William Shatner once called Chris Pine a young actor who had the look, the voice and the presence to play James T. Kirk, and years later he said seeing Pine in the role felt like seeing his own mortality. The Star Trek veteran revisited that reaction in 2024 while praising Pine and Paul Wesley, who plays Kirk in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Shatner made his debut as Captain Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series and became the face of the character for decades, which made every new casting choice easy for fans to measure against him. Pine took over Kirk in J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot, which unfolded in the Kelvin Timeline, and returned in 2013 for Star Trek Into Darkness. By 2016, the Kelvin Timeline crew had last been seen in Star Trek Beyond, even though the reboot was expected to keep going.
Shatner had already been generous to Pine long before his latest comments. Speaking at Wizard World in New Orleans in 2012, he said Pine was a lovely young man who was really talented and looked really good, adding that he had the demeanor, the body and the voice and all the right equipment. Two years later, he told Metro he had seen the two J.J. Abrams films and enjoyed them very much, but said watching Pine play Kirk was like seeing his mortality because it showed a younger, handsome and talented actor taking on the role he had played years earlier.
The tension in that history is simple: Shatner has embraced the newer performances while also acknowledging what they represent. In 2024, he told Screen Rant that Pine and Wesley are wonderful and added that he just wishes he looked as good as they do. For a part that made Shatner famous in the 1960s, the answer is not whether Pine belongs in the role. Shatner has already said he does.
