STAR TREK BEYOND Stars Share Some of Their Favorite Anton Yelchin Memories

Exactly one month ago, we wrote about the tragic death of Anton Yelchin, who died in a freak car accident at the young age of 27. His death is a devastating loss for his family, friends, fans, and the film industry as a whole, and at the Star Trek Beyond junket in Beverly Hills this past Friday, Yelchin's co-stars in that movie and director Justin Lin shared some of their favorite memories about working and interacting with the multi-talented young performer.

Karl Urban ("Bones"): It’s devastating to lose a family member. We’re at a point where we should be celebrating not only this film, but this beautiful man. This talented man. And for all of us, it’s almost incomprehensible to be at the point where we have to talk about him in the past. The pain of his loss is still very raw. We went and spent time with Anton’s family, and we know that they will be very, very proud of his contribution to the film, and this film will forever be probably the most special experience for all of us. It represents the golden period where our family was fully together for the last time. And it really was, as Simon said, the best summer of our adult lives. We loved him so much. We miss him terribly.

Chris Pine (Kirk): He was just a good guy. Very sweet. He was beautifully, authentically Anton. There was not much of a censor on the boy. I remember one of the first times I met him, like nine years ago or whatever, he was seventeen, and I invited him back to my trailer to play guitar because I knew he played the guitar and he played the guitar really, really, really well. And he said, ‘I can’t, man, I’ve gotta go back to my trailer.’ I asked him why, and he was translating a [laughs], he was translating an esoteric Russian novel into English because that’s what he wanted to do. Eight, nine years later, I talked to him and he was still translating it, still reading this book on physics by this French philosopher, still trying to get all of us to go to these — [laughs] we were in Vancouver and he wanted to go see some German neo-expressionist film that he’d talk about as if everyone had or should have seen it…he was a great guy, and he was just totally fearless. You try to grasp something that’s a positive out of losing such a good guy and I think it’s just be fearless creatively. He was always working on stuff. He had music projects, photography projects, he was going to direct his first film this summer, he was just spectacularly interested in life in a really great way.

Simon Pegg (Scotty): It still doesn’t feel real. I can’t quite find a way to process it, to be honest. It won’t sink in, and my heart goes out to anybody who loses anybody suddenly or prematurely. It’s such a psychological blow to even contemplate. One thing I’ve said at some of the introductions is that watching the film and seeing Anton up there so alive and forever preserved as he will be in all his films, that’s something we should be happy about. That we’ll get to see him again. Anton was just…I spent a lot of time with Anton in Vancouver last year. [laughs] He used to call me up in the middle of the night sometimes just to talk. He was an incredibly intelligent man. Like Chris was saying, he was translating this Russian novel. He was still working on it, in fact too, making notes in it, translating this novel. He would talk about film so fluently, and so maturely that he’d make us all look like dummies. I’d have to engage my university brain just to sit down and talk to him about movies because he was exhaustively encyclopedic. He had this ridiculous laugh, where he’d go [imitates laugh], and we used to laugh at him for it, and then he would laugh more, and then we would laugh more. He was an incredible soul. He was a beautiful, beautiful boy, and I loved him so much. We all did. It’s not something that’s easy to talk about, it’s not something we really want to be having to talk about, other than we miss him.

Lin: I think it’s still very raw. Still processing. I actually went back, there was a group of us who were still finishing the film. We had a few weeks to go, and we went back and I went through all of the footage again. The one thing that when I was going through it, the interaction with Anton for me, it’s so clear that when he shows up every day, he does it for the right reasons. We’re making movies. A lot of times when you make movies, a lot of this petty, weird stupid stuff happens, but he just shows up with a smile on his face and has ideas. I always just looked forward to…every day he’s on set, we’d huddle up and he’d throw out like a hundred ideas, even though maybe he’s just in the background or something. It’s just the way it should be, you know? I know for a fact that he’ll live on with me, and with everybody he’s worked with and interacted with.

Seeing one of Yelchin's final performances in this movie is tremendously sad. He had so many amazing years ahead of him, and his success in the indie film sphere was an indicator that his range extended far beyond simply being a cog in a franchise machine. Rest in peace, Mr. Yelchin.