- SPREAD THE WORD -
My name is William Shatner
and I was a starship captain,
but I wasn't the only one,
So were Patrick Stewart,
Avery Brooks,
Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula,
and most recently,
Chris Pine,
That's a lot of captains,
In fact, that's a lot of
''Star Trek,''
Lasers, fire, point blank!
The original series,
despite being canceled after
only three seasons in 1969,
spawned perhaps
the most durable
and profitable franchise in
the history of entertainment,
At the center of each
incarnation of ''Star Trek''
is what has become the truly
iconic character...
the captain,
Engage!
These dynamic and unique actors
have inhabited this role,
each bringing their own
interpretation and personality,
Warp six,
Engage,
The captains,
Who are they?
What were they before
they got the role,
why did they get the role,
what have they done afterwards?
It's a journey of discovery...
by me, you,
and, ultimately, them,
Woo!
Wow!
Hey!
- Spock!
- How are you?
Spock?
I'm not Spock,
That guy called me Spock,
Oh!
We began our voyage,
taking the jet to Toronto
to pick up our
Canadian crew,
Woo!
And surprise,
The president of biz
for Bombardier,
Steve Ridolfi,
met the plane to
say hello to me,
and what do you know?
He tells me he got into
the airplane business
because of ''Star Trek,''
He became an aeronautical
engineer because of me,
I still remember my
first ''Star Trek'' episode
on a little black-and-white
television, 'cause that's
- all we had in those days,
- Right,
Wow,
I had to think about that,
As we flew across the ocean
and as I prepared to
meet the actors...
I had a lot of
unanswered questions,
Not only for them...
but for myself,
Oh, my God,
Patrick, what are you
doing here?
Bill, you called me,
I'm waiting for you,
You said you had something
you wanted to say to me,
I do,
- Hello,
- Hi,
Patrick Stewart,
or as he is now known,
Sir Patrick Stewart,
was Captain Jean-Luc Picard of
''Star Trek:
The Next Generation,''
A superb classical actor,
Patrick is a member of
the Royal Shakespeare Company
and brought a tremendous
dignity to the role,
Being born at
the beginning of the war,
I suppose I was used to
the idea of war
and if something has
always been that particular way,
it doesn't seem extraordinary,
So We Were Very poor,
we didn't have much...
We had nothing, really,
Ieftover
at the end of the week...
but it didn't...
create problems for me
because all my
friends were the same,
There was... there was nothing
you could compare your life to,
so there was no sense of...
being excluded in society
or being without,
because that
was how it was,
and everybody was the same,
I remember a play I did
in a camp that
my mother's sister ran
about something about
the Holocaust,
- Really?
- Yeah,
- And I played this boy...
- How old were you?
Uh, six, five, six,
And one of the kids
played a dog,
and I was saying
goodbye to my dog,
'cause the Germans were
taking me,
that was the... that was
the little drama that we were,
When the play was over,
I looked out there
and the audience was crying
because the subject matter was
so embedded in the people,
And so I took my bow
and my father came
and held me and praised me,
and I'm convinced that
that was the moment
that I thought,
hey, this is fantastic,
This has got me places with my
father and the audience
that I've never dreamt of
and I'm convinced
that that's what...
that's what started me on
my acting thing,
What about you?
I was 12 when I was first put
into a play with adults and...
Well, how did that happen?
I mean, why would they put you
in a play with adults?
I had an English teacher,
He was the man who first put a
copy of Shakespeare into my hand
and said, ''Read it out loud,
this is...''
Why would he do that?
He was an English teacher
who loved drama,
and he was
an actor and director...
amateur actor and director,
and he wanted...
I went to a...
It was not an academic school,
but he wanted us to have some
experience of our dramatists,
and so he would give us...
The first play was
''The Merchant of Venice,''
And he gave me Shylock
to read,
I don't know why,
Patrick, let's examine
that a second,
He must have seen
something, something you did,
Let's pause a moment, maybe you
won't remember what it is,
but maybe if we
Iook at it more carefully,
something will suggest itself
that you haven't
thought of in a while,
You see, here's the other
strange thing,
I never had any
difficulty with Shakespeare,
It never seemed alien
or strange,
I mean, this was
a 400-year-old text,
I found I enjoyed
the Shakespeare,
In those days, there was a lot
of Shakespeare on the radio
and our leading actors
would be playing the parts...
John Gielgud, Alec Guiness,
- I listened to them,
- Yes,
- And I copied what I heard,
- Yes,
And just, the mere
act of copying...
- Even at 12?
- Yeah,
Wow,
You don't have
the emotional experience,
but there is something
in the brain
and in the body that can
make that child connect
to the instrument,
to the bow,
- or to the text on the page...
- The word,
intuitively,
You know, the valley
in the back, as we see it,
that's the beauty
of the thing,
That's how
I see the world,
- As a road to somewhere,
- Like a road to...
Yeah,
Yeah, but where
does that road go to?
The horizon is
ever-changing,
- Right,
- You with me?
I am so with you,
Ever-changing,
but can you ever get to it?
- No, that's the point,
- The point is?
And I'll stay as long as
I can see the horizon moving,
- Oh, wait a minute,
- Yeah, okay,
12 miles away, the horizon sort
of disappeared,
they used to see
sailor ships by their sails,
- Sure,
- Right?
Sure,
I mean, that's
the limit of the...
So here comes a ship
12 miles away,
they think it's
the end of the world,
- Yeah,
- That was the way it was,
- Well...
- What's it like now?
Well, that was a way of
perceiving ,
and what we know
is that that's not...
That wasn't sufficient,
was it?
- Correct,
- No,
Not only that, but the sea...
the first seafarers
in the world were Africans,
They didn't think about that
like that,
What'd they think?
No, they saw
the ever-changing horizon,
- It's true,
- So wait a minute,
Are you telling me that
you're tuned in...
Avery Brooks was
Captain Benjamin Sisko of
''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,''
Avery, in addition to his
impressive work
on the stage and screen
is a tenured professor of
theater at Rutgers University,
and if that isn't
impressive enough,
he's an accomplished jazz singer
and pianist,
Hey
Girl
What you
doing in here?
You're.
In my heart
Without
Consent
You asked me here
You asked
to come in .
and
I said I would
You said come in
And I came
And found you here
Down the stairs...
Yeah, that's funny, too,
Into your head
I went
Into my head
I thought you'd
never be
I went to Oberlin College,
and I wanted to
audition for the choir,
this world, you know,
world-renowned choir,
the conservatory,
and so I met these men,
you know,
athletes and stuff...
you know, I came early,
And they said... I said,
''I'm going on...''
And, you know,
I'm from Gary, Indiana,
and, you know, the thing...
And they said... yeah,
I said, ''I'm going to audition
for the choir in the morning,''
and they laughed at me,
They said, ''You can't get in
the choir, you're from, y'know,''
- I said, no...
- Wait a minute,
You're from...
- I'm from Gary, Indiana,
- Right,
I'm from this inner-city
place...
- Right,
- and so you can't get...
You can't get in...
But why did they say
you can't?
Was it from Gary, Indiana?
