LOS ANGELES – Chris Pine is carving out a career for himself playing military men.
It started with taking on the role of Capt. James T. Kirk for the relaunch of the "Star Trek" franchise. And it continues with his latest film in which he plays coxswain Bernie Webber, the man who commanded a small wooden Coast Guard vessel through hurricane winds and giant waves to save the crew of a sinking oil tanker in 1952.
It wasn't the uniform that caught his eye. Pine was drawn to "The Finest Hours" by the driving action and uncomplicated story.
"There is a simple elegance to it, and I just liked that. It's about ordinary men doing extraordinary things," Pine said. "It's also driven by a very strong romance."
This story is based on actual events, but Pine was unable to talk to Webber, who died in 2009. That meant he had to depend on research, which revealed Webber dealt with a lot of issues, such as his brothers being World War II heroes while he never saw duty outside the United States.
Much of Pine's insight to Webber came from an audio recording he was given in which the hero talks about his life and that eventful mission.
"The tape was Bernie talking to a small-town newspaper 15 years later," Pine said. "You could tell he was so bored of talking about it. He's just a by-the-books regular Joe. It was very illuminating for me, and I drew whatever I could out of that."
Pine saw Webber as a man who never got the same attention from his father that his brothers did and eventually became the black sheep of the family. That changed on that fateful night in 1952 when he led three men on the rescue mission. The act is still considered the greatest small boat rescue in Coast Guard history.
