Actor Chris Pine, who is best known for
his role as Captain James T. Kirk in JJ Abrams' Star Trek film
franchise reboot, disagrees with George Takei on the decision to make
Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, gay in Star Trek
Beyond.
Takei, who came out gay in a 2005
interview and played Sulu in the original television series and films
prior to the franchise's reboot, told media outlets that he had
discouraged screenwriter Simon Pegg, who also plays Scotty in the new
films, and director Justin Lin from the idea.
“I'm delighted that there's a gay
character,” Takei
said. “Unfortunately, it's a twisting of [Gene Roddenberry's]
creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it's very
unfortunate.”
Pine, 36, said that while he can
understand Takei's creative differences on the issue, he agrees with
the decision.
“Amen, man. It's about fucking
time,” Pine
told The
Hollywood Reporter. “The fact that there's still a
conversation about it means that there's still room to go in terms of
it being normalized.”
“My only rebuttal to George Takei –
no matter what kind of creative differences he had about Sulu being
gay, and I can understand his creative differences – is the fact
that our job is to make people feel less alone.”
“If there’s one kid in Middle
America who feels any amount of self-loathing because he feels
different, or is being bullied because he feels different or looks
different or sounds different, if our film can give him solace and
make him or her feel less alone, then abso-effin-loutely we should do
it all the time, every day of the week,” he added.
CBS' upcoming series Star
Trek: Discovery
will also include a gay character.