Star Trek 2009 - John Cho interview

In the lead up to the premiere of 'Star Trek Into Darkness' I'll be posting a number of interviews conducted with the cast & crew of the film from the 2009 'Star Trek' World Premiere in Sydney, Australia.

 

That's me on the far left of the photo waiting for John to sign my cast shot! Luck O'Loughlan gets his photo taken with John Cho at the World Premier of 'Star Trek' on April 7, 2009.

 

The following interview was done by myself and fellow Trekker Michael O'Loughlan. At the time, we were both involved in Austrek, which is Australia's Number One Star Trek club; as well as being the second oldest Trek club in the world. Depending on preference, there's the original audio recording of the interview or the cleaned-up transcript which appeared in Austrek's 'The Captain's Log'.

 

 

We start be telling John that ‘Austrek’ is the second oldest club in the world, and giving him some background about the group. With introductions done, it was time to ask the questions ...

How did you feel about taking on the role?

I was really excited about it. When I was a kid, I immigrated to the States when I was six in 1978. Turning on the television, at the time, I didn’t see very many great representations of Asians. It was all very stereotypical stuff and, then, I see George (Takei). He’s doing something that’s not about his race. He’s playing the helmsman of a spacecraft. I was very impressionable, and it meant a lot for me to see George on the television at that time, doing that role. It made a great impression on me. When I heard this project was happening, it was very important for me to be connected to it.

How was it to meet George (Takei)?

It was great! He’s very well read, well spoken, charming individual. I’d known him a little bit because he’s on the Board of East-West Players Theatre Company that I’ve done some plays at; but we hadn’t sat down and got to know one another. This (movie) gave me the opportunity to do it, and it was fantastic.

George Takei - Star Trek's original Sulu

Star Trek’s a long way from your other roles in films like American Pie and Harold Kumar ...

Yes, I’ve sullied the good ‘Star Trek’ name with my dirty past!

Locky jumps in: “We were actually thinking you’d cleaned it up a bit!”

John bursts out laughing at this comment.

Depends on where you’re coming from!

I can’t help but add that John’s presence in the film has made it credible for 17 and 18 year olds to like Star Trek.

John says that he doesn’t think that this movie needs that kind of help.

Locky gets things back on track by asking John about the huge difference between what’s he’s done in the past compared to ‘Star Trek’.

It sure is! What can I tell you ... I’m really happy to have variety in my career, and I’ve been lucky to not get penned in too much. You know, it’s funny, I’ve been asked if I’m afraid of being typecast after having done ‘Star Trek’. I’m like, if I haven’t been typecast after ‘American Pie’ and ‘Harold & Kumar’, I’m made of Teflon!

Variety is always something you like. You do a serious thing for a while, so it can be nice to work on a comedy for a little bit and vice versa.

 Are you now at the point in career where roles come to you or do you still have to go through the casting process?

It depends. I had to audition for this role, but steadily things come across the table where they ask ‘would you do this?’ But, I’m not a big player. You know, the way the universe works, the stuff you really want you have to go out and get. A lot of stuff you don’t want is offered to you.

You’re observation is correct. I’ve never really had a breakthrough role where my whole life and career has changed because of it. I’m the exception in Hollywood because my career has gone ahead one step at a time. I’m actually very happy with that. It’s provided a kind of steadiness and stability in a very unstable industry. I’m happy with the roles I’ve done.

It must be a comforting thought for someone who’s a family man with a child?

When I came to LA, to give it a shot, I really just thought of myself as a working actor. My goal was when I was 40, I didn’t want to be waiting tables. I really wanted to pay the bills with acting, and fortunately I reached that goal a long time ago. Thank goodness. Having said that, I try not to take anything for granted. I’m not head-lining movies, for the most part, so I consider myself a character actor. When something comes along that’s an interesting role, I look at it and see whether or not I can do anything with it. Can I make it funny? Can I make it dark? I do whatever I can do to help out the project. If I can find a way ‘in’, I want to do it.

How much of ‘yourself’ did you try to bring to ‘Sulu’?

