Karl Urban struck a careful balance when it came to playing Star Trek bones

Abrams encouraged the actors in 2009 to approach these characters in a way that felt natural to them first, rather than working in imitation. In fact, Chris Pine once explained that the worst thing he could do for his performance was to try to replicate William Shatner's Captain Kirk, and he deliberately avoided fan discussions or expectations when creating of his version of this character.

Urban, however, felt a great responsibility when he took on the challenge of portraying such a beloved character and making his performance as authentic as possible:

"Step into such an iconic character who was played so wonderfully well by the late great DeForest Kelley, and truly a beloved character...I felt like as a longtime fan of 'Star Trek,' it was important to see some sort of recognizability, especially in the character of Bones. For me, it was really about picking out some of the essence of what DeForest Kelley did, and l 'kind of soak into the character, without kind of slipping into some kind of imitation, which wouldn't have been a good idea.'