Kirk Casting...

Not even then. It's a typically ridiculous fannish overestimation of the public interest in "Star Trek."

 

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I don't know...

I recognized THIS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGfhbdwix6o
as Star Trek right away. BUT, that was probably due to the uniforms, short skirts, the spot-on portrayal of Spock, and Kirk's "swagger" when he made his entrance.

 

You recognized it because you're a "Star Trek" fan.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Jensen Ackles from Supernatural/Smallville/Dark Angel for the role of Kirk. According to the IMDb, he's 29, which is smack in the middle of the age range the producers seem to be looking for to play Kirk, and he is more than capable of doing "Shatner-style" acting with a nod and a wink - just watch his performances in Dark Angel.

He's also fairly well built, without having the ridiculously sculpted, pumped up physique of a fitness magazine model.

 

There has been so many other post on who scould get Kirk role however Jensen Ackles has been mentioned couple of times on them. I also agree that he would be very strong candidate for Kirk part.

 

I disagree.

You could also take this image:

and do the same thing and fully half the folks you'd run across would recognize who it's supposed to be.

Or this one:


Or this one:


Granted, many of the younger kids won't... but anyone over thirty or so probably will.

 

I'm 21. The first picture is 99 and Maxwell Smart from "Get Smart", the second is the cast of "Bonanza", and the third is Jim West and his side-kick from "Wild Wild West". I used to watch Nick at Nite when I was a kid.

 

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^^Yeah, but if you put Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway in that first picture, or Will Smith and Kevin Kline in that third picture, How many people would recognize the shows?

 

Doesn't matter. We're a self-selected bunch of popular culture geeks.

Fans tend to assume that the average American spends a lot of time watching old TV shows, reading books and comic books. T'aint all that true.

 

Yes. As a producer, I've had to sit in on auditions and casting sessions and the first thing that flies out of the door is trying to cast someone based on a specific look because you end up excluding more talented actors that don't exactly have the look down. Granted, you'll go with your character breakdowns, e.g., "White Male - late 20s" which ensures you're in the ballpark for people auditioning for the role.

I also have many friends who are actors or work at talent agencies (one friend's boss was called by Lindolof and asked to submit names for Kirk) who will say the same thing.

It is a secret club! All I ever read from Trekkie input is wanting to either cast someone from some other genre show (Michael Shanks as Kirk!) or to see a movie about someone that no one outside of Trek would want to watch (DS9/Voyager crossover movie!) Which ties me to my next point:

You're talking about Q Ratings. And Kirk, Spock and Star Trek have high Q Ratings. Meaning most random people on the street know what they are.

That doesn't mean that you need to cast a Shatner lookalike. James Bond has had a high Q Rating for decades yet Casino Royale was the most successful Bond film in ages. How do you explain that? Daniel Craig looks nothing like Connery! Well, it turns out that you make a solid screenplay and hire a talented actor that can embody the character, not just look like him.

 

Well, I'm surprised... but it's not an unpleasant one. Any chance I'd recognize anything you've worked on? Share, share...

Yep, that's exactly what I was talking about, though I'd never heard that particular term used before.

Well, truth be told, I think that Craig has more in common with Connery than Moore or Brosnan ever did, by a vast margin. Then again, I've read the Bond books, and the only one who felt at all like the guy in the books, IMHO, was Dalton. Bond, after all, is an assassin, and Dalton is the only one who I looked at who really convinced me that he'd be able to kill someone without any angst. However, I think Craig has enough of that quality to carry the role off... and that's why I liked his performance enough to enjoy the film.

Of course, I also don't see ANY of the "Screen Bonds" as being the same person. It's a personal conceit I have to use to make my suspension of disbelief happen... I assume that Connery's agent retired (but came back out of retirement two times). Lazenby's agent cracked up after losing his wife and was "retired." Moore's agent probably died of some venereal disease... Dalton's agent was killed in a particularly vicious fashion... and Brosnan's agent was also killed, in a mishap. And now they've assigned the secret agent identity to a new guy. Like I said, it's the only way that I can believe that this all exists in the same continuity. They don't have to say it on-screen... as long as they never try to deny it.

The same thing can't happen with Kirk, obviously.

But I don't fundamentally disagree with your point. But consider if you were doing a film about, say, Abraham Lincoln. You'd need an actor who could play the role, definitely, but you also need someone who can LOOK the part, because the person being portrayed is very recognizable.

THAT is what I see as the challenge in casting Kirk. Everybody knows what Kirk is suppose to look like. We can't have "young Shatner" play the role, but we CAN have someone play the character in such a way that he's still recognizable and yet not a caricature of Shatner.

It's a hell of a challenge. But I really don't see it as insurmountable... and I expect to see an actor who will look a LOT like a young Bill Shatner, have the same look around the eyes and the same "intense smirkiness"... and who will also be a GOOD ACTOR who can play the role, convince us that it's the same guy (albeit at a different point) AND not be laughable.

It's just a major challenge. And I'm glad that they're taking the time to get it right.

 

Got a link to the relevant page? I suspet the Q research folks want us to pay to access their data, but should you happen to have it on hand, show it to us, with something to indicate how recent it is. Comparisons to Bonanza and Get Smart characters would also be interesting...

 

Dear Lancemach,
Out of interest, in your professional opinion as a producer, has Kirk already been cast?

 

New candidate - Julian Morris - right age, build, TOTALLY wrong accent but could do it.http://www.imdb.com/gallery/hh/0606690/iid_1291582.jpg.html?path=pgallery&path_key=Morris%2C%20Julian%20(I)&seq=3

 

He looks pretty good in that photo, but completely wrong in the others.

Too young though.

 

He (Julian Morris) is to young and i think its 99% certainty that Kirk will me American.

 

You're probably right (certainly about the American thing), but it was an interesting thought. Maybe that's more the age range we should be looking. Maybe the young Kirk isn't to have an enormous role.

 

Well, the first Kirk was Canadian.

 

No, I'm small potatoes, working on indie things. But in casting, you first and foremost want the best performance possible because in auditions, you see such a varying degree of talent and once you've narrowed it down, then it's really hard. But as an example, one role we were casting, the breakdowns called for an exotic-looking female 25-30, any ethnicity. The director ideally wanted a black or latin female. We had a couple of black females that auditioned and one ended up a top-3 choice.

But the one that wowed us the most was a 22-year-old Israeli girl who was young-looking enough to play teen roles. And she had a wonderful accent but that's where "exotic" ended with her. But she was the best one for the role and in the final product she gave the character a gravitas that made her look more mature than 22.

It really opened my eyes to issues of casting and the old "why aren't there enough black roles" and all the issues that us Film/TV geeks bitch about on the internet all day.

I'm glad you said Lincoln because there's a difference in recasting a fictional character vs. casting an historical figure. With Lincoln, you still want someone who embodies the character but still is tall as hell and looks convincing in a top hat (actually Liam Neeson was rumored to play Lincoln in a Spielberg biopic that got pushed back for Indy IV).

But think of Brandon Routh. He doesn't really look like Christopher Reeve. But he really behaves like Reeve, and Singer wanted his Superman movie to be very similar in tone to the 1978 one. Another example is The Brady Bunch movie. Gary Cole looked nothing like Robert Reed but when he opened his mouth, it sounded EXACTLY like him. He convincingly embodied the character.

Point is I think they're going to make the choice not based on "looks like Shatner" but more of "he embodies the qualities of James T. Kirk."

 

please can somebody tell Abrams to hire this guy for casting job in XI movie