Star Trek 2‘s Chris Pine is happy to have Benedict Cumberbatch aboard for the J.J. Abrams sequel.

Pine was filled with praise for Cumberbatch. “Benedict is fantastic,” he said. “He’s just so good, He’s super talented, and we are more than grateful to have him onboard.”

“Benedict has got this intensity about him, and he’s obviously extremely intelligent and articulate,” said Pine. “His vocal quality is something else. He obviously is, unlike many of us, like, an actually trained actor. He actually studied for it.

“[You'll love] everything. He’s really talented. I think it’s all going to be love, a mad amount of love.”

Another Star Trek 2 newcomer, Alice Eve, is also thrilled to be working with Cumberbatch. “I’m very excited to work with him again,” she said. “He’s so very funny, Ben. I don’t know if you remember his character in Starter for 10, but he was so funny. Like King of the Geeks, but he did it so well, and I found a lot of that hard to get through because he was so funny. I like him very much.”

Del Toro and Abrams are still trying to work out a deal to get Del Toro for the Trek sequel. “Well, we’re just in negotiations,” said Abrams. “We’re in discussions. It’s not even negotiations—just in discussion. But I would love to work with him. I’ve wanted to work with him for years, and this felt like a good opportunity.”

Not unexpectedly, Abrams wouldn’t talk about what role Del Toro might take in Star Trek 2. “It’s too early to talk about what the role is,” Abrams said, “but he’s such an amazing actor. He’s so versatile. He could do anything.”

In other Star Trek 2 news, Chris Pine spoke about the possibility of a William Shatner return. “It just isn’t, quite honestly, my decision to make,” he said. “I think Mr. Shatner will forever be Captain Kirk. I think it would be, certainly, an interesting thing to bring him back. I don’t know if he necessarily wants to at this point or not. But it’s not my decision.”

Photos, clips and interview excerpts are beginning to emerge ahead of next week’s Shatnerpalooza extravaganza, which will air on EPIX and kick off next Thursday with Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet. An exclusive photo is shown here in a thumbnail-sized edition and the full-sized photo can be seen by clicking on that thumbnail.

The Captains features “in-depth interviews and vintage Star Trek footage with actors Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard), Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko), Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer), and Chris Pine (Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek 2009).” Shot on location in Toronto, London, New York, Princeton and Los Angeles, so that “Shatner could capture his fellow Captains and peers in their home environments, the HD film exposes the Captains in all their “humanity”, stripped down to the barest of earth-bound qualities and heavenly thoughts. [The Captains] offers a rare and candid glimpse into the inner sanctum of each actor. The film is grand in its sincerity and reflective of the passion and compassion each Captain demonstrated over the last forty-give years on both small and large screens. The Captains is all about the working challenges and personal rewards each actor garnered from the groundbreaking role of Starship helmer.”

“My hope is to delve deeply into these actors’ psyches, find out more about them so you can… see what common denominator there is among us as actors that brought [us] to this worldwide renown as part of Star Trek,” sad Shatner.

The Captains was based on hours of interviews with the Star Trek actors. They spoke about why they got involved in acting and Star Trek and what working on Star Trek meant to them. “I remember a play I did in a camp that my mother ran,” said Shatner. “I was in a play about the Holocaust. I played a kid [saying goodbye to his dog], because the Germans were taking me. When the play was over, I looked out there and the audience was crying – and I took my bow and my father came and held me and praised me. I’m convinced that was the moment I thought hey, this is fantastic. This has got me places with my father and the audience that I’d never dreamt of. I’m convinced that’s what started me on my acting thing, this moment in time.”

For some actors, acting took priority over everything, even family. “I remember once sitting around a dinner table with colleagues, actors, directors and hearing one of them say ‘I love my job, but my family always comes first, always,’” said Stewart. “And a voice inside my head said ‘not me.’”

Brooks spoke about being the only black Star Trek Captain, paying homage to those who went before him. “Without Paul Robson, I [wouldn't be] on Star Trek,” he said. “That is to say I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here without Brock Peters. I wouldn’t be here without Muhammad Ali, I wouldn’t be here without Sidney Poitier, I wouldn’t be here without William Warfield. I could go on and on. That’s the fact of the matter and I’m not fooled.”

For Mulgrew, acting came with a price, as she had two very important jobs to do at once and inevitably, as many women find out, in that case, one will suffer. “I think that the great difference is that the female is wired once she has her young to take care of them and to raise them, and I couldn’t do it well,” she said. “You know, there were sixteen to eighteen-hour days on that set for seven years, and I had two little kids. Believe me; they resented it to this day. They never watched it, they disdained it, they had nothing but dripping contempt for it. And I don’t blame them. So the woman cannot have it all. But I’ve watched you guys and you guys can.”

