Chris Pine has remembered his "courageous" friend and Star Trek co-star Anton Yelchin, sharing his sadness over the actor's untimely death as he introduced a new documentary focused on the late star's short life.
The 27-year-old actor was crushed by his Jeep at his home in Los Angeles in June 2016.
Pine introduced footage from touching new film Love, Antosha, directed by Garret Price, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery – where Yelchin is buried – ahead of a special screening of Star Trek commemorating the 10th anniversary of the sci-fi film’s debut.
“Obviously we’re here for Anton; he was one of my dear friends and I felt like I was only getting a chance to know him a better one when he passed,” the 38-year-old told the crowd.
“The film is incredible and I think it’ll show you all different sides of the guy that I knew – this curious, fascinating, complex, strange little dude."
The actor, who plays Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot saga, went on to reveal how he and his castmates – including Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg and Zachary Quinto – treated Yelchin like a little brother.
"We saw him grow up and continue to get stranger, more curious – (about) music and literature and photography. You’ll see all that in here,” Pine said of the documentary.
"I think it’s a great legacy for whom I had a tremendous amount of respect and for this courageous young man who just had zero fear and boundless, endless positivity and, an energy for life.”
Pine later told Variety that it was “really difficult” to sit down for Price's documentary and talk about his late friend, because he'd never lost someone who was that close to him before.
“It was doubly difficult, but also joyous in the sense that I got to remember and talk about a guy that I really liked and was interested by, and every time I got a chance to hang out with him, always showed us a strange new side of himself that made us laugh," he candidly shared.
