Chris Pine

Chris Pine (birthname: Christopher Whitelaw Pine), is known for his (younger than Shatner) Capt. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise has quietly built a sustained career as a solid, attractive leading man over more than a decade. His feature debut was a supporting role in Disney’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), with Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway, grossing $135 million globally. After a few negligible studio rom-com, Pine landed a role in the cult hit, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces (2006), with Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, Common, Ray Liotta, and Alica Keys.

2009 was the breakthrough year for Chris Pine, as he was cast by producer-director J.J. Abrams as Capt. Kirk in Star Trek, with John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Zachary Quinto, and Winona Ryder. It was the first of three Star Trek movies in which Pine starred, including J. J. Abrams’s Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond (2016), grossing worldwide a combined total of $1.197 billion. Pine was able to translate his new Trekkie stardom into a co-starring role with Denzel Washington in Tony Scott’s propulsive thriller, Unstoppable (2010), with Rosario Dawson.

After co-starring with Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy in the McG-directed dud, This Means War (2012), Pine headed the cast of Star Trek writer Alex Kurtzman’s directing debut, Disney’s People Like Us (2012), with Elizabeth Banks, Jon Favreau, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Olivia Wilde. Pine also headed a voice cast around the same time (including Jude Law, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, and Isla Fisher) for the DreamWorks Animation production, Rise of the Guardians (2012), grossing $307 million worldwide.

The second franchise starring Pine was the Kenneth Branagh-directed Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), the fifth film in the Ryan franchise based on Tom Clancy’s character, and co-starring Kevin Costner, Branagh, and Keira Knightley. After co-starring with Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, and Christoph Waltz in writer-director Sean Anders’ sequel, Horrible Bosses 2 (2014), Pine did his first movie musical as Cinderella’s Prince under Rob Marshall’s direction in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods (2014), with Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp, and Tracey Ullman.

Although it made little money, the interesting Craig Zobel western, Z for Zachariah (2015), with Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejiofor, provided Chris Pine the chance for an impressive performance. Pine starred in the much more expensively produced Disney thriller-adventure, The Finest Hours (2016), with Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, and Eric Bana. Pine did his first collaboration with director David Mackenzie and writer Taylor Sheridan in the excellent western, Hell or High Water (2016), with Jeff Bridges and Foster, earning four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Chris Pine’s third franchise project was the Patty Jenkins-directed DC Comics adventure, Wonder Woman (2017), with Gal Gadot, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, and David Thewlis. Pine joined director Ava DuVernay for her adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time (2018), with Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, followed by Mackenzie’s Netflix-released epic about Robert the Bruce, Outlaw King, which provided Pine the chance to play a historical character.

Pine voiced Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the acclaimed animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), and then returned to his previous superhero project as Steve in Patty Jenkins’ sequel, Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), with Gal Gadot. Pine fully embraced the action hero mode in Paramount’s The Contractor (2022), with Foster, Eddie Marsan, and Kiefer Sutherland, then shifting to spy thriller mode for Amazon Studios’ twisty All the Old Knives (2022), with Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Pryce.

Director-actor Olivia Wilde cast Pine opposite Florence Pugh and Harry Styles in the paranoid thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, released by Warners in the fall of 2022. Pine heads the cast of Paramount’s live-action Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), co-starring Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, and Hugh Grant. In his filmmaking debut, Pine co-wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the indie film, Poolman (date to be announced), with Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Ariana DeBose, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.