticipated now?

PINE:  Generally speaking, the more money that’s involved in anything, the more people are expecting and hoping that it’s not going to fail.  If you’re a part of that process of whether it’s going to fail or succeed, you’re only human and you hope that it does well.  But, there’s only so much, as an actor, that you can do.  People are either going to respond to it or not, and I would drive myself crazy if I tried to control it anymore than that, other than a really fervent desire that people come and watch it and like it.  We at least tried to do a really good job.  Critics think we try to make bad films.  They think we want to spend five months of our lives making something bad.  We always go out with the best of intentions, whether it’s fluffy comedy or a drama.  It’s always in the effort of, “Please come, like it, enjoy it, take something away!”

You shot some scenes in IMAX for the film?

PINE:  Yeah.

What was that like, to work with those cameras?

PINE:  They are big cameras.  They are big, loud cameras!  And the things take forever to reload.  It’s literally 20 minutes to reload a camera.  I think the first thing that I saw on IMAX was The Avengers.  The scope and the size of it are pretty neat, I will say that.  I think J.J. did a good job of knowing which scenes to marry with the IMAX and which scenes would really pop, like they did with Mission Impossible.  When Tom [Cruise] is on that huge building, it made all the sense in the world to do it in IMAX.

With J.J. and company – Alex, Bob and Damon included – what they’re really, really good at and what sets them apart is that they know how to do the action, and they know that if you don’t give them the small character-driven drama, you can blow up anything you want and no one cares.  People will leave the theater because we’ve all seen it, a million ways.  With the second one, people will find that it’s the mythic structure, done really well.  The character journeys are just perfect mythic structures.  They do it so well.  The journeys with the characters will be really great, and the explosions and set pieces are going to knock people out of their seats.