This is Connor Beck. I have a situation.
So you get some pretty dreamy roles. You're riding motorbikes. You're running the Starship
Enterprise. You're working with Kevin Costner who is just a leg. Is it just wonderful being Chris Pine?
I mean, I've been very lucky, and I really have. I got to work with Denzel Washington,
Reese Witherspoon, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway early
on in my career, so yeah, I've been really, really fortunate.
And I was just talking to Kenneth about the set, and we saying there's two massive acts
in this film playing two really alpha male characters, and you have Kevin Costner kicking
around. Was it just a big testosterone fest?
I definitely felt like the young apprentice learning from the older guys, and it's intimidating
to do scenes with men who've been around for a long time and who really know their craft
and what they're doing, but they were really sweet and gracious and I learned a lot from them.
He described Kevin as like an oak tree of an actor. He's just so established and he
just lands on set.
Kevin, we were doing press in LA and he came to the press day wearing jeans, cowboy boots,
a vest, sunglasses and I was like now that, that's an American movie star right there.
He sold this as an office job. Why don't you sit down?
Now talk me through your very scary scenario.
Keep in mind I don't have your PhD.
What was perhaps your biggest challenge in playing this character because you're doing
stunts... I saw you on Daybreak saying you were doing a motorbike scene without a helmet.
Yeah, really not the most intelligent thing. I learned to ride this Ducati. I forget the
full name of it, but anyway I think it may be the heaviest or fastest road bike that
they make. So one of the first days of shooting, I was actually on the east... I was on the
FDR, somewhere in New York, riding in and out of traffic without a helmet. Not the smartest thing.
Were you just on there thinking oh God, I'm too pretty for this? This is scary.
No, you're thinking don't fall off and don't die.
You're just thinking get through it. It's a lot of fun though.
Well done on not dying. I appreciate it.
Yeah. And with your amazing CV of action characters, would we ever see you as Bond?
Yeah, I mean I'm not English, so I've got that against me.
Bond's fun. He has the fancy suits and the Aston Martins and it'd be fun.
And something Ken and I were doing was because this is such a man's film with big stars in
it, what would be the Jack Ryan top tip for being a manly man?
Maybe learn how to run cool.
Run cool. Yeah, run cool.
How do you run cool?
I watched Tom Cruise films.
What the hell is going on here?
Sometimes the ones closest to us are the ones we should trust the least.
No, what I hope people will hopefully enjoy about it is that they'll go in thinking it's
a classic action thriller and really your hero's a guy that when he kills someone or
when he gets in violent situations is trying to figure it out on the fly just like many
people would who aren't trained assassins. He's not a Jason Bourne or James Bond. He's
a thinking man's hero. He's a man who loves his wife, and that's kind of the centre point
of his life and all this other stuff is just kind of happening, and he just so happens
to be saving the world, but he's not front and centre looking for the limelight.
And Jack Ryan's kind of juggling a double life. He's keeping a big secret from his girlfriend.
What's perhaps the biggest thing in real life you've had to eventually admit to?
That I don't really follow sports because a guy sometimes, you want to walk in a room
and talk stats and stuff, but I just don't care. I could care less.
I've got male friends that pretend.
I promise you out of all your guy friends, about 70 per cent are BS-ing. I actually know
a guy that will watch like Sky Sports or whatever. Watch ESPN in the States if he knows he's
going to watch a football game with his buddies so he can just talk with his buddies. He'll
be like oh that Peyton Manning. Yeah, he only threw for 30 yards last game, and then it's like...
But he knows if he throws out just a couple, he's like set for the game. He just admitted
it to me the other day. It was really funny. I was like I knew it. I knew it.
Oh that is cute. Well, nice speaking to you. It was great.
Right on.
He's unpredictable.
You Americans like to think of yourself as direct. Perhaps you are just rude.
Perhaps you're just touchy.