Timothy Olyphant reflects on failed audition for Star Trek's Captain Kirk

Timothy Olyphant has reflected on a failed audition for the Star Trek reboot in 2009.

Towards the end of the noughties, J.J. Abrams sought to reboot the Star Trek franchise with a younger cast.

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Eventually, Chris Pine was selected to play Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto played Spock, Zoe Saldana played Uhura, Simon Pegg played Scotty, Jon Cho played Sulu and Karl Urban played Doc McCoy.

There were numerous actors in the running for Kirk at the time including Olyphant, who was informed by the director that the younger star, Pine, had been selected.

READ MORE: Chris Pine in the dark about Star Trek 4

"Here’s what I can tell you about Star Trek..," he said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

"I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with J.J. Abrams and he’s just a lovely, lovely guy. And just a lovely, lovely audition process. Somewhere in there, I was auditioning for Doc, he’s like, ‘I already got a guy for Doc, so I don’t need you for that, but I don’t have a Kirk'.

"I believe it was one of those things where it’s like they might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger, and was having a hard time finding somebody younger. And somewhere along the line, J.J. called and said, ‘I found a guy, younger, who’s really good'."

Pine would play Kirk in Star Trek, Star Trek into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond.

No hard feelings between Olyphant and Pine

One thing is for certain, there are no hard feelings between the pair, as Olyphant was glowing in his appraisal of Pine both as an actor and a man.

"I have since then met Chris Pine and I am a huge fan of him both on and off screen," the Justified actor revealed.

"I love that guy. He’s a good dude. This sounds very show business-y, but I had the honour, we’re going to say honour, to go to the Golden Globes one year … and I spent most of the evening at the bar with Chris Pine. Just really adored him. What a good guy. I really like his work. He’s one of those guys who makes it look simple and easy."