Chris Pine is opening up about returning to the Star Trek franchise.

In an interview with Deadline, the 41-year-old actor discussed some of the new projects he has in the works, as well as what he hoped the new iteration of Star Trek would accomplish.

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“I’ve not read a script. I met the director, Matt [Shakman], who I really like,” Pine said. “I met a producer on it that I really like. I know JJ [Abrams] is involved in it in some respects. I met the new people over at Paramount, which is many different kind of relations. I really liked them. Everybody seems excited about the prospect of it. There’s just simply no — I don’t have a tangible script to look at.”

Chris went on to describe the love he has for the franchise and his decision to come back to the series.

“Conceptually, I love it,” he said. “I love Star Trek. Again, I love the messaging of it. I love the character. I love my friends with whom I get to play. It’s a great gig. I mean, it’s a gig I’ve had, working and not working, for 15-plus years. It cemented the career that I have now. I’m honored to be a part of it. It’s given me so much. I think there are plenty of stories to tell in it. You know, I think Star Trek for me, it’s an interesting one.”

The actor added that part of the challenge was getting Star Trek to reach outside its core audience of fans and pull in huge box office numbers.

“We always tried to get the huge international market. It was always about making the billion dollars,” he explained. “It was always this billion-dollar mark because Marvel was making a billion. Billion, billion, billion. We struggled with it because Star Trek, for whatever reason, its core audience is rabid. Like rabid, as you know. To get these people that are interested that maybe are Star Wars fans or think Star Trek is not cool or whatever, proven to be … we’ve definitely done a good job of it but not the billion-dollar kind of job that they want.”

Despite the pressure to make a billion-dollar franchise, Chris said that he felt the series would benefit from scaling back.

“I’ve always thought that Star Trek should operate in the zone that is smaller,” he said. “You know, it’s not a Marvel appeal. It’s like, let’s make the movie for the people that love this group of people, that love this story, that love Star Trek. Let’s make it for them and then, if people want to come to the party, great. But make it for a price and make it, so that if it makes a half-billion dollars, that’s really good.”

“But we operate in a system now which I don’t know how much longer we have of you have to spend 500 million dollars on a film to reach … even you have to pay all sorts of people back,” he continued. “So to make a billion, it’s like you haven’t even — a billion is the gross. You haven’t brought your net in. So I mean, if I had my business suit on, that’s what I would do, but I don’t know where that is. That’s all above my pay grade.”

Earlier this week, Chris revealed he had recently gotten mistaken for a very surprising celebrity. Check it out!