Overdrive, directed by Antonia Negret, will feature the brothers who “find more trouble than they are looking for in the South of France.”

Filming for Overdrive will begin October 29 in Marseilles.

Urban has other irons in the fire, but his mind is looking ahead to Star Trek 2. “I’ve got Priest coming out next week,” he said, “it’s a kickass, post-apocalyptic vampire western, and then I’m going to start working on a new Star Trek film towards the end of the year. You know, when J.J. [Abrams] is ready. When he says, ‘Let’s come and play’.”

But will Abrams return for the sequel? “I guess nobody knows,” said Urban. “I literally do not know anything. I haven’t read any of the scripts – and I’m fine with that. Yeah, just tell me when and where and I’ll be there!

“I’m just really looking forward to getting back with the guys and having fun, because we had so much fun making the first one,” said Urban. “And I have no doubt that Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and J.J. will do their very best to make sure that they make the next one even better than the first.”

Urban’s latest movie, Priest, opens tomorrow.

The question that the Star Trek actors seem to be asked the most recently concerns the start date of filming for the next Trek movie. According to Urban, “I’m hearing that it’s going to be September or November this year.”

Like everyone else, Urban is waiting to hear if J.J. Abrams will be returning as director for Star Trek 2. “I certainly hope so,” he said, when asked if he thought that Abrams would return. “He’s a phenomenal director and we had such a great time working with him on the first one so I really hope so.”

Priest is the story of a world ravaged by war between humans and vampires.

According to Urban, Priest is more than just a vampire flick. “It’s a post-apocalyptic, futuristic, vampire western,” he said. “It’s about a man who chooses to go against the system, to walk away from his life and everything that he has worked and fought for in order to do what is morally right. That’s the heart of the film.”

Preparation for Priest included plenty of training for Urban. “…it was a massive physical undertaking,” said Urban. “Paul Bettany and I underwent extensive training for the fight and action sequences. Blood was drawn. We were fortunate to work with some extremely talented people whose job it was to make us look good.”

Urban enjoyed working on the movie. “It was fun,” he said. “I had a really great time working with Paul,” he said. “He’s a professional. He’s very charismatic, witty, and a real gentleman. Even when I accidentally crushed his fingers while shooting the epic train fight.”

Priest opens in the U.K. on May 11th and in the U.S. two days later.

The outfit is based on the 2000AD comic’s Dredd look, complete with helmet, which Urban will not be removing. “I think somewhere along the line [Sylvester] Stallone‘s film [in 1995] was a missed opportunity,” said Urban. “As soon as he took the helmet off, the enigma was blown.”

According to the official synopsis of the movie, “Dredd takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot – if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring Dredd to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.”

Dredd is currently shooting in South Africa. The film will be released sometime in 2012.

The scene featuring Urban and Willis began with Urban picking up Willis, throwing him across the room and smashing pieces of furniture. “That was a good day at the office,” said Urban about the fight scene, which actually took three weeks of training and ten days of shooting. “Bruce and I went for it, and it was no-holds-barred, and he gave as good at he got.”

But Urban discovered that the fight left him damaged. “I had to do six weeks” of physical therapy, Urban said. “It wasn’t until I began to demand a high level of performance from my body, that I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, my spine is completely out of alignment.’

“It turned out that some of the vertebrae in my neck were crushed. I had a swollen shoulder tendon (and) some deep tissue issues behind my (shoulder blade). That was all a result of the fight.”

But what about Willis? “I think Bruce came out all right,” said Urban, “so I’m certainly forwarding the bills to Bruce.”

Being a long-term Star Trek fan gave Urban a different perspective on playing McCoy than might have been true for actors who were not fans of the original series. “Yeah, well I have to say that it was daunting from the perspective that I was already a long-term fan of the show,” said Urban. “I was one of the older cast members who actually was into it and knew the original series, so for me to approach such an iconic character that was so wonderfully-crafted by DeForest Kelley for over forty years was daunting to say the least.”