Maybe because I had
a football jacket on
and rose-tinted glasses
and I'm from the urban thing,
- That's what they said,
- All right,
Even though I've been, y'know,
in this music thing
- my whole life,
- Right,
My whole life
has been music,
So aren't you enraged by that?
No, I just told them I'm going
in the morning
and I'm gonna
get in the choir,
- And what happened?
- I was in the choir!
Oh!
What is...
Where have you been?
- You look so cute in that box,
- I'm so hot in here,
Come on, we're supposed to
be doing an interview,
I brought my
air-conditioned box,
'cause I didn't know
how long you'd be,
How handsome,
Bill in a box,
You could market it,
How are you?
Just add water,
which we've done,
Oh, boy, sweetheart,
Oh, I am so hot
just waiting for you,
What does that mean?
That's what
they all say,
Kate Mulgrew portrayed
Captain Kathryn Janeway
on ''Star Trek: Voyager,''
You will meet Kate
in the setting
where she is perhaps
most at home, the stage,
The first female captain of
a ''Star Trek'' series,
She brought all of her
training and discipline to bear
and made Janeway an
impressive leader,
I think when I was young,
acting was, for me,
the great escape,
AIthough I took it
very seriously,
You wanted to go
to college, obviously,
Not really, I didn't,
Well, but you had a desire...
- Bill, Bill,
- Yes?
- Trust me,
- Trust me,
I wanted my father to pay
my way to New York,
The only way I could get here
was to get in through
New York University,
I wanted to study
with Stella Adler,
I have my sister to verify this,
College to me was
absolutely unimportant,
absolutely unimportant,
and as it turns out,
I have had much less college
than I even thought,
I thought I dropped out at
the end of my junior year,
in fact, I've only had one year,
Okay, why couldn't you say to
your father,
''I wanna go to Stella Adler,
pay for that for me, please?''
My father...
Absolutely... tough,
tough old Irishman,
Tough, what, but his daughter
wants to learn,
- Why can't you got to your...
- To be an actress,
- Yeah,
- And you know what my father
said to me when I said I wanna
be an actress?
- What, what did he say?
- And I proved it to him,
He said, ''You're gonna break
your neck out of the gate
and I'll be goddamned
if I'm gonna subsidize that,''
How did you feel about that?
I said,
''Then I'll do it myself,''
He said, ''Guess what?
- You will,''
- And guess what?
You didn't,
'cause you went to college,
You said, ''Then give me the
money for university,''
- Yes,
- So you fooled him,
- I did,
- You lied,
- I did,
- Why did you do that?
'Cause I wanted to be
an actress,
That much,
And I didn't mind sticking it
to him a little bit, either,
He was tough,
Tough, tough,
But he didn't know
that I dropped out,
I didn't tell him I dropped out
of school,
So why did you drop out?
I dropped out because I got
two leading roles,
Where?
I got the lead in a soap opera
called ''Ryan's Hope,''
I played Mary Ryan,
and I got the lead in ''Our Town''
at the American Shakespeare
festival...
- Wow, at the same time?
- Same time,
- How old were you?
- 1 8, 1 9,
So they recognized your talent
right from the very beginning,
Yeah, they did, yes,
Poker face,
Shut up,
- Scott Bakula,
- Bill Shatner,
I have admired you
for so long,
- You are my hero,
- Are you kidding me?
No, no, no, no, I'm not
kidding, because...
Vice versa,
Well, I appreciate that,
but the truth of the matter is,
you're such a hell of an actor,
but you're a singer,
- I am a singer, that is true,
- Yeah,
Where... Do you think of yourself
as a singer first?
Yeah, that's where I started,
- I know, musical theater,
- That's right,
- Did you study?
- Of course, I still study,
- Voice?
- Every week,
You take voice lessons
every week?
Yes, every week,
Give me a...
give me a thing?
- What do you...
- A voice exercise,
A voice... an exercise?
He, he, he, he, hey.
Jeez, that's wild,
I can't sing,
but I can ride a horse,
- Let's hear a little,
- Let's go...
- Let's hear a little singing,
- No,
- I sang yesterday,
- I can teach you today,
- How long do we have?
- Really?
We've got...
we've got 'til 1:30
and then you
have to go,
Come on over here,
I'm... I'm, uh...
Here's the... I'll go wherever
Calvin takes me,
but when you say,
''Come on over here...''
- No, no, no, press your legs,
- Yes?
- Press your legs against him...
- Yes,
- Against her very slightly...
- Yes,
- and she'll go forward,
- Yes,
And then, if you
wanna go to your left,
you just point it
to the left,
Yes,
- A little leg pressure,
- Yes,
All right,
That's good, guys,
Iet's dismount...
Let's stop here,
Okay,
That was...
that was fabulous,
Now here's what I want to do...
Scott Bakula played
Captain Jonathan Archer
on ''Star Trek: Enterprise,''
and was arguably
the first captain,
as his series was set before
the original series,
even though it was
the last to be produced,
You got all that?
Scott has been a fixture on
television for decades
and like Avery,
is an accomplished singer,
No... my mother's very musical,
my dad's very musicaI
and I have become...
What does that mean,
''very musical''?
Well, my dad
was a concert pianist,
so I had pianos in my house
my whole life
and that's a huge deal,
And did they say, sing?
They didn't say sing,
but my mom was a singer,
So there was always
music around,
and my parents, 'cause
my dad went to Princeton,
he used to go to New York
when he was at school,
so he developed
this love of New York shows
and so when I was growing up
in the '60s,
my parents would
disappear for a few days,
go to New York,
see a Broadway show and come
back home with ''Cabaret,''
an album from ''Cabaret,''
or ''How to Succeed in Business
Without Really...''
You know, or any
of those kind of shows,
and so I was getting this kind
of distant love affair,
and then you'd
put the album on
and you'd be listening to ''Mame''
or Angela Lansbury
or somebody,
and you'd be all... that's...
You know, so I grew up
having it around me,
Did they
encourage you to sing?
They did, yeah,
I started singing from
- a very, very young age,
- How young?
Well, I was singing... I had
a band in the fourth grade,
- I sang with the symphony...
- fourth grade, you did...
- Ten, 1 1 years old?
- Nine, ten, 1 1 , yeah,
And you sang with the symphony?
I sang in a children's choir
in the fifth grade,
- Oh, in a choir,
- And then I sang...
the big thing that started me
was, there's an operetta called
''Amahl and the Night Visitors,''
Yeah,
It's Menotti, and I played
Amahl when I was 1 3,
And I started...
and I... then the acting,
the musical theater kinda came
out of that,
All day long
I'd biddy, biddy bum
Biddy, biddy, biddy
biddy bum
- Yeah, you got it,
- ? ?
Wouldn't
have to work hard
Ya, da, da, da, da, da, da
da, da, da...
I love it!
My parents
were making a living,
Nobody suffered but nobody
had any excess,
I played in
little kids plays,
in parks, and then I got onto
Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, CBC Radio,
for radio drama,
fairy tales,
and I played Prince Charming,
''Princess,
are you all right?''