I tried to bring a good deal. I’m older than George than when George started doing the role. My disposition is a little bit more youthful and George has always seemed ‘older’ than his age. So, I kind of figured the reason why I was cast was to bring the youthful part of me to Sulu. The whole project seemed to be straddling a line; to honour the original and to also make it a little bit more athletic, and a little bit more muscular. I wanted to bring that part of myself to Sulu.

What where the physical demands of the role on you?

It’s not like real work, but we trained for three months before. I didn’t have any background in martial arts, but I had learned a little bit of fencing years ago. I did ‘Hamlet’. Aside from that, I had to start from scratch. It was great because Zach, Chris and I trained together with the stunt guys. Chris learned his boxing, and it was all individualised, but we trained together and I felt like we went through Starfleet Academy together. It was a way of us bonding and going through something together and graduating. As much as we could, we did the stunts. There were a few we couldn’t do, but Chris and I were hanging off the wires, we were fighting and doing the moves, so it was pretty physically taxing.

 

Chris Pine & John Cho talk about the drill fight scene highlighting the physicality of the role John talks about in his answer to our question about the physical demands of the role.

 

Watching the cast together at the Premiere, you all seem to have developed a sense of camaraderie. Is that an accurate assessment?

It’s very accurate. I was thinking at the beginning of this journey, the guys who did the original series didn’t know what was in store for them. We’re new actors walking into a very established franchise, so, in a way, we’re blessed that we know we’re ‘blessed’. We’re walking into something special, and something very memorable. There was always a sense of everyone looking around at each other and saying let’s not take this for granted – let’s have a great time! We’re participating in something so special. It’s a situation where you know it right off the bat.

Secondly – and this is my own theory – there’s was so much secrecy surrounding this project. They didn’t want photos of us on the internet. We had to wear ponchos. Normally, in between set-ups, the cast might disperse back to their trailers and make phone calls and catch a nap, and what have you. It was such a pain to do all that stuff, we ended up sticking around on the stage, and we all ended up just talking a lot more than is normal, and we got very close. Those of us on the Bridge, we spent a lot of concentrated time together. It was great.

How did you go with Star Trek’s techno-babble?

I just tried to memorise it, and say it when it was my turn, as best I could.

Are you comfortable with idea of ‘Trek’ fandom?

You know, I haven’t given it much thought. I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve been to Comic-Con with ‘Harold & Kumar’. I figure those are people who like us, and are there to see our movie. Right now, my attitude has been ‘let’s go out there and enjoy ourselves’, and don’t have any preconceived notions of what it’s like.

Are you happy you’ve taken this role?

You know what I’m really pleased about ... I think ‘Star Trek’ is a positive narrative. I’m happy to be leaving that for my son. ‘Star Trek’ is a bunch of people from different genders, races and species working towards a common, peaceful goal. It’s a little ‘hippieish’, but I think it’s a very admirable message to put forth in a story. I’m very proud to associated with the franchise; I really am. So, if we make more, I would be very happy to continue to be involved.

I saw it about a month ago. I was very happy with it, but you really do never know how it’s going to play. Last night I was pleased. It felt like people were very kind. It felt like people were enjoying themselves.

What JJ and the writers very good at was focussing on the original characters and their relationships. If you stay true to those, you can do a lot. You can take the story a bunch of different places. I really feel like those relationships were what made the series.

And, with that, our interview with John concludes. We did, however, manage to sneak a photo with John ...

Star Trek 2009 - Bryan Burk interview

Australia will, once again, host the premiere of JJ Abrams' second Star Trek film 'Into Darkness'. The premiere is scheduled for April 23, 2013, but unlike the 2009 Sydney Opera House event, 'Into Darkness' will be a little more low-key; opening up at the Village Cinemas in George Street.




Karl Urban, Chris Pine, Bryan Burk, Zachary Quinto, JJ Abrams, Eric Bana & John Cho at the Sydney World Premier of 'Star Trek' in April 2009.

