Thursday February 21, 2008
Beam him up: Anton Yelchin goes from ‘Charlie Bartlett' to ‘Star Trek'
By RICK BENTLEY
The seaside Casa Del Mar Hotel is light-years away from where Anton Yelchin was just 24 hours ago. He was on the command deck of the Starship Enterprise.
Yelchin is the star of the new movie Charlie Bartlett and here to talk about it. But he wants to talk about the Star Trek film that will be back on the big screen in May 2009. He's one of the stars.
This time, the action takes place before Capt. Kirk and his merry band of space travelers started their journey that was depicted on 60s television. This trek, directed by J.J. Abrams, takes the familiar faces of Kirk, Spock, Bones and the rest back to their days at Star Fleet Academy. And Yelchin is playing Chekov, the role originated by Walter Koenig.
"J.J. let us decide how much, or how little, of the original character we used. Walter Koenig did this weird thing of using w's for all his v's. I don't know why he did that, but I kept that," Yelchin says during an interview to promote the release of Charlie Bartlett.
The new Star Trek movie takes Yelchin on a voyage to the stars. Charlie Bartlett is more a voyage of self discovery by a confused teenager. Charlie Bartlett has been kicked out of every private school he has ever attended. He deals with public school by offering up psychological babble and prescription drugs to his classmates.
Yelchin, 18, has been acting since he was 10. The son of professional figure skaters Viktor and Irina Yelchin has a long list of television credits that includes roles on NYPD Blue, The Practice, Without a Trace and Huff. It was his performances in the movies House of D and Hearts in Atlantis that made Charlie Bartlett director Jon Poll know Yelchin was right for the role.
Yelchin often missed huge chunks of school because of work. He did attend public school when he wasn't on a TV or film set. The young actor was in school long enough to be confused by the whole concept.
"To me, high school is such an unhealthy ... school in general, is such an unhealthy place. Every teenager is this incredible explosion, hormonal explosion. Then they put a thousand of them in one place. It is like putting hot air in a balloon. You know what I mean? Whoever came up with the idea wasn't thinking very straight," Yelchin says. "You are supposed to come up with healthy, normal people. But you are putting all these imbalanced people together and expecting them to learn. It makes no sense to me.
"I would just try to get out as fast as I could. I chose classes that ended early. I don't even remember my last year. I would sit through English. I would sit through whatever my next class was and then I would get out. That was my goal."
So Yelchin called on his own high school days to play Charlie Bartlett. For Star Trek, he will get to look to his Russian heritage to play Chekov. Yelchin was born in Leningrad. Koenig's from Chicago.
As with high school, Yelchin finds his Russian heritage baffling.
"It is one of the most complicated histories. It produced Dostoyevsky and Rachmaninoff. And then it produced Stalins and Linens. It is such a strange combination. I could go on about this forever," Yelchin says.
- Copyright (C) 2008 MCT Information Services
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