- The hushed voice,
- Yes,
''I'm here,''
And then I went on for radio,
more mature radio,
and college plays
and stuff like that,
and so it just evolved
to the chagrin...
Worse than that,
the astonishment of my father,
who really didn't
want me to do this,
He called it hanging...
''Hangers-on,''
You're gonna
become a hanger-on,
You understand that, Bill?
You can't make
a living,
Well, my dad was no psychic,
I started out in Canadian radio
in my late teens,
and before you know it,
I appeared in my first feature,
''Butler's Night Off,''
The '50s became a time of
great opportunity for me
as I did a variety of radio,
theater and live television
productions on the CBC,
Those early days of
live TV have proven valuable,
setting the stage for what
would prove to be
the beginnings
of my life's journey,
William Shatner,
as I live and breathe,
How are you?
I'm very well,
how are you?
Okay, sit down,
Just another day,
sitting on the sidewalk,
- At the office,
- Yeah, sure,
Look at you,
You're me 50 years ago,
You don't
Iook too bad,
Well...
I'm 50 years older,
I wonder
how much I've lost,
You wanna go?
Come on,
Iet me... let me see,
You sure about this?
I... I couldn't be more sure
about anything,
Give me that hand,
Let me feel
a 30-year-old hand,
- Let's rumble,
- Hey, wait a minute,
Let's party,
You already know
what to do, right?
''Over the Top,'' baby,
- Stallone,
- Give me this hand here,
I know, I know, come on,
Iet's party,
Ready?
- One...
- Two, three, go,
Come on, give me...
Hey, wait!
Hey!
Was that a breeze?
Hey, wait a sec, wait!
You did the whole
thumb thing,
- I want another shot,
- Sure,
All right,
You did the thumb thing,
Wrap around... you see that...
yeah, there you go,
Ahh, see that?
- All right,
- Wow,
That's two...
- Best out of...
- Best out of three, why not?
- Best out of three,
- Yeah, sure,
All right, you ready?
Captain Kirk, huh?
- Captain Kirk,
- Captain Kirk,
Captain Kirk,
All right,
one, two, three, go,
Here it goes,
you're going now,
You're going,
Unbelievable,
I can't believe
how strong he is,
Hey, you guys gotta
get out of here,
Move along,
get out of here,
Get out of here, man,
- Well...
- I can't believe it,
Chris Pines is the latest actor
to captain the Enterprise,
and his character is
James T, Kirk, as was mine,
It all becomes clear,
Chris is extremely talented,
and like the rest of us,
thrives on the stage,
We speak to him at
what promises to be
at the beginning of a long
and successful career,
I watched that today,
''Train , ''
what was it called?
''Unstoppable, ''
- I watched ''Unstoppable,''
- Yeah,
And not only did I see
a really entertaining film,
but I saw a great
young actor,
What's his name?
You're wonderful,
- Oh, thank you,
- You've got the whole thing,
You got the looks and you got
the attitude
and everything,
it's really great,
And I saw you doing
some gags,
Uh-huh,
How much of that did you
do on the thing?
I did a lot of it,
Y'know, I don't...
I don't have
any kind of death wish
but I definitely do get
competitive,
Did you feel a sense of risk
at any time you
were doing the stunts?
Interestingly enough,
not really,
I think I was...
first of all,
we had a great stunt team,
I felt very secure
with that,
It's interest...
I think you get into
such a zone
when it is that
kind of high-risk
that your focus is so placed on
the stunt itself
that you don't
have time to be scared,
I...
But it's not Tom Cruise
kinda stuff...
I... I did a cheap
version of what you did
and I had to get up on top of
a train,
I said to
the guy, the director,
''How are you gonna do this?''
He says, ''I don't know,
maybe in a green screen,''
I said, ''What... if I got on top
of the train
''and you went
ten miles an hour,
could you speed it?''
''Aw, yeah,
Iet's just do that,''
Ten miles an hour...
what'd it look like?
It looked like ten miles
an hour,
So we gradually upped the speed
to 40 miles an hour,
- Oh, God,
- I'm on the top of the train,
- Were you scared?
- Out of my mind,
I met your dad,
worked with your dad,
He's a wonderful actor, he's
been an actor all his life,
I mean, you're like, what,
second generation?
- Or is there more?
- I am a third generation,
My grand...
Well, in fact,
I just found this out recently,
my great-great-uncle
was an actor,
so it actually started
way, way, way, way back,
Isn't that amazing?
So the idea of choosing to be an
actor was not foreign at all,
In fact, it might
have been inculcated,
In a way, yeah,
I often say it's like, I know
that my friends' parents
were doctors
or lawyers, let's say,
when they, you know, around
the dinner table,
you would talk about your day
and your day
would consist of cases
or the paperwork you had,
Around my table, it was
inevitably about
the day spent at work,
and the work would be...
would be ''Quantum Leap''
or it would be ''Magnum, P,I,''
So around your dinner table,
it was show business,
Yeah, pretty much, yeah,
And was young Chris
intrigued, or...
You know, I wasn't,
I wanted to be
everything but,
I wanted to be...
You know, I saw ''Top Gun,''
and I wanted to be
a fighter pilot,
How far did that go?
That went about three days,
I have my...
I have a bad case of ADD,
You know, I think, in fact,
having grown up
so close to it,
maybe my reaction
and my experience
with it was different,
instead of wanting to do it from
an early age, I just...
It was what my dad did,
it was what my mom did
and I met some cool people
and got to do some fun things
because of it,
but, you know, I wanted
to be a baseball player,
- I wanted everything...
- Were you good?
I was... I was...
I was, uh...
I was mediocre,
I think when I was young
I was pretty good,
and then once I hit 13,
it was... I realized it
was going...
You... you understood that...
- Very quickly, very quickly,
- Really?
Yeah, very quickly,
And when was the transition
between baseball and tennis
and fighter pilot?
I had a wonderful English
teacher who I bonded with
greatly and she...
We did an independent study on
''Waiting for Godot''
as an English project
and as part of that
English project,
at the end, we decided,
yeah, well, why don't we put on
the first act of
''Waiting for Godot''?
So we put it up in this atrium
in the science building,
I remember,
and I don't have any memories
from that
other than
it was so simple then,
It was the joy of just getting
together with some friends
and putting on a show,
And with an audience,
finally,
Yeah, and it was
the beauty of theater,
You know, what I loved about
theater
is that there's an
ephemeral quality to it,
it happens, it comes together,
it exists
and then it goes away,
Las Vegas,
- Save this...
- Of course,
- Ready to start it off?
- Good crowd?
- Very good,
- Ooh, very good,
We beat the world record
this morning,
No, world record?
A world record!
There's a power...
that the camera has,
Just start pointing a camera,
people give way
and police open up,
borders stop, meld,
Sorry, we're filming,
Hey, man, how are you?
Your nephew,
- You're my nephew?
- Yes,
I don't even known you,
What the...
