Bana Shaves Head For Nero + Pegg Loses The Blond

Two Star Trek stars have been spotted sporting new looks for their for roles in the 23rd century. The most stark of these is Eric Bana, who plays the villain Nero. Bana showed up for the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Monday with a shaved head. In addition, Simon Pegg (the new Scotty) was scene on British TV last week without his usual blond look.

Here is Bana on the Tonight Show


Bana: Feb 25, 2008


Bana: Feb 19, 2008 (before he began on Star Trek)

Leno asked Bana what was up with his new look, and after joking it was for head lice, Bana said:

it is for a secret role, as if the Star Trek fans don’t know what its for

Yes we do Eric. You can watch Bana on The Tonight Show at NBC.com

Pegg goes dark
Simon Pegg’s usual look is blond, but in the picture below from his recent appearance on the Encore post-show at this year’s Brit Awards you can see that he gets closer to the original Scotty’s look with a darker style (but not black as it was originally with Doohan). And although he didn’t shave his head, Pegg did shave his beard. Although there is some stubble below, TrekMovie.com has been told that his Scotty is clean shaven.


Pegg: Feb 21, 2008


Pegg: Dec 5, 2007 (before he began on Star Trek)

BONUS BANA: Playing villain is ‘liberating’
In a pre-head shaving interview to promote The Other Boleyn Girl, Bana talked about how he has to shut out all the pressures of playing weighty roles and focus on the character. For Trek, Bana tells ReelTalk (see video below)

It my job to come up with a great Nero. The script is the starting point and I have to find something that is going to be interesting and fun.

and regarding what it is like to play the bad guy

It is kind of nice knowing that you are not the moral compass for the audience. It is very liberating.

watch the video (Trek bit is the last 2 minutes)

Thanks to Captain Wow of Peggster.net for the Simon photo

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No one will touch Khan. Sad to say, but true!

First?

Awesome tidbits. I like what Bana has to say. ‘Tis encouraging.

terminator 4 apparently released in may 2009

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=22065

It is very weird, but Pegg actually does have a slight resemblance to Doohan in “WNMHGB”, although he is clearly sporting a season three Scotty hairstyle.

And Transformers earned more than half of that overseas, so the US release date is just one piece of the puzzle. I just hope this one will pull overseas viewers outside of UK and Germany.

am i the only one who has to think of shinzon?!

Maybe Bana is playing Shinzon as an Easter Egg for the fans ;-)

welli, its another tentpole film for a long running sci-fi franchise, as is wolverine. star trek is going to up against stiff competition…

Surely Pegg wears a toupee for the role?

Interesting about Bana’s shaved head. But the *important* question is: have they shaved his *eyebrows*? (I can’t quite tell from the photo). That’s more grist for the ridges vs. eyebrows question about the film’s Romulans.

Full disclosure: I’m firmly in the no-head-ridges-please camp.

(Assuming, of course, that he really is playing a Romulan….)

Simon Pegg is going to be a fine Scotty.
Having seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, all I can say is I hope there is a bit with him getting drunk! He plays a good drunk and I’d love to see Scotty drink some “Green” :)

7, I had the same shuddering thought. I hope Nero isn’t another effin Picard clone made by the Romulans to do …? Did they ever explain how making a clone of Picard was supposed to make sense?

#7 and 13
Lets not jinx it by considering the mere possibility!!!
#1
I’m sorry but Chang was a better movie badguy! Gul Dukat for the Series.
Poll time:
best Trek Villan of all time? (in both the movies and the shows)

Nero is ‘Future Guy”!

Erm…Pegg is ginger, not blonde ‘naturally/’, if you’ve seen his AWESOME series ‘Spaced’ he’s au’natural in it. Probably why he’s loosing his hair fast, repeated bleaching to disguise the ginger is melting it out!!! Glad they decided to TRY and make him look a wee bit more like ‘Scotty’ with the hair…they’ll probably use the old ‘spray on’ to disguise the bald bits. But personally, he still looks nothing like Doohan…that’s like saying all dark haired people kinda ‘resemble’ each other!

