William Shatner
In the distant future of 2020, Captain Kirk, without his ship, finds himself being teleported to Cardiff. That’s right, William Shatner is visiting for a Q&A and a screening of The Wrath Of Khan. He accosts Carl Marsh for suggesting he looks good for his age.
Is it true that you still don’t like watching yourself on the TV or a cinema screen? If so, how are you going to cope with watching The Wrath Of Khan at the Wales Millennium Centre next March?
[Laughs] First of all, I come to the theatre well after the movie has started. I’ll have a bite to eat while the film is going on, and I get ready to go on backstage as the movie is ending. I will be connecting with the end of the movie, but I will not be sitting through the film. It’s just like you going through an old photograph of you when you were younger. I don’t know how young, how old are you?
I’m 45.
So, Carl, when you look at an old picture of yourself at 20, what do you feel?
Yeah OK – it’s like a different person, so I know what you mean!
And the older you get, the more you say “I’m not going to look at that” at 20, then you’re 40, and then you get to be 60, and when you look at yourself at 40, you think – I wasn’t too bad. Now at 60, I didn’t want to look at myself at 40. So the older you get, when you look back the more you wonder what you were worried about, because I look so bad now!
I think you look quite well for your age – what are you, 88?
Yes but, it’s that phrase “for your age” that is annoying.
I’ll take that back then – you look terrific!
You don’t look well for a 20-year-old though! Haha, take that one! But no, you have to add “for your age” because otherwise, you have no anchor here, but I appreciate it, thank you.
With the Q&A that you’ll be doing after the screening, are there any questions that you don’t like being asked – so anyone reading this will know what to avoid asking?
Ask any question that comes to them based on the rule that, which you will appreciate, the person being asked the question is under no contract to answer that particular question. So if you ask me, “How do you feel?” and I say, “The sky is really blue today, and do you know why it’s blue? Well, it’s blue because it’s a refraction of the sun…” And I go on about ‘blue’. I am not going to be put in handcuffs.
What does it feel like to be one of the most recognised people on the planet?
I might be, yeah – other than Brian Johnson [AC/DC], I guess. Well, being looked at and people asking for autographs, it’s awesome in a way; for the most part, it’s uncomprehending. Another aspect of it is awe – like, ‘Wow, they want my autograph, and they want to listen to what I am saying!’ Or ‘look at that, they laughed at what I hoped they would laugh at!’
I know you’ve been in this in this movie and TV scene for a long time, but how did you cope in the early days with the fame? It must have been quite crazy when Star Trek took off?
From my point of view, I worked during the time that Star Trek was on the air – I worked all those crazy hours. You work from dawn to dusk, and you go home, and you lie down. And that takes care of your year. So, three years later, I emerged. And it was Captain Kirk until I was on the streets with another series. And I remember, I was playing a policeman, TJ Hooker. And suddenly, it was TJ Hooker overnight! Once the show was on the air, every time we were on the street, shooting, it wasn’t ‘oh, there goes Captain Kirk’, it was ‘oh, there goes TJ Hooker’. Then that changed to the next character that I played, so it’s a bit bizarre.
Plenty has been written about the animosity between you and a few of the Star Trek cast. I know you made peace with a lot of them, but why do you think it was like that?
I think the story about the animosity is exaggerated because while I was doing the show, I was great friends with Leonard [Nimoy] and DeForest [Kelley]. Then, every so often in the week that we would shoot, in would come these other people, these different actors playing these other parts that took about a day or so to shoot. This is what they had to do.
So, once a week, somebody would come in, do their thing, and then leave. The three of us were left with having to be there at 6, 6.30 in the morning to 8 or 9pm. The others would typically leave, so as far as I was concerned there was no animosity, it was just business.
Then sometime later, they began, these three or four characters, they began to talk about animosity, and I was shocked. And apparently, I didn’t pay them enough attention, or something. There were never any ill feelings, let alone words while I was shooting.
So it’s all blown out of proportion then, and we should never believe all that is written?
Can you imagine somebody, 55 years later, still talking about some incident they think happened all those years ago? You’d think at some point that they’d say, ‘Oh well, shit, let bygones be bygones, we are all going to die soon,’ but they don’t, they continue on! It’s been speculated that it’s a point of income for them.
Through your career, then, is there anything that you would have changed, whether onscreen or in music?
I am in such a good position, and I am surrounded by so much love. I’m putting together a blues album; I am on tour with The Wrath Of Khan; I’ve got a new show on the air called The UnXplained which is at 10 o’clock on the History Channel. I’ve got shows that I’m working on that I want to sell. I just came back from a two-week journey with my whole family that was to the south of France. We got to know each other better.
I’m in such a good position in life, that for me to say, ‘Oh, God, I wish I had done X or Y’, or turned left instead of right –the way everything has turned out in my life, I’d be very callow and very ungrateful. I’m just delighted with everything that has happened to me and that I am breathing the air as completely as I can.
It sounds like you’ve never been one to rest on your laurels.
There is so much that I haven’t done and so much that I don’t know, and I want to find out about it. And you are right – there is so much more stuff to do.
William Shatner: Live On Stage, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Tue 17 Mar. Tickets: £34. Info: 029 2063 6464 / www.wmc.org.uk