Anton Yelchin: 1989-2016, Star Trek Actor Dead at 27

Actor Anton Yelchin was killed early this morning in a car crash. He was just 27 years old.

According to Jennifer Houser of the Los Angeles Police Department, Yelchin stepped out of his car in the driveway of his Studio City home at around 1:10 a.m. Sunday morning when the car rolled backwards, pinning him against a brick mailbox pillar and causing the trauma that led to his tragic death.

“The victim was on his way to meet his friends for a rehearsal and when he didn’t show up, his friends went to his house where they found him deceased by his car,” Houser told CNN. Yelchin’s publicist Jennifer Allen confirmed his death to the Associated Press, saying that his family requests privacy.

The tragic accident puts an end to what was a flourishing film career. Yelchin was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union—now Saint Petersburg, Russia—to professional figure skater parents. His family moved to the United States when he was a baby, and he briefly considered going into figure skating himself before his unease on the ice led him to acting at the tender age of nine.

Yelchin first won acting acclaim starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 2001 thriller Hearts in Atlantis. In 2004, the young actor made an uproarious appearance on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, demonstrating a gift for the comedic, as well as the dramatic. Yelchin went on to star in Nick Cassavetes’ acclaimed 2007 crime thriller Alpha Dogs, giving a performance that USA Today called “heartbreakingly endearing,” and one year later, he played the title character in dramedy Charlie Bartlett.

In May of 2009, Yelchin burst onto the blockbuster film scene with high-profile roles in Terminator Salvation, playing a young Kyle Reese, and in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, playing U.S.S. Enterprise navigator Pavel Chekov—the latter role enabled Yelchin to make use of his Russian roots. Yelchin reprised the role of Chekov in 2013’s Star Trek: Into Darkness, and will do so again, appearing posthumously in the forthcoming Star Trek Beyond, set for a July 22 release.