Justin Lin is one of the most impressive people I've met professionally. I don't think he sleeps, or I think he sleeps 20 minutes every few hours during the night. Mostly, between shooting days, he was making rough cuts and other decisions with creative things on the Star Trek. He blew me away; in spite of working insane hours most days, his energy is incredibly generous and calm. Within the eye of storm, there was Justin there. He's someone who takes the temperature down and makes you feel calm in the middle of that, which is the greatest asset a huge production could have.
Analogy and allegory always seem to be a much more expressive way of reflecting reality. I think Star Trek team have this ability to represent through analogy and extending things to the scientific extreme. They comment on things that are very present in a really powerful way.
I've actually found that most of my jobs have been in sci-fi. I realized it because sci-fi has the biggest fan following. Every time I do a play in London all these sci-fi fans come out. They ask me to sign things from all these little projects that I did. I hadn't even made the connection. It doesn't always have a spaceship and guns; sci-fi has been projected on in someway. I did Never Let Me Go, which is sort of Star Trek-y. It's about the future and training humans. It's sci-fi too. It's such a broad umbrella.
I wanted to be an actor ever since I was five. My grandparents - my mom's parents in New York - were stage actors. I think indirectly I wanted to do it because of them. My grandfather would tell me stories about Tennessee Williams and actors he worked with in New York. He had such a respect for acting and such a love for storytelling about that world. I grew up hearing him tell tales of it.They were never encouraging me or discouraging me to take part. They were always feeding me with theater.
Theater really is what I know and what I was exposed to the most. That's really the main artistry that I love about acting. It's what I've experienced the most and what I trained in. I'd say theater is my love.
I'm not really looking for anything. I don't really have a dream role that I'd like to play. When I read a script - I guess it's quite interesting, especially with theater - I get a sense about it. It's in my body: I sweat when I read a play.
With films it's not usually that I have a particular character I'm looking for; I'll read the character and my imagination will start spinning and I'll go, "Yes, definitely." I'm thinking it would be nice to keep challenging myself.
Honestly every day had huge challenges. I remember one day coming home and running a bath and going, "You don't know how to act, do you?" It was the most humbling experience ever.
