Ear apparent

Steve Pratt beams up to the Enterprise to find out how they approached the roles.

THIS was the moment in movie history when one man with pointed ears met another, older man with pointed ears. Mr Spock, meet Mr Spock. For Zachary Quinto, the encounter was, understandably, a “very profound experience”.

Logically enough, being chosen to play the young Spock in the rebooted big screen Star Trek was honour enough for the actor who appears as mysterious serial killer, Sylar, in BBC2’s US import, Heroes.

But to act out scenes with Leonard Nimoy, the only member of the original crew of the Enterprise returning for the new movie, took the whole thing up to another level.

The new Star Trek movie goes back to the beginning, as young James Tiberius Kirk (played by Chris Pine) and a young Vulcan named Spock first meet as cadets in training.

Nimroy reprises the role that made him famous as the older Spock, who meets his younger self during a story that breaks through the barriers of time. “From the very beginning he was so available to me, and very supportive and welcoming,” says Quinto, of the veteran actor.

“He gave me such creative freedom, really. I didn’t feel any sense of expectation, or pressure from him, and that was enormously helpful as a resource. It was great to have a personal experience of the impact this character had on his life, and the impact his life had on that character.”

Quinto didn’t feel any pressure to copy the portrayal of Spock so familiar to Star Trek fans, as director JJ Abrams, creator of Lost, wanted the actors to put their own spin on the younger versions of the characters.

There was never a point where Quinto felt like asking Nimoy not to watch him deliver his interpretation of Spock. Quite the opposite. “I felt like he was reassuring to me and it actually removed any sense of pressure and anxiety that I might have had otherwise to have him available and involved,” he explains.

“I don’t think Leonard expected to play this character again. It had been 19 years since he’d donned the ears last time. I think, for him, this was a real opportunity not only to play the character again, but to be integrally involved in the passage of the mantle. That, for me, was an incredible honour and certainly one that I will cherish for years to come.”

Quinto had inadvertently campaigned for the role. While doing press for Heroes, a journalist from his hometown newspaper asked if there was any other project he’d be interested in.

“I mentioned how much I would enjoy playing Spock in this new direction of the franchise,”

he explains. “But then the article got syndicated and, subsequently, other journalists who were interviewing me about Heroes were asking about Star Trek. So it was something that happened very unintentionally, but also organically.”

Taking on such an iconic role in a similar genre to Heroes wasn’t a worry because it’s a different time to the one in which the original Star Trek series was created, he feels. There’s less of a stigma attached to science fiction now than 40 years ago and, at the same time, people’s attention span has diminished.

“So the notion of an actor inextricably associated with a character that they play now seems to be a little bit less of a phenomenon than maybe when Leonard and Mr Shatner took those roles and created them.

“I also feel it’s incumbent upon me to make sure I have the kind of career that I want. And that’s one of longevity and diversity, so now I begin that part of the journey and, hopefully, this is a platform to let me do that.”

He appears to have hit the right notes as Spock, earning the admiration of his predecessor in the role. Director Abrams recalls that, when doing the scene with the two Spocks, he pulled Nimoy aside and asked what he thought of Quinto’s performance.

“Is there anything I should be telling him? Is there something you’re not seeing because no one knows this characters better than you?,”

he recalls. “And he just said, ‘he’s pretty good’.”

CHRIS PINE, the young James Kirk, didn’t have to act opposite William Shatner, the original captain of the Starship Enterprise and came to filming from a point of ignorance. He was aware of the TV series, but was not a fan.

“I’d only seen a few of the old episodes. JJ’s team had re-mastered original versions of the series, so I went home and started with due diligence watching them,” he recalls.

“But I found midway through the first season that, as much as it was a positive adventure seeing the dynamics between the characters and the aesthetic of the TV show, I was paying more attention to how I could perfect the idea of William Shatner as James T Kirk.

“Doing an impression was not the mandate that JJ had set forth at the beginning of that process. It was to pay homage to what was done before so you could have a sense of continuity between Mr Shatner and myself. But it really was time to breathe new life into these characters and to give it a new, fresh effort.”

So he abandoned that when he felt he’d got enough of the series and the desire to be able to vary it. “Then it was just a matter of a conversation between JJ and I about what nuances I could pick from Mr Shatner’s performance that I could use to pepper my own,” he adds.

He believes that you don’t need to be a Star Trek fan to enjoy the movie. And he’s right – several people who hated the TV series have said to me how much they liked the film.

Perhaps, Pine hints, that’s due to director Abrams, no fan of the original either. “He knows how to combine the big, spectacular effects and wonderful imagery with something small, which is the great character drama in this film that we made.

“So whether you’re a fan of small movies or big movies, you’ll find something in this that’s appealing.”

■ Star Trek (12A) opens in cinemas on Friday.