The actor Anton Yelchin, who's best known for playing the character, Chekhov, in two
Star Trek films has died. The 27-year-old was killed when his car rolled and pinned him
against a wall in his driveway at his home in California.
For more, let's speak to Simon Thompson, who's a showbiz journalist in Los Angeles.
Simon, good morning to you and thank you for talking to us. Just a terribly sad story.
What more do we know about what happened?
Well, we still know the basics of what happened was exactly as you described. He got out of
his vehicle. This happened at some point last night. He somehow got between the vehicle,
the vehicle moved back, and he got squashed between the vehicle and the security fence.
It is one of those tragic accidents. I mean, police are not looking for anyone else in
connection with this in any way, and nobody else appears to have been there at the time.
It's just, it's one of those tragic things that just sometimes happen. A lot of people
have reacted to this, not just because it's a surprising tragedy, but he was so well thought
of in Hollywood. I mean, for someone so young and wasn't an A-list star by any stretch of
the imagination, he was very highly regarded and very well respected, and there's a lot
of love coming out today, and he's genuine love.
Yes, how has the news been received? Because there are lots of tributes on social media.
I mean, J.J. Abrams himself has penned a handwritten note, hasn't he?
Well, exactly. I mean, obviously, J.J. worked with him on the last two Star Trek movies,
and he's involved in this one, but he didn't direct the third film, which incidentally
comes out in a month here, and the film is going to debut. It's going to have its world
premiere at Comic-Con in San Diego one month and one day from today, so it's really strange.
In fact, they were all going to get together to watch the film here in Los Angeles this
week. It only finished editing a couple of weeks ago, but J.J. is just one of many people
who have made very genuine feeling, sort of, public, emotional reactions to this.
Tom Hiddleston, the UK's Tom Hiddleston, of course, another person who had acted with
him in a film a couple of years ago. A lot of his Star Trek cast as well have come out
and been very, you know, very supportive and very shocked by what has happened. It's the
kind of thing that, it's just, it's so sudden, you don't expect it, and when it happens,
it does take everybody, you know, by surprise. And he was really in this third Star Trek
movie that comes out in four weeks time. This was the chance for him to really move forward
as a member of that cast. He had a much larger role in this playing Chekhov, an iconic role.
It was the film that was going to push him potentially from being that well-known B-level
actor to potentially the A-list. It's a terrible tragedy.
Do you, does he have any other films coming out? You said that this is his biggest role
in Star Trek, but does he have any other films that have been made?
He does. Yeah, it's probably the one that he's most well known for, but don't forget
in the same year that he was in the first Star Trek reboot, 2009, he also, that same
year, starred in Terminator Salvation as another iconic character, Kyle Reese, opposite
Christian Bale. There's many films that he's done that you remember him from, or he's
one of those actors that you know his face, but perhaps you don't know his name if you're
not sort of a film nerd like myself. He was an alpha dog with Justin Timberland, Justin
Timberlake. He also was a voice of some of the Smurfs. He was in some art house films
as well. He was in the remake of Fright Night with Christopher Mince Plast and David Tennant
as well. So he's always been there, but perhaps one of the films that made the least money
for him, but as far as the film community, remember him before, is an indie movie called
Charlie Bartlett. It was the first time he had the lead role in the film. It featured
alongside people like Robert Downey Jr. very well received in the film community, but not
particularly known by audiences. He was one of those actors who, he's around for a long
time and then all of a sudden he explodes. And this was due to be his moment in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, this has happened and it's cut his career, his creative life and his
life too short too soon. It is terrible news Simon. He, on the personal front, he had a
very interesting childhood, didn't he? Because he wasn't even born in America. He wasn't
born in America. No, his parents were Russian. He's an only child and they moved here six
months after he was born and he started out acting quite early on. He actually got his
first performance, was in ER and then he went on to star alongside Anthony Hopkins in a
film and that was a child actor, got a lot of attention for him. He went on to get some
more roles off the back of that. And even at a very young age, he did start to turn
heads as talent because a lot of young actors appear on screen and don't really have any
charisma or real perhaps acting talent like many adults do. They just do the child thing
but there was something about him even at that early age that got him roles in some
of the biggest TV shows here in the US really early on and that career ball has just kept
rolling for him. This won't be the last time that we see him on screen though with Star
Trek Beyond. He's actually got two films which were still being made and he's got a TV series
which has yet to come out. So this is not by any means the last that we will see him
on screen but his work is so diverse and so rich that his work is a valuable part of what
Hollywood has put out in the last ten years and his loss is a big one.
OK Simon, thank you so much. The showbiz journalist Simon Thompson talking to us from LA there.