And Bana looks mmmeeeaaaannnnnnn, I like! Though is the shaving of head to make wigs (cos I cant see him cutting his hair to resemble the original Roms-do) and prosphetics easier, or is Nero a skinhead punk?

#9: “welli, its another tentpole film for a long running sci-fi franchise, as is wolverine. star trek is going to up against stiff competition…”

Well, the difference is that pretty much everyone was disappointed with Terminator 3, and also there’s a Terminator TV series currently airing which appears to be a much better “timeline” than the films, plus the concept of “Terminator Salvation” is quite spinoff-y (no Arnold, new hero with John as supporting character and Sarah dead), so this could all lead to a very big “Why bother?” feeling among the moviegoing public. The new Star Trek movie on the other hand is all fresh & new & shiny & “back to the core of the show”, which would be a bigger draw.

#10

Probably not. I’d say he’s probably done filming his role already. If you notice in the December picture his hair is pretty much the perfect length for Scotty there. Why would they have him shave after he had already gone through the effort of growing it out? What we’ll probably be seeing is the same length as the December picture, but the same colour as the recent one.

Is it me, or is Pegg wearing the classic Starfleet sideburns?

T4 is opening up against Night of the Museum II on May 22, so let those two kill each other off. I doubt it’ll do anything but help Trek’s bankroll when the adults for T4 and the families for Night find their movies sold out and are looking for an alternative. Trek XI fits both demographic.

#17 LorienTheYounger

i’m pretty sure everyone was disappointed with star trek nemesis and enterprise!

and the terminator tv show provides great free publicity for t4, despite the difference in timelines, and tb also has christian bale in it, which might be a big draw

We’ve never seen a bald Romuilan before… so… (you know…)

.. so this means we’ll see something we’ve never seen before!

I think Bana’s playing a Gorn…

More news I get more I like .

So how is this for a scenario: Nero de4cides it is good for Romulus if Khitomer actually goes according to plan and so he rigs the Kobayashi Maru simulation so young Kirk is to die. Spock (who knows which one) foils the dastardly plan and Kirk is told never to reveal what happened hence his coy remark in TWAK “I changed the conditions of the test.”

#18

Pegg was in the UK in December, he missed a Radio 1 interview (poor bugger was ill!) but Nick Frost his comedy partner made it and mentioned, as other articles did, that Pegg had not begun filming yet and was heading back to LA in the new year. So it strikes me as his role isn’t that extensive in this movie. I think you can still hear the interview via the Joe Willey wesite.

IMHO the Romulans in this movie are all bald. If you remember the spy photos we saw a big bald black guy which assuming he was a baddie is a Romulan. I would think they chose to do it so the newbs can differentiate them from the Vulcans.

Re. Simon Pegg – He was on the set somewhere from that live chat because a remember Zoe Saldana referring to him being there.

So Nero is actually a clone of Shinzon? Kewl…

Shinzon and Hannibal Lecter are back!

‘His Scotty is clean shaven. Mercifully, this seems to confirm that we will not be getting a ‘Willie the Gardener’ look for Simon’s ‘Scotty’, which can only be a good thing.

But I’m not sure if I like the idea of more bald ‘villains’ in a Star Trek Movie, although Eric seems to wear it well.

So, now that the strike is over, can we PLEASE change Bana’s character’s name?? “Nero?” C’mon! “Romulus” and “Remus” (or “Romii,” if you prefer) is bad enough, but those two have been deep canon for 40 years, so we’re kinda stuck with them! But do we have to call the protagonist Nero? Might as well change the Romulan capitol city’s name (and I think you know where I’m going with this) and buy Bana a fiddle…

Chang, Shinzon, Nero, Sisko… seems in Trek bald is evil ;-)

I like the bald look. It’s different…for a Romulan anyway. Worked for Chang.. SHould work for Bana as well, as long as they don’t slap those hideous rubber Frankenstein foreheads on the Romulans.

Anthony,

Thanks for hunting down a pic of Pegg finally! He looks good! I can’t believe we have to wait for more than a year to get to this show, but there are worse things in life.

