Chris Pine reveals who got him into Dungeons & Dragons, plus which game gave him 'trauma'

AUSTIN, Texas – Chris Pine – and his hair – strode the red carpet alongside an integral woman in his life: his publicist.

Pine attended the world premiere of his latest film, "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," Friday with publicist Melissa Kates, the woman who encouraged his shorter hairdo, a change from the long locks he sported at last year's Venice Film Festival.

"She said I looked like Rachel from 'Friends,'" he tells USA TODAY on the carpet outside of The Paramount Theatre.

Pine's action comedy film opened SXSW, the annual Texas festival comprised of movie and television premieres, musical performances, standup, speakers and sessions. The movie, inspired by the roleplay game launched in 1974, centers on Pine's Edgin the Bard, "a charming thief," and a "band of unlikely adventurers" as they "undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic."

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Pine, 42, says he didn’t play the game that inspired the fantasy film until his nephew introduced him to it.

"I ended up playing with my family and him at my house and had a great time doing it," says Pine. "I love the imagination of it. I love the positivity of it. I love the improv of it."

Which says a lot for someone who isn’t into board games. "When I was kid, my dad always used to beat me in Chinese checkers and it drove me absolutely crazy," he says before deadpanning, "So I think I gave up. I think I have a lot of childhood trauma from that."

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The film’s co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley also attended Friday’s fête.

Goldstein says the movie took about four years to make. Of the undertaking, Daley says he wanted to make it appeal to all different types of audiences.

"It’s something where you really have to kind of thread that needle between fan service and giving something to people that have absolutely no awareness of the brand," he says. "Something that they will enjoy as well. It's for grandmas. It's for little kids. It's for everyone, and we really made sure that we were true to the game, but also true to great movie that we set out to make."

Regé-Jean Page, who found success as the Duke of Hastings on the debut season of Netflix's "Bridgerton," plays Xenk in the board game-inspired film. Page, 34, describes the character as "painfully righteous. He has a shiny suit of armor and big swords … super heroic. It's fun, I got to wear a cape."

Page sees similarities between "Dungeons & Dragons" and the popular series based on books by Julia Quinn.

"This is the joy of stuff like this," says Page, who departed the Netflix romantic drama after Season 1. "There’s a whole seeded community who have their own little secret language and they speak to each other online. And what we get to do is take that and share (it). You find something where people are having a great time and (think) how much bigger can we make this? How much joy can we spread in the world, which is a privilege of a job to have."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chris Pine on 'Dungeons & Dragons' movie, board game 'trauma' at SXSW