Although you'll be hearing a lot more about Anton Yelchin in 2009 when fans will see him reboot the famous role of Chekov in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, Yelchin can now be seen starring alongside Robert Downey Jr. in director Jon Poll's comedic drama Charlie Bartlett, about a young high schooler who becomes a self-appointed psychiatrist to his schoolmates. While out on the junket circuit to promote Charlie Bartlett, Yelchin dished the dirt on how he approached the character of Charlie Bartlett, working with Robert Downey Jr., what it's like to play the famous Pavel Chekov in the new Star Trek, the feel of the Trek set, and whether he's met original Chekov actor, Walter Koenig.

Anton Yelchin on how he approached the character Charlie Bartlett:

"Well, I don’t know. I didn't really look at Charlie Bartlett as a teenager, because I think it would be obnoxious of me to look at something like, ‘He is a teenage character [so] I shall play him as a teenager.’ He is seventeen and I was seventeen when we shot it, so he’s the same age. So obviously a lot of the things I could associate with just by default because we’re both the same age. But then the incredible thing about Charlie is that he’s so optimistic and honest - usually when you get a character that is driven by his desire to be popular, it’s not always a good thing. But in this case, he kind of , just by virtue of the fact that he is who he is, he turns it around and becomes popular by helping people. It becomes a totally positive thing.

He does start off by selling Ritalin, which is like any natural businessman will realize that you have to do something exciting before people will begin to start to pay attention to you. The great thing is that he uses that to help other people. He gets his joy from helping people and the popularity he gets from that, he gets it legitimately. I think in the film he realizes he has to sacrifice some of that because he’s not doing everything correctly. It’s about him realizing that he still is just kind of like a kid. He doesn't make all of the right decisions. Even though he makes an incredible amount of correct decisions, they’ re not all correct and that there is [more] growing up that he still has to do. You can't be seventeen and be an adult, and have everything together and know everything that is going on."

Yelchin on the relationships within Charlie Bartlett:

"I think one of the really interesting relationships is between Charlie and Principle Gardner, both have to grow up in their own way. Gardner has to learn to be more of an adult and Charlie has to learn to be less of an adult. But they balance each other out. Through each other they learn what they need to be and they’re very similar. I remember we talked about this a lot, [that] they are very similar people. This is who Gardner would have been when he was younger. It’s almost like I would see these scenes like a chess game, like a duel between each scene, Gardner, and Charlie is like one of them. Charlie wins, and one of them Gardner wins, [and] one of them Charlie wins again. It was interesting, because even though Charlie would have a huge victory and then Gardner would win a series of little battles. Then Charlie would have another huge victory and so on and so forth until they realized that there was no point in fighting. Obviously, figuratively speaking, there’s no point in fighting anymore. It really is [that] a lot of people grow up way too fast and take themselves way too seriously too quickly. The sad thing is that they don't do it in a sort of benevolent way, the way that Charlie Bartlett does it. They’re growing up too fast for all of the wrong reasons and they are doing things that aren’t necessarily, they just don't realize - the point of being a kid is that you only get to be a kid once. You don't need to get out of it faster than you should. That is one of the great things that Charlie learns, is that it’s alright to just be his age. You don’t have to take care of everyone and learn to take care of yourself. It’s okay to just... whatever, be seventeen and not have to have the responsibilities of a thirty year old."

On whether he talked to physiatrists or therapists to capture the accuracy of the conversations:

"No. I mean I don’t to say [it would be] be totally counter productive because the whole point is that he is not actually a therapist. He operates on a level of - he looks up what he needs to look up so he can prescribe the correct medication. But then he operates on a very practical, kind of human level where he just looks at a problem and judges it based on his own experiences and his understanding of kids around him and his own understating of what he is feeling. So I don't know if that would’ve necessarily been the correct group of people to go to see [in relation to] how I wanted to approach the therapy sessions that Charlie has. I feel like they had to have a lot more honesty. They didn't come from the same place as a psychiatric evaluation."

Charlie Bartlett Therapy and Trek Talk with Anton Yelchin Page 2