In keeping with the first film's premiere, many of the actors and production team will be on hand for the Sydney premiere. It's been reported JJ Abrams, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban will be attending the Sydney premiere in 9 days time. All four came to Sydney last time, as well as John Cho, Eric Bana and JJ Abrams' right-hand man Bryan Burk. I was lucky enough to get along to one of the press days Paramount put on for the film because of my association with the Star Trek fan scene. Myself and fellow fan, Michael O'Louhglan, spent the day in one-on-one & round-table interviews with all the actors, as well as JJ Abrams.

Our last interview was scheduled to be Karl Urban, which was done as an on-camera interview. By the time Michael and I had finished with Karl, most of the other interviewers had finished and left for the day. We went back to the room that Paramount had set-up for all the interviewers and, on our way back, I noticed Bryan Burk talking to one of the Paramount team. It was at this moment I had an idea. I told Michael that I'd be back in a minute, but not to pack up just yet ...

I went and found Di Campisi, who was the head of publicity for Paramount here in Australia at that time. I asked her if she could swing an interview with Bryan Burk. I figured this guy is a serious film & television producer. If anyone can shed light on what goes on with making a movie, he's going to be the person to know. Di came back after a couple of minutes and told me to wait in one of the rooms. I went and got Michael and we headed into the room where Di had told us to wait.

A few minutes later, Bryan Burk appeared. The transcript below is a cleaned-up version of the audio file that I've attached to this piece. It's a broad-ranging discussion about Star Trek, movies and the reasons why no one talks to Bryan Burk!

 

Audio interview with 'Star Trek' 2009 Producer Bryan Burk

 

We started off by asking why it was no one else wanted to talk with Bryan Burk.

He jokes, telling us that it’s “anti-Semitism”...

He then gets into the swing of things by telling us that he’s “normally deep behind the scenes.” He admits that sometimes he has to ‘come out of the cave’ just to check on things.

He then continues with his jocularity be responding to my comment about being an important part of the film making process, by telling us that his mother thinks so!

I kick off the formal questions by asking Bryan to explain to fans (specifically Austrek members) about the roles he plays as a Producer. However, Bryan quickly turns the tables on us by asking if we’d seen the film the night before? We both answer yes, which leads him to ask us the question on everyone’s mind.

“Did we screw it up?”

Both of us tell him that they (being the entire cast & crew), got it right.

Bryan goes on to tell us that it was weird because the Sydney World Premiere was the first time the film had been shown to an audience who had no connection to the production.

Bryan was pleased to hear our feedback from the premiere, and we told him that we had spoken to long-time Original Series fans and they were very happy with the new film.

Bryan admits to us that out of the five key production staff of JJ Abrams, Damon Lindeloff, Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and himself; he knew the least about Star Trek.

“I didn’t watch the series at all, and didn’t really pay any attention to Star Trek until the films came out ... I didn’t really know who any of these people were, I just felt stupid, all these people were standing around a bridge, and they were talking gibberish.”

Bryan goes on to compare TOS to Star Wars.

“There was a beginning. There’s this kid Luke ... and his Aunt and Uncle, and they die ... and you really get pulled into it. So when the movie (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) came out a couple of years after Star Wars, I was like WOW! I remember sitting in the audience, loving the spectacle and it was enormous and it was big! Then, the (Jerry) Goldsmith music came on, and everything was like I was in heaven ... I remember the theatre I was at was in Westwood in Los Angeles, and the whole experience was a very seminal experience for me. Simultaneously, I remember every one in the audience cheering when these characters came on. That’s when I felt like, ‘Why are they cheering’, who are these people, and again you realise that there was never a beginning for Star Trek. There was never a way in.”

Bryan continues, with absolutely no prompting, and continues to relay his thoughts about successive films in the Star Trek movie franchise.

“By the time I saw Wrath of Khan, I sort of knew who these people were from the previous film, and I loved Wrath of Khan. It felt like I was surrounded by these people who I had discovered in the previous film, but I never really had a gateway into it.”

Bryan then shifts his remarks back to the new film, talking about the pre-production process, and how giving the audience a story that would ‘let them in’ to the story and the Star Trek franchise was critical for the new film.