I am Locutus of Borg,
The five captains are so
distinctive
because of the five actors
that play them, obviously,
Patrick was cast against type
coming after Bill,
Avery, quite obviously,
was cast against type coming
after Patrick,
who was smart to
bring Kate in as a woman
and then Scott had an entire
charm of his own,
I think it was
very successful,
whether it was planned or not,
it was a very successful
endeavor,
We're getting ready to do
another franchise
of ''Star Trek,''
- I'm gonna say it,
- Okay,
And we want you
to be the captain,
Yes,
Boom, what goes on?
My first thought?
- Not interested,
- Why?
And I may have even said...
I'm not interested in,
you know, the next
captain seat,
And they said, it's... you're
gonna be the first captain,
And then I was done,
You're gonna be
1 OO years before Kirk,
I said, I'm in,
This is Captain Archer of
the Starship Enterprise,
We respectfully would like to
ask for your assistance
with a little problem...
Sir, they're
charging weapons,
Polarize the hull plating,
Grab hold of something!
That was an easy kind of
a thing,
because I had a knowledge
of what it was gonna be,
but I don't know what it would
have been like to be you
when somebody says...
Calls and says,
''Come in and audition for...''
- Well...
- 'Cause there weren't...
There had been, like, a couple
of bad '50s kind of TV shows,
- Right?
- Right,
Well, what happened
with me was...
I was in New York
doing something
and I got a call from
a guy named Roddenberry,
who said, ''My name is
Roddenberry
''and we've shot a pilot
''and it didn't sell,
but what they said was, recast
it and we'll take another look,''
So I go to LA, I fly into LA,
So I looked at this pilot that
Roddenberry had shot
with an actor named
Jeffrey Hunter,
and Leonard Nimoy
playing a smiling Vulcan
and they say to...
''We want to recast it,''
So I said things like,
it should be a little more
lighthearted and that,
and they all agreed
and we made another pilot,
So I was like...
- I had a judgment call,
- Yeah,
I was... I could be
a little bit of a jury there,
Yeah,
Saying I will or I won't,
and I said I will,
if you make these changes,
and they did, and so
it worked out,
It wasn't any great miracle,
George, just get it over here
a little bit, you know,
avoid that meteorite,
A little more
to the left, George!
- Y'know, as against...
- Right!
''We're turning right,''
So that's what I...
that's what I...
It wasn't any great thing,
- And then because it was...
- Oh, no, it's a huge thing,
It was a tone, and that's what
everybody fell in love with
was the tone of the show,
But I must point out
that the possibilities,
the potential...
for knowledge and advancement
is equally great,
Risk,
Risk is our business,
That's what this starship
is all about,
That's why we're aboard her,
It was very slowly
that I began to realize
that if I were to do this,
I was gonna have to
commit for six years,
and at that point, I said,
out of the question,
I've got too much to do,
I can't involve myself
in a television series
in California for six years,
Everybody knows it's not
gonna work, they said,
You cannot
revive an iconic series,
You cannot replace those guys,
So don't worry about signing
a six-year contract,
You'll never see it out,
Patrick Stewart, who was not
Gene's first choice,
In fact, he kind of fought
even reading him at first,
but Bob Justman insisted,
so Gene did
and eventually
came to realize
that he was just
the perfect actor,
30 years with the RSC before he
came to ''Star Trek,''
and having played
all of those kings and emperors
and lead characters,
you know, that's what
a starship captain is,
You're an officer
onboard this ship
and I require you to
perform your duty,
That is an order, Commander,
Yes, sir,
I read the pilot,
that's what happened,
and I said, ''Oh, well, oh...''
This is very
interesting to me,
I mean...
defending humankind
to some other
intelligence in the universe,
a man dealing
with... loss,
having to raise a child,
indeed a male child,
by himself,
and be brown,
as we spin this tale
in the 20th century
about the 24th century,
I said okay,
Excuse me, Captain,
Here's tomorrow's duty roster
for your approval,
Lieutenant...
- Lieutenant...
- Benjamin Sisko, sir,
I've been on temporary
assignment here,
Before I leave,
I just want to say,
it's been an honor
serving with you, sir,
We got word that
Kate Mulgrew was cast,
and from the moment she
stepped on the bridge,
we could all relax,
because Kate
is a natural leader,
We had an actress
who wanted to be there,
was immaculately prepared
every day,
and, as I said,
just has a take-charge element
in her personality,
You can try and stop us
from getting to the truth,
but I promise you,
if you do,
I will respond
with all the unique
technologies at my command,
Janeway out,
''Star Trek'' captains have to be
on it right away,
'cause so often
the camera's with us
and we have to hit these
unspeakable marks,
green screens, blue screens,
nonexistent aliens,
spouting this language,
and setting the tone for
the rest of our company,
And mine were...
I had nine in my cast,
And people think that we're
having these lovely breaks,
don't they, Bill?
And being brought coffee
and stuff,
It's 18 hours,
You're lucky to
go to the john, right?
You get 20 minutes for lunch,
that's it,
Exactly right,
You gotta be strong,
So I think when they were
Iooking at us,
certainly
Patrick and me, Avery,
They were thinking,
constitutionally,
is she up to it?
Then, can she
speak the language?
Which it...
It might as well be Shakespeare,
it's so highly stylized,
to be able to
spin that language out
and make it accessible to
the audience at large
is a gift
not a lot of actors have,
Lastly, I think there has to be
a great sense of discipline,
We are all
disciplined people,
Very punctual,
So I could never be late,
I could never really complain,
I had to be on my...
I had to do it,
and I did it,
so I'm very proud of that,
- And so was I,
- I'll bet you were,
Yeah,
And how do you do this thing
and what's the manner
in which you say these words?
And therefore,
the classical work
- that all of us have done...
- Yeah,
came to use,
Ah, New York City,
the home of American theater,
I came here in 1956
with the
Stratford Shakespeare Company
and I was performing in
Marlowe's ''Tamburlaine''
at the famous
Winter Garden Theatre,
Agents found me,
producers found me,
The Broadhurst Theatre,
Iegendary theater,
another one,
This is...
1919, I think
it was built,
''Les Misrables,'' ''Cats,''
Gigantic productions
of which ''The World of
Suzie Wong'' was one,
In the late '50s,
it ran for two years,
I was the leading actor,
At this theater,
while I was playing
''The World of Suzie Wong,''
''funny Girl'' opened,
Barbara Streisand
opened here,
This was
the beginning of her career,
While I'd be in my dressing room
one day,
there was a water pipe going
from my dressing room down,
descending into wherever,
and there was a hole
by the water pipe,
so I looked down
and I saw that that hole
Iooked down into
the dressing room
of the dancing girls in
''funny Girl,''
So I spent part of
my time in my dressing room,
trying to see if there was
water in the pipe,
So this is Shubert AIley
and I was in this theater
in a play called
''Shot in the Dark,''
Julie Harris, Walter Matthau,
and he was hysterical,
Julie was hysterical,
I was pretty funny,
and we ran for a year,
The common denominator
with the captains
is that all of our
roots are based in theater,
At one time or another,
we've all played memorable
characters on the stage,
Did I say characters?
Did you ever see
''Star Trek''?
Ahh!
Yeah, I love it, yeah!
I did, yeah!
Did it change
your life at all?
Well, it's still changing,
- And you...
- Ahh !