Making sure that today’s McCoy was connected back to the McCoy played by Kelley was important to Urban. “…the challenge for me was… having this appreciation of it, I felt that it was essential that there be some continuity between what he’d done so wonderfully well with the older version of the character and what the younger version that I play, there had to be a link between the two,” said Urban. “So it was really about identifying and establishing the essence of what that character was and imbuing a younger version of that and making sure that he [was] Bones and identifiably Bones.”

Urban is ready for the sequel, due out in 2012. “I think we’re going to start that film mid next year, May or June, going to start the next one, and I’m super-excited about that,” he said. “Obviously, the first film was phenomenally received and I just can’t wait to see what J.J. [Abrams] and Roberto [Orci] and Alex [Kurtzman] are going to cook up for the sequel.”

In the meanwhile, Urban’s latest film RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous) in which he plays CIA agent William Cooper, is due out next week. In RED, Cooper has to clean up a loose end (Frank Moses, played by Bruce Willis) for the spy agency.

Unlike Hollywood-based actors, those from Australia and New Zealand can’t be as picky in what projects they choose to work, but that works in their favor. “Why a lot of Australasian actors are finding success offshore is because the industries [at home] aren’t that big,” explained Urban, “but it forces you as an actor to accept work in all the mediums to make a living and it strengthens you as an artist.”

Plus – Urban feels that Hollywood actors focus on the wrong thing and lose focus. “Typically Hollywood actors get top-heavy very quickly,” he said. “They’re focusing all their energy on their managers and their stylists, their agents, their dieticians – all this focus on everything but the craft.”

Happy to commute from Auckland, Urban doesn’t even mind the necessary plane rides back and forth to Los Angeles. “It’s actually the easiest thing,” he said, “you hop on a plane, fall asleep and wake up in Los Angeles.”

Urban will be seen next in Red, due to release this month, as an assassin, followed by next year’s 3D thriller Priest. In addition, Urban will take on the title role in Dredd and will reprise his role of Dr. McCoy in 2012′s Star Trek sequel.

Urban is backing the New Zealand Actors Equity, which has joined with Australian-based unions such as the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in calling for a boycott of Sir Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit movies.

The boycott of The Hobbit was called because the movie is a non-union production,” said Urban. “[The] NZ Actors Equity has my full support in their struggle to gain a higher standard of contract for New Zealand performers.

“If [Jackson] has the opportunity to help improve the working conditions for actors in New Zealand,” said Urban, “to bring us more in line with our colleagues in Australia, the UK, and the US, I hope this is a dialogue which he would engage in, and an endeavor which he would support.”

According to Jackson, the demands of MEAA, which include wanting a union negotiated agreement covering all performers in The Hobbit, “cannot be agreed to, or even considered, by law.” According to Jackson, his options include “involve closing The Hobbit down, or more likely shifting the production to Europe.”

Other actors, including Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Sir Ian McKellan, all reportedly involved in The Hobbit, support the MEAA‘s stance, according to an MEAA official.

Urban explained that there was a reason they would be able to make the film darker than the 1995 version. “We’ve got the benefit of modern filmmaking and technology to help us,” he said.

Plus, keeping Dredd’s looks under wraps will help in that effort. In this version of Dredd, Judge Dredd’s helmet is not coming off. “I think somewhere along the line Stallone’s film was a missed opportunity,” explained Urban. “As soon as he took the helmet off, the enigma was blown.”

But keeping that helmet on is a challenge for Urban, as far as acting goes. “You’re taught as an actor that if you take away the eyes, you have to think about what you’re left with – there’s the voice; there’s body language. How a character does what he does speaks volumes. So those are the tools I will have to employ.”

Urban praised the script, which he considers a “fresh” take on the comic book character. “Alex Garland has done a fantastic job of writing a script that’s faithful to the world Wagner created,” he said, “yet completely fresh in its execution.”

Dredd is due out in 2012.