“When we started talking about taking on the film, Damon & Alex, and Bob & JJ were like this is the best way in. In all the filmed entertainment they had never done Kirk and Spock’s (beginning story).”

Bryan then tells us that, prior to his involvement on the new film, he’d seen eight of the ten feature films, but had always found it hard to grasp all the details of each characters back story.

“If we do our job right, it (the film) will appeal to those 40 years of people who had all been fans of Star Trek.”

I then move away from the story, and ask Bryan about his role as a Producer and the mechanics of his role in the film making process.

“I’m involved in everything we do, everything we produce. I do different things on different projects. On the first season of Lost, I was responsible for all of our cuts and all of our mixes. Now, I just mainly focus on the mixes and the dubs. On Star Trek, I was involved in the conception of it, and when they were writing the script, the casting, the production, and then I vanished a little. I was in the middle of Fringe, and I would have to go off and do that pilot in Toronto.”

“When I came back (to Star Trek), I was involved in the editing process, the mixing, the post, and the sound and all the other stuff, as well as the marketing. It’s kind of everything ... Someone asked me this recently, and a good producer is someone who’s involved in everything and is helping their Director, or in the case of television, their show runner, to free them up to be able to do their jobs as best as they can ... To help free them up to clear the way for their creativity.”

Michael asks Bryan what it’s like to switch back and forth between television production and feature film production.

“It’s weird. It’s exhausting, and mind-numbingly exciting at the same time! They are exactly the same process, done completely differently. Economically they’re different. The speed of everything is different. Part of our success in features, has been a television education. We’re able to do everything so much faster, with significantly smaller amounts of money. The ability to problem solve on the fly, and I think we’ve had success in features, in the sense that we’ve been happy with, is that every challenge is addressable, but you have to roll up your sleeves and figure out how to do it.”

I ask Bryan what the biggest hurdles were in getting this new film made.

“To say we had the greatest crew is an understatement. It was amazing. The whole movie was shot in Los Angeles, and we had big conversation about going to Iceland, and it just starts getting really expensive. Then it all becomes, well, what do we do? That’s when you get ILM to do the visual effects, and to say they did an incredible job is the understatement of the year. They were incredible. The real challenge was, what we like to do in everything we do, is make it tangible and real, and not just visual effects. In a movie where it’s all in outer space, it’s all visual effects. So, while a good percentage of the movie is shot on sound stages, like the bridge of the Enterprise, or the Kelvin, or any of the spaceships, a lot of it was not shot on sound stages. We found practical locations.”

Bryan makes a surprising admission to us about one of the key Enterprise sets.

 “We shot in factories. In fact, the whole of the engine room of the Enterprise was shot in a Budweiser factory in Los Angeles. What we fell in love with was that when we went inside, it was working. It’s brand new. It’s perfect. It’s a fully functioning brewery, and it’s enormous and it’s spotless; which is what felt perfect for the Enterprise. The Enterprise is brand spanking new in our film. So, you see these scenes of them running around inside this space, and – suddenly – you have this scope and this feel of how big this ship really is ... The length of the Enterprise, in reality, is supposed to be as long as the Empire State Building on its side. It’s really big! So, to capture that kind of scope, we wanted to film in real locations, and mix our visual effects in, so they are as practical as can be. That’s the challenge with making science fiction real.”

In the 2009 film, a Budweiser beer factory became the setting for the Enterprise engineering section.

 

In terms of the production design, there are some departures, and the story allows for those departures, but when you were conceiving the film and imaging what it could look like, was there a conscious decision by the senior production team about how far you would veer away from what has been previously established, or did you allow the designers to go away and reimagine and then present their ideas?

“We really focussed on The Original Series, and that was the jumping off point, and we discovered things along the way. For example, the coloured outfits that had been so iconic in the series had never appeared in any of the films. Nobody had ever gone back to it, so this instantly made us excited, to be able to do something different. Michael Kaplan, who was our Costume Designer, whose first film he worked on as a costume designer was Blade Runner, so we were in good hands. His approach to doing Blade Runner was to go back to film noir, and his approach on this film was to go back and look at the 1960s. Not the costumes themselves, but the fashion of the 1960s, like Pierre Cardin and other people who were great fashion designers of the time. He applied that to making this film, and, if you look at the stuff, there’s kind of timelessness to it that makes it feel like retro without being retro.”