And as Apple Annie,
you watched ''Star Trek''?
- Yes, wonderful,
- What was your favorite?
I forget the first
couple of...
- Years?
- Yeah, wonderful,
It can't be beat,
- With Captain Kirk?
- Yeah!
- Yeah, yeah,
- Yeah, Captain Kirk?
- And Spock?
- Yeah,
The whole cast, I love it,
There's nothing
like theater,
Why are you called
Apple Annie?
Well, it's like
a ''Bigfoot George,''
That's what the Italians do,
they have a lead-in,
Yeah,
I loves you,
you look so nice,
- Oh, thank you...
- I'll take you,
In Jewish,
you say you're a bargain,
Bye-bye, honey,
That's...
And that's New York,
He's a bargain!
Because the work on
''Star Trek'' was...
The scenes and stories
were generally serious,
the moments between
the filming
were where
we had the balance,
the yang to the yin,
and that's where we were
just shamelessly silly,
Maybe the rest of
the cast of ''Next Generation''
were having a good time
right from the get-go,
I wasn't,
I was too nervous,
I felt out of my depth,
out of my comfort zone,
I had never filmed in Hollywood
in my life before,
I had no ambitions
to film in Hollywood,
I was just scared, scared and
exhausted all the time,
I'd never worked
so hard in my life,
I called a meeting of
the principal cast of
''Star Trek:
The Next Generation,''
and I spoke to them very
seriously, and I said,
I think there is
too much messing about,
I think there's... too much
fooling around
goes on in this show,
We are wasting time,
We get days off
occasionally,
Some of us get,
you know, a week off at a time,
The rest of these people
on the set, they don't,
they're here
every day, day in, day out,
and I think we've got to be
aware of that
and I think we need to be
taking this more seriously,
And I remember Denise Crosby,
who was Natasha Yar,
saying to me,
''Oh, come on, Patrick,
we gotta have some fun,''
And I said,
''We are not here to have fun!''
They never, ever let me
forget that,
because the one
thing that I took away
from my ''Star Trek'' experience,
every episode, every movie,
all four of them,
was that for the first
time in my life as an actor,
my fellow actors showed me
how to do good work
and have fun
at the same time,
- Whoa, they changed you?
- Yes,
Morning, darling,
''Deep Space Nine'' was funny,
because it's like Avery
was the leader,
he was our captain,
we paid attention
and he did set the tone,
He set the tone in terms of
respect and seriousness,
Any scene, especially
two-character scenes
is like a sport
and you're
playing it together
and you want to get
the volleys going,
You're not
competing with each other,
but you are demanding
of each other
that you deliver the goods
and with Avery,
that was implicit,
You're firing me?
I have no choice,
Benny, it's his decision,
Well... you can't fire me,
I quit,
To hell with you
and to hell
with Stone!
Try to stay calm, Benny!
No, I'm tired
of being calm,
Calm never got me
a damn thing!
Do you try and relate
the music to the performance?
It's all music,
I mean, I could talk about
literature,
you know, in terms of music,
not just the form of it,
but, you know, like the sound
and the complexity
of the movement
and the expression of it,
Sure, I sure could,
Well, you know, Art Blakey said
that, you know, expression...
You know, he's talking
idiomatically,
but not so much
so that, you know,
the highest form
of expression
is this music,
from God through me to you,
It is as wide and varied
as there are
people on the earth,
That's what I know,
- Music,
- Yes,
Absolutely,
Everybody has their song,
Go ahead,
- Everybody has their music,
- Go on,
- They vibrate according to...
- Go on,
- their own...
- Go on,
- tempo and timbre,
- Go on, go on,
So everybody has a unique piece
of music,
I think so,
Go on,
They play it and it goes out
into the universe,
We don't know
whether it returns or not,
- Returns to whom?
- Exactly,
- Does it make a cycle?
- Well, I'm not sure about that,
You know, I mean, that's the
what do you call it of humankind
and to some extent, you know,
the desire for a return,
That's the, what do
you call it, of humankind,
the small of humankind,
I need to get it back,
No, you don't,
I need to believe
that my existence and my music
- i n so m e m a n n e r...
- M ea n s so m et h i n g ,
Continues,
Whether you get it...
Whether you
hear it back or not,
When I took command
ten years ago,
I saw myself as an explorer,
I thought all the risks
would be worth it,
because just
beyond the next planet,
just beyond the next star,
there would be
something... magnificent,
something noble,
The thing about
working with Scott is,
he has such a disarming
quality and a...
There's just
something about him
that you're put at ease,
and I think that's...
he wants that to happen,
He wants that sort of one-on-one
relationship with a person,
Lead me along the lines of your
awareness of ''Star Trek,''
- My awareness?
- Yeah,
- It starts and ends with you,
- Really?
- Tell me about that,
- Yeah, 'cause I...
When I was in college, you guys
were... hit the rerun world,
five nights a week,
and that was...
It was mandatory
viewing, and it was...
And I was in a fraternity,
and the fraternity
stopped at 11:00 at night,
you were... wherever you were,
if you were at a bar,
whatever you're
doing, studying, whatever,
stop, ''Star Trek's'' on,
What were you
thinking?
Why... why were you watching?
I watched because I loved the
male relationships on the show,
and, of course, you watch
because you wanna be you guys,
wanted to be you,
but the way you guys
related to each other
and the camaraderie and the
friendship and the love,
I always said,
you know, the love,
You know...
That was my goal,
one of the things I was
attracted to
about doing my version
was to try and get that back,
and I don't...
We didn't succeed the way you
guys did,
but that's why I watched,
Why not?
That's a good question,
There's magic in casting
and there's magic in the actors
around you
and you can't...
you can't make it happen,
It either happens sometimes
and it doesn't happen,
I had a great cast,
I don't... I can't...
I couldn't really tell you,
All I know is that you guys
had it in a way
that was so appealing,
Do you know what you get if
you feed a Tribble too much?
A fat Tribble,
No, you get a whole bunch of
hungry little Tribbles,
Well, Bones, all I can suggest
i s y o u o p e n u p
a m ate rn i ty wa rd ,
What's interesting about it is
everybody says,
it's so brave of you not to
try to imitate William Shatner,
I said, ''Well, of course...
There's no courageousness
at all involved with it,''
I think, you know, the obvious
choice would be, clearly,
to try to do your own thing,
because anything else
would just be a joke,
There was a conversation
all the time about, because...
Your imprint on the character
is, like Nimoy on Spock,
is... will stand
the test of time,
so knowing that this was
some kind of prequeI
and we are
essentially versions of...
I am a version of you,
to hopefully pepper
the character with some...
some things that would...
- Mannerisms, behaviors,
- Something that would resonate,
That would resonate,
I'm coming with you,
I would cite regulation, but I
know you will simply ignore it,
See?
We are getting
to know each other,
In the early weeks of
shooting the pilot,
somebody said to me,
''How does it feel to be filling
the shoes of Captain Kirk?
How does it feel to be filling
the shoes of William Shatner?''
And I said, ''Excuse me,
''but William Shatner
and Captain Kirk
is still filling his shoes
more than adequately,''
I'm attempting to fill
different shoes,
You hovered over
our early weeks
and months on the series...