Shinzon is back… perhaps Nero decides to revenge his death or wants to be Shinzon’s lookalike for the upcoming romulan lookalike contest…. SHIIIINZOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!

#14
Sorry to disagree but Ricardo Montalban was by far the most interesting of the Trek movie villains–and this from a Plummer fan. Chang was great but Khan managed to engender both hatred and sympathy. He was three-dimensional in a way no other lead baddie ever was. imho anyway.

Am I the first to ask it? I couldn’t tell you because there is so much analysis and speculation on every tidbit of information passed on. It would take years to read through.

Are we going to be able to stand it for another year?

UH! Bana shaved his head! Oh no, Spock wears a dress on the weekends. Ahhh! Sulu is a badass. God forbid, JJ took a day off.

My goodness – is this stuff really news?

I suppose there are some out there that need it…and I guess I don’t have to read it. But can’t there be a flag on the header page saying, “Important” or “Not important”

Kind of like “Spoilers Ahead”…

That said. I do look here first for movie news…

Pegg could easily be wearing a wig for the role, and that second pic despite the blonde struck me as looking very Scotty-esque.

Abrams really needs to give us some real pics because we are seriously scraping for Movie news and images.

ERIC BANA IS PLAYING ILIA’S FATHER…

There, I said it.

Hey the romulans aren’t ..bold..or maybe are somehow shapeshifters..i don’t know..

Pegg remains a brilliant choice. Can’t wait to see this guy as Scotty.

arrrr… so bald equals bad guy…
Red Alert! Thar be a villain at the helm of TNG!
Riker to Worf: “How did this stoic, cold, and evil tyrant get on board barking orders?” Worf to Riker: “I’ll just transport him to a Shakespearean play… he seems to like that Klingon poet.”

Can I a’suggest the baddie not be called Nero as well… maybe “Harvey?”…

arrrrr….

Boy, Eric Bana looks like a badass bald. I plan to go see him in the movie “The Other Boylen Girl” this weekend where he plays King Henry the VIII.

I thought Simon Pegg was naturally a redhead and not blond. I watched “Hot Fuzz” on DVD this past weekend and his hair color was more of a strawberry blonde. I also thought that his eyes were brown but they are actually dark blue. He does look more like Scotty with the darker hair color and no beard.

2MUCHINFO?

Don’t bother us. We’re rumor-mongering.

And now Shinzon is Ilia’s father, and Spock (old) is Future Guy.

437 days to go.

#14 & #37 That’s a tough debate… Khan vs. Chang?

Captain Dunsel, as you alluded to, Montalban was able to elicit hatred and sympathy and more. However, we had the benefit of “Space Seed” as a reference to inform and contrast his character’s development… and ultimately his Ahab-like revenge for Kirk. Don’t get me wrong TWOK worked by itself as a stand-alone film but that fifty-one minutes or so of “back-story” made the movie even more resonant.

Plummer was brilliant in his portrayal of Chang. You could feel his mouth water as his plans to undo the Khitomer Peace Accords unfolded… and to defeat Kirk to boot! Well, it doesn’t get better for a Klingon.

Irish Trekki, I have to agree with you regarding Gul Dukat. Marc Alaimo infused and inhabited that character with all the requisite elements for a great villain. Nuanced and megalomaniacal, Dukat is definitely a great reoccurring bad-guy!

But in the end… gotta go with Khan… if only for sentimental reasons. ;)

pegg looks good !!! banner looks too much like shinzon :-/

Trek Villins #1 Khan- 2 chang- 3 kruge- 4 Borg Queen- 5 Soran- 6 Shinzon.
Bald Bana- I like skinheads so im ok with it.
Pegg- wouldnt they have cured baldness by then? i know but picard would not have been that vain and sisko just wanted to scare the J’em hadar

Simon Pegg is going to rock. I’ve been all ove rhtat casting since the start… now if only he and Karl Urban (whom I hav ethe least support for) could exchange body sizes, they’d both be closer to the look of the originals :)

and yes… it will always be Khan. That’s a given. Ever since that film, they have tried to top it one way or another and cannot. So move on!

47: You referred to Bana as Banner? Don’t get him angry…