Bakula spoke of aging and his gratitude for his acting career. “The longer I’m here and the more I see, the less I think about [growing older], because so many people don’t get to have what I’ve had as long as I have,” he said. “So many people don’t have as much as I have, and so I think as you get older, you know people talk about perspective, but I think you get more grateful about it every day.”

Pine, the newest Star Trek captain, spoke about his love for theater, a love shared by many actors. “What I love about theater is that there’s an ephemeral quality to it,” he said. “It happens, it comes together, it exists and then it goes away.”

The Captains airs next Friday on EPIX at 8 PM. For those whose cable systems don’t carry EPIX, a free two-week trial (details in a future article as the time gets closer) is being offered which requires no credit card and will enable U.S. visitors to watch The Captains and other Shatnerpalooza events online. For fans outside of the U.S., word is that a DVD of The Captains will be released this autumn.

Pine, along with Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves, are all under consideration for the role of Robocop.

Rumor has it that the actor best-known to Star Trek fans as the young Captain Kirk is the top candidate for the role.

The Captains, a documentary on the actors who have played Star Trek captains over the years on the Star Trek televised series, includes Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula and Chris Pine.

“He’s shy,” said Shatner, referring to Pine, who played Kirk in 2009′s Star Trek XI. “So the way I started the interview, I put out a table and chairs outside the Paramount gates, and arm-wrestled with him. That was the beginning of my interview with him. I think it broke the ice, that’s for sure.”

The Captains will air on the EPIX channel on July 21.

If Pine joins Mud, he would be in the lead role of Mud, a fugitive from the law.

In Mud, two teenaged boys find Mud, and try to help the fugitive escape from an island located in the Mississippi River. If Pine signs, he would play Mud, who is described as a character that is both a “dangerous criminal” and a character “worthy of redemption.”

It’s early days yet for Mud, and TrekToday will update when more information becomes available.

Chris Pine will be appearing in a new Jack Ryan film and he is expected to begin work on it in January, which means he’ll need to be finished with his Star Trek work by then.

“I’m told the hope is to start production on the Ryan film sometime in January,” said Deadline‘s Mike Fleming. “J.J. Abrams is busy finishing and will be promoting Super 8, but then he’s expected to be back at the helm of the Star Trek sequel, which has Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof finishing the screenplay. That film has a June 29, 2012 release date. Pine would then move right into Jack Ryan.”

According to a petition on Facebook, the eight actors that are thus far being considered for the roles of Tetsuo and Kaneda in Akira are all non-Asian-Americans.

One actor familiar to Star Trek fans is on that list of non-Asian-American actors. Chris Pine is one of the five actors being considered for the role of Kaneda.

“If not in a film called Akira, for characters named Kaneda and Tetsuo, when will Asian-Americans get to star in a Warner Bros film?” asks the petition.

Takei tweeted his opinion on the matter. “Akira epic fail,” he said. “All actors up for Kaneda & Tetsuo are white?” He then asked his followers to “Sign & RT the [virtual] petition.”

The Ryan picture, tentatively titled Moscow, was supposed to bring the Jack Ryan franchise back to life, but issues with finding a writer have caused the delay. Steve Zaillian, who wrote the 1994 Clear and Present Danger, was slated to rewrite the script, but has had second thoughts regarding the project. Paramount is now interviewing again for a writer for the project.

Meanwhile, Paramount hopes to begin production on Star Trek XII by this autumn, so that the sequel will be ready for its June 29, 2012 release date. J.J. Abrams was asked how realistic that release date was and he told ComingSoon.net, “We’re working on the story. That’s probably more important than the release date at this point, but at the moment, we’re not going to change anything.”

Multiple sources have informed TrekToday that not only does Pine not have a Facebook page, but that he is not to be found on Twitter or any other social networking site unlike several of his co-stars.

TrekMovie.com has posted a response from co-writer Roberto Orci, who, when told about the posting, said, “Wish it was true that he had read a great script so we wouldn’t have to finish it!”

Meanwhile, those who get their jollies by faking celebrity sites, might want to have a look at a recent law that was passed in California, where impersonating another person through a website or other electronic means will lead to a fine, or will land the impersonator in the slammer. An explanation of the new law is located here. In addition to the penalties laid out in the new law, the celebrity can elect to bring a civil action against the impersonator as well.

So – while Captain Kirk *may* have a love interest (would he be Captain Kirk if he didn’t?), fans will have to wait for the movie to find out for sure.

An extra thanks goes out to Anthony Pascale for the news regarding the California law concerning impersonation.