Like...
Like a Klingon warbird,
Oh, no, the Romulans had
warbirds, didn't they?
You see, you know...
It's been longer for me
than you,
I know, but I bet you would not
have made that mistake,
I would not have made...
I would not have used that
simile at all,
But I was trying to find,
you know, something that,
rather ominously, slightly
threateningly,
you know, kind of
hang over your heads,
That was what William Shatner
and Captain Kirk was,
I think, for many of us,
though we would never have
admitted it at the time,
Did you ever see
the ''Star Trek'' I did?
No,
Had you ever heard of me?
Possibly,
- Possibly not,
- Possibly not,
That's a pretty nice-looking
costume you have,
What...
what era is that?
- Oh, my gosh!
- Oh, my gosh!
- What era is that?
- I'm a Tribble slayer,
- You're a Tribble slayer?
- Yeah,
- Wow,
- Yeah,
Wish I were a Tribble,
Hey, everybody,
Imagine finding you here!
- How are you?
- Hi,
Hey!
- Back of my hand,
- Hi there,
Can I just
put a big heart?
Doesn't recognize...
Jeri Ryan,
Listen, if I had to vote,
she was the most beautiful girl
on ''Star Trek'' I ever saw, ever,
- Aw, you're so sweet,
- Ever,
And you would know,
- Mr, Shatner,
- How are you?
Holy cats,
Iook at that, the pumpkin,
Holy crap,
that's William Shatner,
Hey, how you doing?
Oh, my God!
I was this close!
Do you believe this?
The most beautiful girl in
''Star Trek'' is still selling,
Still selling,
You look beautiful,
Liz, is it okay
if I kiss him?
- Yes, it's okay,
- Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him,
It's okay,
- Is your husband here?
- He is,
- Where is he?
- Where's my sweetie?
How are you?
Hi, how are you?
Oh, excuse me,
- Sally Kellerman,
- Yes,
The most beautiful girl who ever
appeared on ''Star Trek,''
The real way to determine the
success of the various captains
in the ''Star Trek'' franchise is
to see whose action figure
is still available,
Now, we have
Patrick Stewart here,
so Patrick is a very popular
and very wonderful captain,
but how popular could he be?
'Cause you can
still find his figure,
Is Captain Kirk here?
Did we see a...
Did we see a, um...
Apparently, um...
this is very
exciting news for you, Bill,
You're sold out,
During the shooting, y'know,
the audience doesn't... isn't
quite aware as you and I are
that the hours are
so overwhelming,
Yeah,
Minimal 1 2-hour day and most of
the days longer than that
and then you've got
publicity and interviews
and rewrites
and other things to do
having to do with production,
that the end of the week,
you're exhausted,
You only get enough rest
on the weekends sometimes
if you're not traveling
someplace
and then you're back again
doing it for 40 weeks,
So the working actor,
if he knows anything,
is not complaining,
but it's overwhelming,
and no time for relationships
of any kind, including
your family,
- Did you find that?
- Yeah, very much so,
Not as much in ''Enterprise,''
but when I did ''Quantum Leap''
years ago, it was...
That was a marathon,
I liken that
to a marathon,
to try to get to
the end of the season,
I had five days off in
4 years
when I wasn't on the set,
from first shot to last shot,
Did it affect your
relationships?
- Absolutely, absolutely,
- Did it affect your marriage?
- Absolutely, absolutely,
- How badly?
How bad?
- Well, that marriage ended,
- Right,
- So did mine,
- And that was really a...
It wasn't a direct
product of it,
but it was...
it certainly fed into it,
So you're working all
these hours
and your wife
is waiting at home,
and she says, ''Will you be
home for dinner?''
And you say, ''Yes, dear,
we're on our last scene,
should be done by 6:30,''
This is like bad memories,
we all have 'em,
It's just like...
And then the camera
breaks down
and 6:30 becomes 9:30,
Yeah, yeah,
And you get home at 9:30,
she says, ''I thought you were
gonna be here at 6:30,
Where were you?''
So I thought, what do you mean,
where was I?
I was pacing
back and forth,
just like, I gotta get home
for 6:30
- and they say you can't leave,
- Yeah,
- What... Tell me, describe...
- Did you have kids during...
- Oh, yeah, I had...
- Did you have kids yet?
I have three children and all
three children
were born
in that period of time,
Yeah, yeah,
I only had
a daughter at the time
and then my second child was
born during...
during the time,
and part of the goal
was to get home for dinner
and also to see your kid before
they went to bed,
Yes,
And, you know,
about a year into it,
after we kinda figured out
what it was,
and I was a new actor,
I didn't have any kind of cache,
so I couldn't say,
I want this time off,
I don't want to work
these nights,
I don't want to get forced...
I don't want to have any forced
calls, you can't do this,
I just said, whatever...
You know, I'm there,
Whenever you
need me, I'm there,
You're an actor trying to make
a living, you're...
Yes,
You have the potential for
making a good living,
save this money
from ''Quantum Leap''
and you may not have any
worries,
at least ''not how to pay
the rent'' worries,
Unless you get divorced
and give half of it away,
I'm glad to meet ya,
And retire,
- Yes?
- Yes, right there,
- Exact same history,
- Really?
Of, I was
never there, Star...
This, for me, was ''Star Trek,''
I'm ''Star Trekking'' and I'm
getting home the same hours
you were talking about,
and my wife says,
''This isn't working out,''
And I've got three kids,
and it didn't work out and we
did get a divorce
and I found myself broke,
I remember once sitting around
a dinner table
and hearing colleagues,
actors, directors,
and hearing one of them say,
''I love my job,
but my family always
come first for me, always,''
And a voice inside my head
said, ''Not me,''
Wow,
I can say that now
because I've discussed that,
I've talked about this
with them,
and they know about...
My son, of course,
is now an actor,
but that was my life, my work,
and still is, essentially,
Are you lonely?
Never,
You're never lonely?
I've always been
content with my own company,
- Really,
- Even when others weren't,
What's it feel like
to be divorced?
I have two major
regrets in my life,
and they're both to do
with the failure of...
My failure in my marriages,
How I behaved,
what I did, um...
can't be corrected
and...
guilt, I think,
has gone,
but regret remains,
and I have that
very strongly,
And it is kind of
handicapped me a little bit,
I've been married twice,
divorced twice,
I don't know that
I could possibly do it again,
You know, I'm the only female
captain on this franchise
called ''Star Trek,''
And I think that the great
difference is I...
The female is hardwired,
once she has her young,
to take care of them
and to raise them
and I couldn't do it well,
You know, there were
16, 18 hour days on that set
for seven years,
And I had two little kids,
and believe me, Bill Shatner,
they resented it,
And to this day, they never
watched it, they disdained it,
they had nothing but dripping
contempt for it,
and I don't blame them,
so the woman
cannot have it all,
but I've watched you guys
and you guys can,
- So...
- Mm-hmm,
Brings me to the meat,
the heart of what
I want to talk to about,
How can you be a starship
captain, a real starship...
How can you be
a naval captain going off...
