Chris Pine has been promoting his Netflix film, Outlaw King, for a few months. The way Netflix has put Pine out there makes me think that Netflix is going to make an Oscar campaign push for the film, and maybe for Pine as Best Actor. I don’t know though – is the Best Actor field kind of crowded this year? I don’t have a sense of how the acting categories are going to pan out – I’ll have a better idea by the beginning of December. One thing is for sure: Bradley Cooper is an early frontrunner. Anyway, Chris Pine is trying. And the film is getting attention, most because Chris did full-frontal nudity as Robert the Bruce. People have been talking about Pine’s tree (let’s just call it that). And Pine would like to say something about the Pine Tree discussion. Some highlights from his interview with E! News:
He loved filming in Scotland: “I love the geography of it. It’s a beautiful, beautiful culture full of exactly what you’d expect: rolling green fields, huge cliffs overlooking the ocean, falling waterfalls.”
The conversation about the Pine Tree: “There’s certainly a double standard, because nobody would talk about it if it were a woman. I would say, ‘Why? Because women are expected to do it and men aren’t? Why aren’t men expected to do it? Why haven’t men done it before? Does it show vulnerability? Does it exhibit this vestigial, puritanical shame over the human body and human intimacy? Yet violence, self-flagellation and hurting one another we can do—because that’s what we’ve been taught culturally is OK?’ I don’t know. It certainly seems to be an odd thing.” Pine has seen some of the headlines, admitting one was “pithy and kind of fun and cute.”
But he doesn’t want to engage in actual conversations about the Pine Tree: “I don’t really give a s–t, quite honestly. I’m kind of embarrassed it actually has to be a thing to talk about.”
He’d rather talk about how humans are murderous beasts: “What was resonant for me was the fact that for millennia, humans being have killed one another for clans or communities—for nations or states, for ideologies, for religion. Animals do it in the animal kingdom. Death and killing, murder and slaughter have happened forever. It seemingly will probably happen until we go away. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing; it just seems to be how we deal with certain things. I think the most interesting thing for me in this—in the depiction of this violence, but also in this intimacy and vulnerability of family and family ties—is we do many things in the name of freedom, religion, country, patriotism. There are certain prices one has to pay for that, and this meditates on those prices: the loss of family, of brothers, of fathers, of clans, of communities, of many things that make life worth living. And we do it with the tip of the sword. Those are things we’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to re-show the human race what we’ve been doing—what we’ve done before—so we hopefully can make better decisions, or more informed decisions, in the future.”
I love Chris Pine and I’ve been his defender for several years now, but a few things bugged me about this interview. One, Scotland’s “culture” isn’t about rolling hills??? Can you really say that a country’s culture IS their landscape?
But really, the thing that bugs me the most is all of the Pine Tree discussion. The truth is that if an actress does nudity, IT TOTALLY GETS ATTENTION. If anything, Hollywood has become more puritanical about nudity over the past decade than it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Nudity in Hollywood films has become increasingly rare, for actors AND actresses. And yes, people would be asking the actress about it too, especially if she had the same kind of high profile as Pine. He’s being too cute by half there, even though I know he’s trying to be, like, a feminist ally or something? It also seems like… he’s trying not to admit that the Pine Tree discussion will help the movie, and more people (women) will sit down and watch it just because they heard about him going Full Tree.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Yeah the culture comment was a bit off but some people think the Scottish landscape is part of some sort of romantic part of our culture and in some ways it is, esp in our poetry, art etc..
And yes I would climb his tree all day long. I’ll see myself out.
Remember when Hollywood / media wouldn’t stop talking about Michael Fassbender’s wang when “Shame” was released?
What world is he living in? Women get it all thrown at them…positive, negative, jokes, criticisms, accusations, stereotyped, shamed, and it’s forever. They live with that shit until, ‘… the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves.’ Ignoramus.
Can’t wait to hear this knob attempt a Scottish accent. Is there some reason they could cast an actual Scottish person for a film about Robert the Bruce?
I don’t know, by all accounts his Scottish accent is pretty decent in the film. Simon Pegg is married to a Scottish lass, so she could have hooked him up with some peeps for authenticity. 🙂
I just thought it was funny that “people are talking” and yet there are only four comments on this post so far. Not sure so many folks care, Chris!
I remember all the fuzz about Scarlet Johansson’s nudity in her 2013 movie “under the skin”. It clearly helps the movie to get attention.
Also a lot of male actors have done full frontal scene. America had always use sex to sell, now what I wonder is “is it still relevant in this me too era ?”
I am so tired of men pulling this crap. Y’all have been getting to look at pron in mainstream movies for YEARS. YEARS. We get a little bit of something similar, and yeah we get excited. It’s not a “double standard.” Get over your damn self, homie, you’re not even hot.
We see naked women all the time in films but never see a man’s privates-I can see why it’s a big deal. People still talk about Richard Gere a million years ago. I think the women who attract attention for full frontal in films now are people the media likes to pick apart-Sarah Silverman, Lena Dunham-women who aren’t steretypically “hot”-so that tells you all you need to know right there.
When women do nude scenes, it is a big deal. It always becomes part of the conversation in whatever movie is being promoted, they talk about the woman’s “topless scene” or the “full frontal scene.” The media hones in on it and won’t let go. I’ve seen actresses have to answer questions what it was like to film a nude scene all the time. Men get asked, but it’s not made to be as a big of a deal as when a woman gets naked in a movie.
However I think he’s saying it’s rare for men to do a full frontal nude scene. Sure we see their butts all the time but usually they wear a sock or whatever. I think Chris is experiencing what it’s like to be a female actress getting constantly asked about his nude scene. It’s annoying! And degrading. Welcome to the club.
“Going full tree” is my new favorite sentence.
LOL! Mine, too! 🙂
His comment on nudity is fine.
What he is saying is that nudity (breasts and pubic region) is expected of women in movies that have those type of scenes but for men, their “member” is rarely or never shown. It is completely true. It may be a fair point that actresses are often asked about their nude scenes in movie. But, it is an absolutely accurate point on Pine’s part that it is being treated as such a big deal in this case because it is not the norm for a male actor.
Women usually are naked in films more than men. Especially in horror movies which I was very pleased that the newest Halloween movie didnt have any of their female characters running around naked/topless.