// STYLE FEATURES // Anton Yelchin: Cult Classics

As the title character in February’s Charlie Bartlett, Anton Yelchin runs around in tighty-whiteys, high on Ritalin. Don’t get it twisted, though-the 18-year-old might have first-hand experience being an awkward teenager, but he’s never gotten pepped up on goofy pills. “I was like, ’should I actually get some Ritalin and get really high?’ ” he recalls of his preparation for the role. “but I never did.”

Despite his reluctance to go all-out Brando with the method acting, Yelchin delivers a star-making turn in Bartlett, playing a private-school reject who makes friends in his new public school by dispensing advice (and prescription pills) as an amateur psychiatrist. But the Russian-born, California-raised Yelchin’s own adolescence has been remarkably carefree. “when I was in high school, ” he says, “I didn’t feel much pressure or see the point to being there, so I didn’t have a tough time. I didn’t learn shit-and everything I did learn, I took it upon myself. ” With that kind of focus, who needs Ritalin?