- To the Delta quadrant,
- to the Delta quadrant...
Yeah,
and have all those hormonal
things rage?
How can you be
Secretary of State?
It's very hard,
Well, ''hard'' isn't nebulous,
Isn't it impossible to have the
same objectivity
that a man has?
- Yes, of course it is,
- Ah, you admitted that,
It's impossible
to have the same gender,
I mean, I'm a woman,
you're a man,
Right, so it's
quite different,
It's absolutely different,
To be a leader,
a woman leader,
that's quite different
from a man leader,
There's no question about it,
Now, I'll sit back
and look at Mrs, AIbright
and Secretary Clinton
and I'll say to myself,
how do they do it?
But I asked myself
the same question,
It's just diabolically
difficult,
Now, they're both at
an age where they've let...
The rest of the hard work is
gone, the kids are up, right?
But the lack of hormones is
raging there as well,
I mean, it never stops,
It doesn't stop,
- No,
- So...
This could be unanswerable,
No, it has an answer,
But...
You have an answer for it,
Well, you have
an anSWRr,
I would apply this...
Let me apply it to myself
as an actor
and not as
a... a politician
or anything else, because I
couldn't speak for those woman,
I would say, this being the
second-oldest profession,
it's all right
to be an actress,
but it's not as kind as it
was even 200 years ago
when you were allowed to bring
your children with you
to the theater,
when children were
a part of your life,
Now everything is severely
compartmentalized,
and you know Hollywood better,
much better than I do,
It's tough,
It's a boy's club out there
and they're very tough,
You play by their rules
and you must subscribe to them,
so that doesn't have any...
See, that sounds very
politically interesting,
what you said, but it doesn't
make any sense,
What do you mean
you play by their rules?
You have to appear at 6:00
in the morning
and be ready with your
lines and say the words
and be there 'til the end of
shooting,
Right,
That could be...
8:00, 9:00, 10:00...
You and I have worked
'til 12:00, 2:00,
- 4:00 in the morning,
- That's correct,
To complete the day's
work on a friday, especially,
That's right...
Then you're wrecked
for the weekend,
That's right, you're wrecked,
You gotta sleep
all day Saturday,
But you're not wrecked, 'cause
the minute you get home at 5:00,
you've got two hours before
those kids
- are jumping on your bed,
- Right,
Now, as a man,
I suppose you have the license
or the opportunity at any rate,
to say, go to your mother,
But if you're
a single mother, which I was,
with your two little children,
you get up,
So what do you...
- Now...
- You get up,
Okay, so I have just come from,
in the sequence of activity
that I'm doing,
I've just come from
England with Patrick,
- I know you have,
- flown...
I'm in jet lag, okay?
I've survived because I don't
have any kids with me,
my wife and I stayed in the
room, we rested, have gona...
and I am... I am energized
to talk to you,
- But if I were jet-lagged,
- And you look very dapper,
- Thank you,
- And let's be frank,
Liz looks after you a little
bit, does she not?
- That's right, absolutely,
- I don't have anybody
Iooking after me,
My wife looks after me,
You don't have anybody
Iooking after you,
Of course I don't, I never did,
And you were looking after your
kids by yourself,
- That's right,
- How do you...
It's impossible to do,
It is impossible,
but it's not...
Obviously not
impossible, I did it,
Well... no, no, it is impossible
to do, so how did you do it?
I didn't,
I'm afraid I didn't do parts of
either thing very well,
I didn't reach the excellence
I could have reached
had I had a little more
rest, a little more help,
and I'll have to live
with that myself,
but I did the very best...
The excellence with the children
or with the role?
- Absolutely, my motherhood,
- And what about the role?
What about Janeway?
Well, you know, my pride,
my ego is very substantial,
so I never gave her less than
I would say 950/o,
but there were days when
there was absolute exhaustion,
There were days when my kids
were suffering,
and, you know,
you can't walk off a set,
You know that better
than anybody,
There's no way
they're gonna let you go,
so the preoccupation with your
children's pain is enormous,
and add to that eight pages
of ''techno-babble''
that you've got to execute
by 2:00 in the morning
and you can't get to the phone
because they don't let you...
It's... it's...
it's very hard,
- Did you lose family time?
- Of course,
- Did it hurt?
- Of course,
But how much
harm was suffered...
Well, you know, you have to ask
them, because the attendant...
the attendant of
the movement of time,
you know, for us all,
You know, there it is,
There's the one...
the one hand or the other,
I mean, who knows,
therefore?
You know, in retrospect,
you know, I mean, you could
do it that way,
Say, oh, I should have
done this as opposed...
I mean, who knows?
I mean, so... so...
so I hold fast
to what I've chosen to do
and I'm not apologizing
for that,
but the attendant toll taken on
family and all of that, it's...
That's it,
What do you mean, that's it?
- That's profound,
- Hey, man, that's it,
- That was terrible,
- It's true, baby,
That was terrible,
Well, it's not terrible
or not terrible,
Well, you suffered,
you suffered,
It's true, it's true,
they suffered,
- You suffered,
- It's true,
- But you suffered as well,
- Now, watch...
Well, if they suffered,
didn't you suffer?
- Watch what I'm saying to you,
- I'm listening,
It's true, it's not
terrible or not, it's true,
You know, the toll...
the toll on people,
you can't get it back,
I mean, no matter what,
I mean, whether the
decision to make...
You know, to do
a thing or not to do a thing...
You know what
I'm talking about,
Yes, I do,
Did you discuss this with Vicki
like this or did you...
She knows, of course,
I'll move,
Whether we survive it
is still extent, isn't it?
Whether we survive all
of the sum...
The killing of
the effects of life,
Yeah, that living, baby,
Like you,
- What's different?
- The same,
This is 50-something years later
and I'm...
an old man, reminiscing
about a kid...
who was so afraid,
I was afraid of the future,
I was afraid of
my fellow actors,
I was afraid of not being
good enough,
I didn't realize it then,
but I'm starting to realize it
now, I...
God, I come from such
a sense of inferiority,
I'd been asked to come
to Stratford
because I'd been playing in
professional theater in Ottawa,
and so I came to this tent
that was erected
over a hole in the ground,
This was Stratford Theatre,
We were all there,
the acting company waiting for
Tyrone Guthrie,
Iegendary English
producer/director,
And I'd come to his
attention because
I had understudied
Chris Plummer in ''Henry V,''
Chris, about two weeks into
the run got sick for one day
and they asked
me if I could go on,
and I went on,
I got lucky, it went well,
and then I got good notices
and my name became known
a little bit at Stratford,
But this was a time of great
ferment for me,
I didn't know whether
I could make it as an actor,
I get to meet my old friend
Chris Plummer
on the stage at Stratford,
He might not have been
a captain ,
but he was a general,
Coming to Los Angeles
to do ''Star Trek,''
do you recall
telling anybody and...
and any reaction you had?
Yes, I wanted to
keep it quiet,
You told no one,
I said, listen...
Well, no, I said
I'm in LA for tests,
No, I'm joking,
No, I was very proud of it,
I told everybody,
I went on and on saying
that you realized you couldn't
go on with your career
without hiring me,
Chang,
Can you see me?