One of the key elements of the film is the design of the Enterprise. Bryan had this to say about it.

“Scott Chambliss, our Production Designer, went back and looked at the (original) Enterprise, and then would try and work out how the (new Enterprise) would feel familiar without reinventing the wheel, yet make it feel modern and rich, and full. It’s the same thing when you watch that original Enterprise. It’s still the same shape, everything’s there, but they didn’t have the same budget when doing the original television series. They didn’t have the ability to add all the lights and all the buttons. It was much simpler. So, the idea was to do whatever you can to make it feel familiar and be that place. The origins of that came from when JJ went to go and see Phantom Menace, there was a great experience of sitting in the audience, and we went as early as possible to go and see that movie, and how exciting it was. It was palpable. The movie starts and the Fox logo comes on, and everyone cheers, and the Lucasfilm logo comes on, and everyone cheers. All the right things are happening, and then the movie comes on and, then, they cut to a hallway and there was nothing there – it was just a hallway – but, it was so familiar, there was this eruptive applause. That was kind of the idea; bringing back that familiarity from something from 40 years ago, and making it your own, but still let it be something that fans can back to and say I remember that from so long ago. All these other incarnations of the series, which kept evolving, but they kept moving further away from the original one and creating their own. So we thought, let’s go back to the original one and see what we can do with that one.”

Getting the design balance right was vital to give fans a sense of familiarity while simultaneoulsy creating environments that would appeal to a broader audience expectations for excitement.

I asked Bryan about the pre-release hype surrounding the new film, referring to Gene Roddenberry’s success at capturing ‘lightning in a bottle’ with the success of both The Original Series and Next Generation.

“Hopefully people go and see it (the film), but you never know. We do know it’s a movie we’re excited and proud of. With all of our casting we have no one more to thank than April Webster and Elisa Wiesberg. They did all of our casting on the Lost pilot, where – talk about lightning in a bottle – that was a show that was put together so quickly and under the gun. If you were to listen to the experts at the time, they were like “you’re screwed!” All the good actors have been cast in other pilots, we’re behind the eight ball ... Our cast has always been spectacular on Lost, and we’ve been very lucky there. Again, it’s one of those situations, where JJ had said to me early on, when I started working with him, “you’re gonna know!” It always sounded like Hollywood gibberish to me, but sure enough! Like, when Evangeline Lily walked in, we knew. We had the same experience going through casting on Star Trek. We’re lucky enough to find Zach early on, because we knew him through mutual friends. We were fans of Heroes, so it was kind of a no-brainer. It took a while to find Kirk. Some great actors came in, and it was like, maybe it’ll be him, or maybe it’ll be him. Then, Chris Pine came in and, it was like, that’s our guy! So, we got very lucky, and April and Elissa are tirelessly finding actors who are ‘lightning in a bottle’ for us. I hope everyone goes to see the movie because this cast, a lot of whom will be fresh faces for everybody, will be very exciting.”

We agree with Bryan that it’s exciting to see fresh faces, but, then he mentions the one name that may have made the new film even better!

“It’s a weird thing, particularly with William Shatner, who could be held in higher regard than Shatner – he’s Kirk! The idea, unlike all these other films where there have been other James Bonds; there has not been other Kirks. There has been one Kirk and one Spock for 40 plus years. The idea of Chris playing ... with Zach you can see a similarity, but did not look like (Shatner). There are similarities, like he was good looking, but a young Shatner does not look like Chris. But, his personality is exactly what like Kirk is, and that was it. It was weird thing, where it exemplified the idea of not wanting him to imitate his predecessor, and make it his own. I think fans of the series will be pleasantly surprised, particularly as there was a lot of scepticism going in as to who this guy was playing Kirk. All I remember as a kid was watching Batman, and then the idea of Michael Keaton playing Batman was the worst idea of all time, until the day he came out as Batman and, suddenly, Batman was reborn. I think what people will discover is that he’s not what you had in mind for Kirk, but he is reborn as Kirk, and that’s very exciting. "

We’re conscious of Bryan’s time, and start to wrap things up at this point, but Bryan has other ideas! He asks us if we ever travel to the US, which leads into a conversation about sitting down to watch the film with an American audience. This leads to another discussion about the US premiere, and the fact that no US was planned until after Australia, New Zealand, Germany and England.

