The rising star – best known for playing Chekov in the new films – was killed in a fatal traffic collision early Sunday morning
Anton Yelchin, a charismatic rising star best known for playing Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek films, has died at the age of 27. He was killed in a fatal traffic accident early on Sunday morning, his publicist, Jennifer Allen confirmed.
According to reports, Yelchin’s friends alerted police when he failed to turn up to a rehearsal scheduled to start some hours earlier. They then discovered the actor in his driveway at around 1am. No other vehicles are thought to have been involved.
Yelchin’s career began with roles in indie films and assorted television shows, before breaking out in films like the crime thriller Alpha Dog, Jodie Foster’s The Beaver and Sundance winner Like Crazy. His biggest mainstream role to date has been in the rebooted Star Trek films the third of which, Star Trek Beyond comes out in July. He won much acclaim for his role in ensemble horror Green Room, out earlier in this year.
Despite his age, Yelchin had long carved out a career which balanced the credible with the mainstream. Speaking to the Guardian in 2009 to promote blockbuster Terminator Salvation, Yelchin said: “What I watch and what I work on are different.”
His own taste veered more towards the films of directors such as Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier and Pedro Almodovar, as well as Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch, in whose 2013 vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive Yelchin went on to take a role.
An only child, Yelchin was born in Russia in 1989. His parents were professional figure skaters who moved the family to the United States when Yelchin was a baby. Yelchin’s family has requested privacy at this time.
Tributes to the actor began appearing on Twitter shortly after reports broke. Anna Kendrick called his death a “huge loss” while Matt Lucas called it “dreadful news” and Kevin Smith described it as “so damn sad”.
Amongst Yelchin’s upcoming projects was Baseballissimo, a sports comedy set in Italy during the second world war. Its writer and Yelchin’s co-star, Jay Baruchel, wrote of his shock and sadness over the sudden loss of someone he “call[ed] my friend for the better part of the last decade”.
Fuck. I was lucky enough to call Anton Yelchin my friend for the better part of the last decade. This is so fucking awful.
