Chris Pine

Christopher Whitelaw Pine (born August 26, 1980) is an American actor.

Pine was born on August 26, 1980 in Los Angeles, California.

His father, Robert Pine, is an actor who co-starred on CHiPs as Sergeant Joseph Getraer, while his mother, Gwynne Gilford, is a former actress who became a psychotherapist.

He has an older sister, Katherine, who has also acted.

His maternal grandmother, Anne Gwynne, was a Hollywood actress.

His maternal grandfather, Max M. Gilford, who came from a Russian Jewish family, was an attorney who was elected president of the Hollywood Bar Association.

His uncle, Greg Max Gilford, is a former recording artist for Dunhill Records, who became a computer consultant, then later a Recovery Mentor/Support Specialist for United Healthcare.

Pine attended the Oakwood School for high school, which he described as "a Jewish liberal school in the Valley," then went on to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in English.

While in college, Pine wanted to find a "place where he'd belong", and was not interested in joining a fraternity.

Instead, he began doing theater.

As a member of the UC Berkeley Theater Department, Pine performed in a Caryl Churchill play at La Val's Subterranean Theater and performed Orestes and Shakespeare at Zellerbach Hall.

He was an exchange student at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom for one year.

After graduating from Berkeley, he attended the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and he studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Pine's first acting role was in a 2003 episode of ER; the same year, he also appeared in episodes of The Guardian and CSI: Miami.

Pine first rose to prominence for his roles in the romantic comedies The Princess Diaries 2 (2004) and Just My Luck (2006).

In 2004, he appeared in Why Germany? and in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.

Pine played the part of Nicholas Devereaux, the love interest of Anne Hathaway's leading character.

In 2005, Pine appeared in an episode of the series Six Feet Under, as well as in Confession, an independent film that was released directly to video, and The Bulls, another short film.

Pine appeared in the television movie Surrender, Dorothy which aired in early 2006.

He played Jake Hardin in the American film Just My Luck, a romantic comedy in which he starred opposite Lindsay Lohan.

The film was released on May 12, 2006.

Later that year, Pine appeared in the comedy Blind Dating and in the action film Smokin' Aces.

Pine did the one-man play The Atheist at Center Stage, New York, in late 2006.

In 2007, he starred opposite Scott Wolf in the Los Angeles production of Neil LaBute's play Fat Pig, winning positive reviews for his depiction of a competitive alpha-male friend.

In 2007, Pine turned down a role in a film adaptation of White Jazz to accept the part of James T. Kirk in the 2009 Star Trek film, which was released to critical and viewer acclaim in May of that year.

That same month, he made a brief appearance promoting the film on Saturday Night Live with co-stars Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy.

His roles also include Bo Barrett in Bottle Shock (2008) Cinderella's Prince in Into the Woods (2014); Jack Ryan in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014); Bernie Webber in The Finest Hours (2016); and Robert the Bruce in Outlaw King (2018).

He portrayed real-life Napa Valley vintner Bo Barrett in the 2008 film Bottle Shock.

He is best known for his roles as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot film series (2009–2016) and Steve Trevor in the DC Extended Universe films Wonder Woman (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984.

During the rest of the summer of 2009, he appeared in the Los Angeles production of the Beau Willimon play Farragut North.

In the fall of 2009, Pine began filming the action film Unstoppable, directed by Tony Scott and written by Mark Bomback, which was released in November 2010.

In the film, he played a young train conductor who helped a veteran railroad engineer (Denzel Washington) stop an unmanned half mile long runaway freight train carrying toxic liquids and poisonous gases from wiping out a nearby city.

The Hollywood Reporter named Pine as one of the young male actors who are "pushing—or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List."

The film sees Shatner interview Pine about his career and how it felt to take the role of Kirk for the 2009 movie.

Their interview features a scene where the pair arm wrestles; pictures of this incident "went viral" leading to Internet headlines such as "Kirk v. Kirk" and others.

He has also starred in Unstoppable (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Hell or High Water (2016), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), and Wish (2023).

Pine made his directorial debut with Poolman (2023).

Pine appeared in the Los Angeles production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore during the summer of 2010, for which he won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle's lead appearance award.

Pine filmed the romantic comedy This Means War with Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy during the fall of 2010 in Vancouver.

In 2011, Pine sat down with William Shatner, the actor who originated the role of Captain Kirk more than forty years earlier, for the feature length documentary The Captains, which Shatner wrote and directed.