Josh Lucas is Captain Pike?

By Matt Holmes / January 21, 2013

We've heard for a while now that the 11th, the biggest and probably the most controversial film in the Star Trek franchise may not focus on Captain Kirk as the main character. The way I understand it is that the new film is going to be something of an origin story as we see how this crew came together, with the beginning of the film focusing on Captain Pike (the lead character from the original pilot of the 60's series) and his second in command, Mr. Spock. Pike was originally played in the original 60s pilot by Jeffrey Hunter...

In conjunction with this, Captain Kirk will be just graduating from the Starfleet Academy and we may even see him do the Kobashi Maru test (which is stupid really because the myth of it works better, and we all know how he beat it). Something to do with time travel and the Romulans coming back to try and kill Kirk and destroy Earth, with Leonard Nimoy returning as an older Spock to guide Pike and the new Spock. The film will most likely end with the new crew assembled, the new Kirk in place starting to bond with the new Spock and Pike possibly going off for his own adventures which could see him return for a sequel or spin-off show. Or something like that anyway. That's just piecing together what we have on this project so far. So who for Pike then? We know that Abrams takes this role very seriously and originally wanted a huge star to play the part. Tom Cruise was heavily rumored for the role at one point, just like Russell Crowe was for the villain. Eventually Abrams settled with an A minus star in Eric Bana, so how about a B plus actor for Pike?

His name is Josh Lucas, an underrated 36 year old American actor who appeared as one of Bale's 'friends' in American Psycho, was the lead in Poseidon with roles in A Beautiful Mind, An Unfinished Life, Sweet Home Alabama and Hulk on his C.V. He has featured in secondary roles in movies for the last seven years and at 36, is the perfect age for the Captain before Kirk. It's intresting that at one time when we expected Kirk to be 36 years old, Lucas' name was one of the front runners for the part. Nothing confirmed as of yet, it's just rumor but I like this guy. Here's a clip from Will & Grace, where the guy is making fun of himself. It's funny how he says he was likened to Aaron Eckhart. I once said Lucas was my second favourite guy for the role of Dent in The Dark Knight... a role that eventually went to Eckhart who he jokes on here. Sorry about the bad audio...

source - iesb