Chris Pine Says He 'Hated' Pre-Fame Job as Restaurant Host: 'I Was Not a People Person'

The food service industry was not for Chris Pine.

In conversation with Business Insider published on Wednesday, May 8 swimming pool the director and star recalled how he balanced his early roles with his restaurant job.

“Don’t be a waiter. Actually, I was a host at a restaurant and I just hated it,” said Pine, 43. “I couldn’t hate it anymore. I wasn’t a people person. It was all about just getting to work.”

The actor made his film debut in 2004 The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagementand since then he has starred in hits like Star Trek (2009), Into the forest (2014), the Wonderful woman movies and more in the two decades since.

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Chris Pine at the world premiere of the film The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement in 2004.

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Pine, who makes his directorial debut with swimming poolhe remembered his big vacation with The Princess Diaries 2 opposite Anne Hathaway during an interview for a recent episode Sunday TODAY.

“I was on my little Verizon little flip phone, my silver one, and I got a call from my agents saying I booked the job,” the actor recalled in a chat with host Willie Geist that aired Sunday, May 5. pulled over on the side of the highway and they said, ‘You got paid $65,000.’ ”

For Pine, who was 23 when the rom-com sequel hit theaters, “It was like they just told me I made $50 million,” he told Geist, 49, adding, “It was absolutely mind-blowing.”

“I just clearly remember knowing at that moment that my life had somehow changed, though [$65,000] at the end of the day it came out to about $15,000,” he continued, laughing.

Now, 20 years later, Pine has directed, co-written and acted swimming pool as Darren, “a native Los Angeleno who spends his days tending the pool at the Tahitian Tiki apartment building and fighting to make his hometown a better place to live,” the synopsis reads.

Chris Pine attends the premiere of the film swimming pool in Los Angeles on April 24, 2024.

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swimming pool is in theaters on Friday, May 10.

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