Transcripts from an interview. Answered by Chris Pine!
CHRIS PINE ON JIM KIRK IN THE 2009 FILM: He’s young. He’s impulsive. He trusts his gut. He listens to his heart. He follows his passions, whichever way they throw him. He’s a man of the flesh, I think—his mind goes along with whatever his beating heart is telling him to move toward. That was a lot of fun to play in the first movie—the guy in the bar who’s drunk and hits on a woman and gets in a fight. That kind of microcosm—that’s the man.
ON WHAT’S CHANGED FOR CAPTAIN KIRK: Coming into the second film, I don’t know how self-aware Jim Kirk is of his own faults. I think he leads with his bravado and thinks he’s just that—just brawn and strength and courage and decisiveness. John Harrison, our bad guy, it’s like he puts up a huge mirror and Kirk finally has to slow down for a minute and look at all that he thinks are his strengths. I think he sees in those strengths a lot of cracks in his armor. He’s brought to his knees, and becomes very vulnerable, very, very insecure and questioning. It’s like he has a mini-—not a mini, a major existential crisis in the midst of a major, world-ending crisis. I don’t know if that’s a sign of masculinity or that’s a sign of being human, of what it means to be human. Being human is being questioning and introspective, I think.
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