Watch: Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks talk character-driven 'People Like Us'

Why the stars of 'Star Trek' and 'Hunger Games' gravitated toward the sibling drama

By Geoff Berkshire Friday, Jun 29, 2012 9:58 PM

Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks have both put in their time in big franchise movies -- Pine as Captain Kirk in the recent "Star Trek" reboot and Banks as Effie Trinket in "Hunger Games" (you may also remember her stint as J. Jonah Jameson's assistant in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" films). But this summer they headline a very different kind of movie: the character-driven drama "People Like Us."

In the film, a cocky young salesman (Pine) reluctantly travels home to Los Angeles to deal with the death of his father. Once he's there, he learns that his father had a second "family" including a now adult daughter (Banks) with a child of her own. The half-siblings take tentative steps toward forming a relationship, complicated by the fact that only Pine's character knows they share the same father.

It's an unusual movie for the summer season, but as Pine and Banks explain they didn't sign up for the movie based on a release date. They signed on because of the script and the characters.

And of course both actors will still return to the franchises they helped launch: Pine's "Star Trek II" is due in theaters May 17, 2013, while "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is scheduled for Nov. 22, 2013.

"People Like Us" opens in theaters June 29

Geoff Berkshire
Contributor

Geoff Berkshire lives in Los Angeles and writes about film and television. His work has appeared in Variety, the L.A. Times, and Premiere, among other publications. He is the former national entertainment editor and film critic for Metromix.com.