“Here’s the problem, when you’re under the gun, and you’ve got four weeks to go around the planet, and get everyone into it. I keep getting calls back from Paramount telling me that they need us back by a certain day to do all the junkets. We haven’t done one in the US yet!”

He does, however, make reference to a screening that happened in Austin, Texas on the same day as the Sydney premiere.

“Did you hear about our Austin screening? What was exciting was that we wanted Leonard to come down here (to Sydney), but it was a big flight and the whole thing. And then we said, what about if we go to Austin!”

Bryan then asks “How good was it to see him in the movie?”

Michael and I tell Bryan that most fans believe Leonard’s presence gives this film a legitimacy and connection to the 40 plus years of Star Trek.

Bryan tells us that he felt nervous about taking the project on initially, and then recounts a story about his experience with the expectation surrounding this film.

“At ABC, one of my executive’s assistants just emailed me to remind me to get her a ticket for the premiere. She’s very quiet, and mild-mannered. She’s in her 50s. The day it was announced that we were doing Star Trek she calls me up and says “I’m shaking.” I said “What?” She said, “I’m shaking! I’m a closet Star Trek fan.” I said “Hello...” She said, “I’m a Star Trek fan and I’m so excited!” What you realise is that it’s 40 years, there’s so many fans all over the place who have’ like you said, abandoned it after The Original Series. So, it was really the idea that if we could make it appeal to all of those people who have come before, and really bring it back. One person who saw it last night, Karl Urban’s agent coincidentally, is a huge Star Trek fan. We got on the plane top come over, and she was like I’ve seen every episode and she was referencing, and, you’ve got to remember, I don’t know anything. So, I’m just like nodding, like I know what the hell she’s talking about. She came out of the movie last night, and she said her kids are now going to see this movie and want to go back and watch everything that’s come before. All this makes her want to do is go back and watch all the other ones. That’s what’s happened to me. Now that I’ve worked on this one, I’ve started going back and watching the other ones. It’s a whole new appreciation.”

I make the point to Bryan that the new film does what Star Trek hasn’t, in my opinion, done for a number of years, is surprise me.

Bryan responded by talking about the support that JJ Abrams and his team received throughout the making of the film.

“It’s always about your finances, and whether or not your studio is behind you, and understands it. All the people who have come after Gene, who worked on incredible stories; I keep running into these people, because a lot of them are television writers. These people are geniuses. But, you’re always limited by how much money you can spend. There was always this feeling, from the studio’s point of view, that Star Trek was for “them”, whoever those people might be – Star Trek fans. Because they weren’t, the studio wasn’t. Even in this case, the studio appreciated Star Trek, but they didn’t know there’d been ten films before and this whole new team of people at Paramount came together and they said go and make it. We’re gonna spend more than we have before and we’re gonna give you those things, and we’re going to make it a real film.”

“I always used to point out that there were the same amount of Star Trek films as there were Friday the 13^th films. It always felt like one of those franchises that they would just do for “that” audience, whoever those people were who liked to watch those movies. Gene, and all those show runners  who came after him, created incredible characters and they were great worlds. Again, I discovered all of this just recently. You go back and you watch those stories and they were incredible. The best ones were as good as television gets; or nay medium for that matter. They’re ambiguous and they’re great and the characters are moving and tragic, and everything you want them to be; but they were always had limitations with technology or you don’t have the money to do it right. It’s just amazing how many great hours of television came out of that franchise. When we stepped in there was none of that. There was no television and there were no features. It felt like it was too good of a universe to let it just die.”

With that, our interview, and our day, came to an end.