The loss of Anton Yelchin in a random car accident was a shock to everybody. It's clear that those who knew him are still having trouble dealing with it. Star Trek Beyond 's Zachary Quinto was a recent guest on late night TV as part of the promotion of the new film, and the actor seemed truly at a loss when trying to talk about the tragedy. It's clear that he viewed the man who played Chekov not only as a colleague but also as a friend.
When Zachary Quinto came out on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the conversation went almost immediately to the host offering his condolences to Quinto for the death of Anton Yelchin. Seeing the actor try to talk about it gets a little emotional. What's worse is that Quinto points out that the release of Star Trek Beyond was already going to be an emotional experience, since it was going to be the first Star Trek movie released since the death of Leonard Nimoy last year.
We already knew that this would be a bittersweet experience because of the loss of Leonard [Nimoy] last year, but this has just been absolutely devastating for all of us. ... I think our goal has to be to just celebrate his incredible life and honor him as much as we can. It was a terrible loss not only to us personally, but I think to the industry and audiences. He was such a talent. I think we take it for granted in a lot of ways because we genuinely love each other so much. But we are truly intertwined inextricably and I think we always will be.
It's clear from Zachary Quinto's comments that the cast of the Star Trek movies are more than simply actors working together. The man who plays Spock points out that the first new Star Trek movie was started in 2007, which means that these actors have been working together for nearly a decade. Due to the fact that Star Trek has such a massive fan base, these actors are very much attached to these roles. This likely connects them all together more than you'd likely see from most casts. Check out Quinto's complete comments below.
We're sure we'll be thinking about Anton Yelchin's loss as soon as the actor comes on screen for the first time in Star Trek Beyond. We'll miss seeing him as Chekov in the future, but we'll also miss all the other roles that he'll never get to play.
