CHRIS PINE

He’s been a rom-com heartthrob, blockbuster action star, and writer/ director. Now he’s joining a rag-tag bunch of would-be heroes for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES. Chris Pine has range. We sit down with a reluctant A-lister.

BY AARON SAGERS | ILLUSTRATION BY CHLOE LEWIS

hris Pine is not who you think he is. Sure, he’s the handsome, blue-eyed actor famous for roles combining action, intensity, and charm in Star Trek, Wonder Woman, and Into the Woods. But beneath the movie star is a man who grew up with deep insecurities. He loves his job and talking cinema but doesn’t enjoy talking about himself and would rather be drinking coffee and reading than being interviewed.

It is Valentine’s Day morning when we speak via Zoom, just a few days shy of the 20th anniversary of the E.R. episode “A Thousand Cranes,” Pine’s 2003 formal debut where he played a guy who got drunk at a blow-out Valentine’s party. The publicity machine is revving up for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, his action-adventure vehicle based on the tabletop fantasy game, but he’s also thinking of his directorial debut Poolman, which consumed much of 2022, and left him “wonderfully spent.” He becomes excited discussing a screening of the “thought-provoking, brave, multi-layered” Tár he attended the night before with a panel including star Cate Blanchett, writer/director Todd Field, and Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

Pine’s passion for acting might surprise those who relegated him to rom-com himbo status after his first film, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) or Blind Dating (2006), and before his star-making role as James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek in 2009. It is also surprising, considering Pine wasn’t even interested in acting before attending University of California, Berkeley, even though it runs in the family.

Pine was born in Los Angeles in 1980, the son of two actors. His dad, Robert “Buzz” Pine, is a character actor best known for co-starring in the late 1970s series CHiPs. After two decades of work, his mom Gwynne Gilford retired from acting and became a psychotherapist in the late 1980s. Her mother, Anne Gwynne, was an early scream queen in the 1940s, acting alongside Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Abbott and Costello.

Yet Pine suffered from debilitating acne as a teen, was shy, felt alone, and dealt with years of feeling “not being good enough.” Before graduating in 2002, Pine found a community in the Berkeley theater department. He was told he had talent, and as his acne cleared up, people called him handsome, which was edifying—even though it felt “so odd.” He viewed the rom-com jobs as ridiculous considering when he first began, he thought he’d be playing “wacky, fun, creative characters,” which he eventually did with action comedy Smokin’ Aces in 2006.

Ten years after The Princess Diaries 2, Pine slipped back into royalty as the good-natured but womanizing Prince in the 2014 musical fairytale send-up Into The Woods, the same year he appeared in action thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and comedy Horrible Bosses 2

By the time he took a supporting role as Steve Trevor in the Gal Gadot-starring Wonder Woman in 2017, Pine had