We almost had a very different Kelvin timeline in 2009… What do you think of Timothy Olyphant as Captain Kirk?
While appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor took us back to the early days of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, teasing: “Here’s what I can tell you about Star Trek: I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with J.J. Abrams, and he’s just a lovely, lovely guy. And just a lovely, lovely audition process. Somewhere in there, I was auditioning for Doc; he’s like, ‘I already got a guy for Doc, so I don’t need you for that, but I don’t have a Kirk.'”
“I believe it was one of those things where it’s like they might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger, and [Abrams] was having a hard time finding somebody younger,” he continued. “And somewhere along the line, J.J. called and said, ‘I found a guy, younger, who’s really good.’
He mentions the aftermath, meeting with the new Captain Kirk. Olyphant recalls, “I have since then met Chris Pine, and I am a huge fan of him both on and off-screen. I love that guy. He’s a good dude. This sounds very show business-y, but I had the honor, we’re going to say honor, to go to the Golden Globes one year…and I spent most of the evening at the bar with Chris Pine. Just really adored him. What a good guy. I really like his work. He’s one of those guys who makes it look simple and easy.”
The actor also got frank about the whole process of doing an audition, adding: “Auditioning sucks, and the fact that I remember the audition process fondly says a lot about J.J. Abrams and what a wonderful man that guy is.”
Timothy Olyphant is currently starring in FX’s Justified: City Primeval. Let us know on our socials @flickeringmyth whether you’d have been interested in seeing his take on Captain Kirk…
