Taking over the franchise from the Star Trek veteran actors we all know and love isn't exactly an easy task, but Chris Pine ('Kirk'), Anton Yelchin ('Chekov'), and John Cho ('Sulu') said they gave it their all and hope Star Trek fans will embrace this origin story. Also hoping to win over a new generation of fans are Star Trek's villains, Nero and his lead henchman Ayel, played by Eric Bana and Clifton Collins Jr.

At a press conference in LA to support the Paramount Pictures film, the good guys sat down with the bad guys and everyone played nice, of course. They're only enemies in the film - not real life.

Chris Pine, Eric Bana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Clifton Collins Jr

  J.J. said that you had the liberty to recreate the character, but what kind of qualities did you think you had to capture for William Shatner’s character?
Chris Pine: "There are certain things that are just very inherent to the character. I used the script that Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci wrote as kind of my bible and that gave me my backstory in the sense of who this guy was and why he was who he was. And going back and watching the series, what I was able to take away from it, or what appealed to me about Mr. Shatner’s performance and things that I felt that I could use without hitting people over the head with a bad impersonation, were little physical characteristics. What really appealed to me was the way that he moved about the deck of the ship.

He’s got a very theatrical quality, just with his physicality, that just made my smile every time I watched it. There were things about how he sits in the chair that are very small. I felt less is more, in my case, at least. At the end of the day, it really was a conversation between me and J.J. On any given day, it would be, 'So, what do you think about this? Do you think it would work now?' It would just be very small things but it wasn’t anything conscious, as far as characteristics I must take from Mr. Shatner. It was way more of an ever-changing thing."

Have you talked with him?

Chris Pine: "Yeah, I saw him last night for the first time in the flesh and shook hands. He was very busy last night. It was a charity event for him, and he raises money for all these wonderful children’s charities so I was there more to support him in the great work that he does. But, it was great to finally meet him and I hope to have more of a chance to sit down with him, for a longer period, and actually talk to him about his experiences."

  Can you talk about your Star Trek experiences in the past? Were you big fans? Have you watched the old shows and movies? Did you ever think you would play these characters?

Anton Yelchin: "I thought I was born to be this character. No. I actually wasn’t a fan. I’m a fan now. I watched a lot of the original series, and there’s just something so great about it that you can’t help but really love it."

John Cho: "Although I wasn’t a Trekkie, my primary connection to the show was just being excited about George Takei being on television, and just yelling across the house, 'There’s an Asian guy on TV! There’s an Asian guy on TV! Come quick! Come quick! He may disappear! He may disappear! Hurry up! Come now!' But, yeah, it was just a dream come true for me. What I did in this movie, flying a spaceship and having a sword fight, is exactly what my young brother and I would do for hours and hours as children, so it’s weird to get paid to do that. We received no payment, oddly enough, as children, to do that."

Chris Pine: "I was not a fan growing up. I kind of knew of the series through my grandmother, who’s a big William Shatner fan. But I was more of a Star Wars kid and only gained a greater appreciation for Star Trek once I started watching the series, after I got the part."

Eric and Clifton, can you talk about the make-up? How much did it help you in creating the character? What is the mind-set you have to get into to play bad guys?

Clifton Collins Jr: "I’m pretty much Eric Bana’s bitch. I go and do his dirty work. I carjack spaceships. 'You want the USS Enterprise? Let’s go get it.' 'You want me to chalk out Captain Kirk? All right, I’ll do it.' With the make-up - I knew they were revamping the characters and that was really exciting, especially with J.J. and his team surrounding it - the first time it was longer. We got it down, on a real good day, to about two and a half hours. On a bad day, it might have been four. When I saw myself for the first time, it was pretty frightening. I looked in the mirror and I was like, 'Wow, this is scary! Who the f--k am I going to kill now?'"

Eric Bana: "I wasn’t as scared as my agent was when he came to the set to visit me. He freaked out. 'Where’s my actor gone?!' It was a weird thing, at first. I was really excited. It was actually one of the reasons why I wanted to play the part. I could tell, in the script, that I would be unrecognizable, and those opportunities in Hollywood are so rare. It was amazing. The first time you put it on you realize that you can’t read facial expressions. It just stays still so initially, as an actor, you’re recalibrating. Everything you’ve done before is in the bin because otherwise the audience won’t see your face move at all. You have to push through the prosthetics, as amazing and cutting-edge as they are. The advancements in prosthetics have changed, but they also haven’t. It’s a piece of latex glued onto your head."

"It was fun. Each morning we’d sit there and get high off the chemicals and, after three hours, go onto the set. We don’t recall much that happened before lunch on the film, but after lunch, I remember some things. It was interesting."

Page 2:Getting Close to a Green Girl, the Original Actors, and the Future of the Star Trek Franchise