JJ Abrams Talks Trek
Written by Judy Sloane Wednesday, 06 May 2009 12:21
Interview
It's not long until the release of Star Trek, and we find out what made director JJ Abrams boldy go to the final frontier..
You’re trying to reboot Star Trek, something held dear by millions of people; were there ever any moments where you thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’
There honestly were a few moments where I was looking at what we were doing from the outside in, and just started sweating and was just terrified! You get so inside of it that you’re talking about these characters and these issues, and Romulans and Kligons, and the Starship. And then, every once in awhile, you’re on the set and you look at it from the outside and you’re like, “This is ridiculous!” I had to literally psych myself back into the moment and say, “This must be what Peter Jackson and George Lucas have gone through,” and I’d get focused again.
How important was the casting?
Casting the movie was a huge challenge and we were incredibly lucky to find these actors. I’ve never had to cast something that had something that pre-existed it, where the actors have to take over these iconic roles. The key to each of these actors, and the one or two similarities, is that beyond just being incredibly talented, they’re all funny. They all have a great sense of humour, and that was incredibly important ‘cause I knew Star Trek had been parodied so many times that it had to be funny from the inside out.
The cast definitely captures the essence of the characters without doing caricatures. How did you draw out these performances?
The script was so good that all you needed to do was give these actors direction that was fairly clear because the characters were written so clearly. What was cool was that it didn’t take much machination, even in the writing of the script, because the characters live. You read the script and you go, ‘Oh, these are those characters’.
As someone who was not a big fan, of course I did my homework before directing and, when I read the script, it’s not like these are scene and moments cut from other episodes or movies, but you felt them live and they were recognizable. You could read a line and go, “Oh, that’s Bones.” You’d just know it was Bones. It really speaks to the great paradigm that [Gene] Roddenberry created in ‘66. And, I said to all the actors, 'Please do not do impersonations of any of these actors. This is all about you owning it, and the only way it’s gonna to work is if you are free to do your thing'. We just did what was on the page.
Why did you decide not to bring William Shatner on board?
Nothing would have made us happier than to have William Shatner in this movie. When we tried figure out a way to put him in, every time we figured out a way that we thought it could work, it ended up being a gimmick - unless the whole story was about bringing him back, and that would have changed the entire story that we wanted to tell. So, it was either change everything or do it without him. But, we definitely love Mr. Shatner. Working with him is something that we would obviously be thrilled to do, and wanted to do. It just literally didn’t work for our story, and he didn’t want to just do a cameo. We could have done a flashback, but he didn’t want to do that.
What did you decide to keep from the original Trek, and what did you feel you had to update?
It was a weird conundrum to do a movie with a vision of the future from today, based on a vision of the future from 50 years ago. But, there were certain things that we all decided we wanted to maintain. As someone who was not a huge Trek fan to begin with, I had my instincts about things that I thought were important - I just knew that the shape and silhouette of the Enterprise needed to be maintained! The prism through which everything had to be seen through was, 'How do you take the spirit of what was created nearly half a century ago, whether it’s character, prop design, ship design, the world of it or anything, and make it feel relevant for today?' And that was just a billion small decisions.
The film is chock-full of action sequences. Which was the hardest to film?
The most difficult to film, in some ways, was the space jump sequence and the drill. But, every sequence had its issues. The whole snow sequence with the monsters was crazy because of all the paper snow. We shot both of those things at Dodgers Stadium, in the parking lot, and it was insane! It was this modular set, brilliantly designed by Scott Chambliss, to
Is there any possibility of another Star Trek for you?
Obviously, it was a dream to work with these guys and the whole cast and crew, and it would be incredible fun to get to do it again. It is also insanely presumptuous to assume that it will work when it’s out there, that people will like it, and that there will be a need for another one. If there is, the good news is that there’s a deal for the writers and a deal for the actors. It’s in place. We have not had one meeting. We have not had one discussion. There’s no outline. There’s no script. There’s nothing. We’re fishing for ideas.
Interviews by Judy Sloane
Star Trek opens on May 8th.
