Bruce Greenwood, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Morrison aboard Star Trek

Posted by fanshawe

November 10, 2007

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Bruce Greenwood (Capote, 13 Days, Being Julia) has signed on to play Captain Christopher Pike and Winona Ryder will appear as Spock’s mother in the upcoming J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek prequel. Pike is the captain who commanded the Enterprise before the legendary James Kirk and Spock’s mother, Amanda Grayson, is a schoolteacher (on Earth, so no pointy ears for Winona) who marries Sarek, a Vulcan diplomat, and later gives birth to Spock.

Greenwood was last seen alongside Cate Blanchett, playing “Mr. Jones” in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, a film about different facets of Bob Dylan’s personality, and his next big screen release is the National Treasure sequel, starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren and Ed Harris, which comes out in December.

Winona Ryder has had some experience in the SF genre: she starred in Alien: Resurrection and, more recently, in the Philip K. Dick adaptation, A Scanner Darkly. After having one of the most compelling Hollywood careers throughout the 1990s, she has not quite followed up the success in the 2000s, which has raised some doubts about her knack for carrying adult roles, but being cast in Star Trek, in (as far as I remember) the first mother role of her career, will hopefully put those doubts to rest. For reference, Winona turned 36 a couple of weeks ago. Zachary Quinto, who plays her son on the big screen, is only six years younger than her.

Two more names were confirmed this week. Australian actor Chris Hemsworth has been cast as Kirk’s dad, George Samuel Kirk Sr., and Jennifer Morrison (House M.D.) was also spotted on the set. Her reps confirmed that she is in the movie, but would not say which character she is playing. Rumous suggest it’s either Janice Rand (Alias’ Rachel Nichols may still be cast in the role) or, more likely, Carol Marcus, a biologist and Kirk’s flame from his young days, who gave birth to their son David.

Previous Star Trek casting news confirmed that the actors playing the Enterprise crew are Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Anton Yelchin, with Leonard Nimoy making an appearance as the old Spock, Eric Bana as the film’s Romulan villain and William Shatner not being in the movie at all.

Production on Star Trek XI started three days ago. If all goes according to plan, the movie will be released next Christmas.