Oh now, be honest, Captain,
Warrior to warrior,
Chang was an integral part of
''Star Trek,''
a character that the fans,
as I understand it...
Yes, well, you know,
I was a serious Trekkie
when it first came out,
- No, I didn't know that,
- You didn't know that,
No,
But I was, in the early '60s
when it began,
- Yeah,
- Wasn't it the early '60s?
- Yeah, middle '60s, yeah,
- Middle,
And I'm... but I was living in
England all through the '60s,
but I watched
you on television,
Oh, for gosh sakes,
Over and over again, I became
a complete Trekkie,
so when you
asked me, 100 years later
to play in this very witty
''Star Trek VI ,''
I played this...
I think the only Klingon that
didn't have a hairpiece
and I had this
sort of blind eye
and this eye patch with
a nail through it,
I looked a bit
like Moshe Dayan in heat,
- In heat,
- Yes,
And I had the most
marvelous time
playing with you guys again
and everybody seemed to be
a Canadian on that show,
That was right,
We larded it with the finest
talent in the world,
who just happen to be Canadian,
Of course,
The line that
stayed with me was,
that you should read Shakespeare
in the original Klingon,
If you tickle us,
do we not laugh?
Prick us, do we not bleed?
Wrong us...
shall we not revenge?
I think it was something like,
you haven't heard Shakespeare
until you've heard it
in the original Klingon,
And sitting here in a seat of
Shakespeare's,
it's really funny,
It strikes a chord,
Was Chang a challenge?
- Yes, yes,
- How so?
Well, for the...
It was a challenge
to begin with
because I didn't
want to look like
every other Klingon that had
ever walked with...
The omelet,
With the massive head
and the massive brow,
- Right, right,
- I thought that... And we had...
We ran into big difficulty,
because, of course, isn't it...
Isn't there a language already
in Washington?
Yeah, a guy invented
the Klingon language,
Yes,
And it's been certified
and it's been recognized
as a language,
- Dead or alive,
- Oh, my gosh,
And so I got a lot of flak,
A lot of people were saying,
nO , nO , nO , nO , nO ,
You've got to have all this,
'cause it's traditional,
we can't walk away,
- finally, Nicholas...
- Nick Meyer, yeah,
Nick Meyer, who wrote that very
witty tongue-in-cheek script,
he stood up for me and...
I didn't come to
you because I thought,
you know, Bill's not
gonna help at all,
So at least the director stood
up for me and I got my way,
I didn't have
the long hair,
- The omelet,
- I looked... Yeah,
To be or not to be,
I'm a native of the planet Risa
which was the planet
that everybody went on vacation
when they had time off,
It was the spring break planet,
Yes, basically,
- Spring break planet,
- Risans gone wild,
- Yes,
- Woo!
from TOS to TNG to DS9
to Voyager,
it's pretty much
also inspired my life,
I study mechanical engineering,
The next generation
right here,
I've always been
a ''Star Trek'' fan,
Humanity has settled its
differences with each other
and that's what I really would
like to...
I'd like to live,
Well, he is about the most
ultimate ''Star Trek'' fan
that every lived,
He came from
AIbuquerque and had...
Drove up 12 hours, so...
In a van,
and it was quite a...
quite a difficult trip
for him,
but it's worth it,
He's had like two hours
of sleep,
He doesn't care,
It helps his mind,
he says,
It's, I think, something
that's positive and creative
and it brings a lot of
meaning to him,
for a long time,
Bill had no interest
in going to the conventions,
He and Leonard both had issues
with getting away
from that character,
only being identified
with one role,
They were actors,
they wanted people to
appreciate their ability for
other things,
not just for the one character
they'd played,
They finally did a convention in
New York in 1 976,
He was very nervous,
I don't think he realized what
it would be like
to get on stage and have,
in this case,
thousands of people
who absolutely adored him,
just that love that hits you
when you get on that stage
and he started going to
conventions after that,
Um...
I'm doing a documentary called
''The Captains,''
Avery Brooks,
What a great guy,
But he's kinda out there,
He's doing jazz things
in his head,
Captain,
Avery, are you there?
Yes, I'm here,
And that phony accent that
Patrick Stewart puts on,
I had the best time
with Patrick at his house,
It was...
He's got a great house
in the country,
Can't tell you where, can't even
tell you which country!
Kate Mulgrew in New York,
So she's on her way
down to the location
and I sat in a packing box
and people start passing by
and they're looking at me,
and I'm in the...
I'm like a homeless guy
in a packing box,
Isn't that
Captain Kirk in there?
What's he doing?
Yes!
What's your favorite dramatic
scream, Spock or Khan?
You gotta help me,
Scream Spock like I did,
Spooock!
Okay,
Now scream
''Khan'' like I did,
Khaaan!
That's pretty good, kid,
Which is my favorite scream?
Screams of ecstasy, but you
wouldn't know about that,
Goodbye, goodbye,
You don't mind, do you?
Oh, mind, my friend?
My dear friend,
I love you so much,
But...
And you know it's mutual,
- I know,
- I know,
Where are we going now?
You have a backstage
meet-and-greet...
A backstage meet-and-greet,
- How are you?
- fine, how are you?
What's your name?
My name's Dawn,
I met you in San francisco,
I recognized your
pretty face, Dawn,
- Thank you,
- Hi,
- Hi, I'm Debra,
- Hi, Debra, how are you?
Pleasure to see you,
Hi, how are you?
she told me a lot
about you,
Really?
Pleasure to see you,
I'm Amy,
it's nice to meet you,
Hello, Amy, pleasure
to meet you,
Hi, Blair,
nice to meet you,
Blair, nice to see you,
Andy, nice to see you,
Hi, Scott, how are you?
- Pleasure to meet you,
- Pleasure to meet you,
Hi there,
How are you today?
William Shatner,
this is Captain Dave,
Hi, Captain Dave,
How are you?
- He's one of your biggest fans,
- It's a pleasure to see you,
How are you?
- He's speaking now,
- There you go,
I understand you're fine,
Are you excited?
That a boy,
It's good to see you,
Are you having fun?
Must be quite
an experience, huh?
It's good to see you,
Take care of yourself,
So I am on this
Bombardier airplane
and I'm watching for the first
time, you,
I'm looking
at the dignity
and the seriousness
and the application of your
talent to this role,
and I'm thinking,
this is really good,
And I know the quality
of your talent,
I've recognized
a long time ago
what a fine actor you are,
and then I plumbed a note
inside me
that I want to
talked to you about,
and that's this,
When I did Captain Kirk
and we opened up
in the first season,
the notices were not
particularly good about the show
and not particularly
good for me,
Whatever they said about me
was not as laudatory
as it had in the past
and what I was able to
get sometimes in the future,
In fact, Leonard Nimoy, who
played Mr, Spock so well,
so uniquely,
that although he didn't have
spectacular things to do,
that we would
think of for an actor,
he played the thing
so differently,
that it caught the attention
of people and the critics
and he had a nomination
for an Emmy
and none of that came my way,
Then as the show continued,
I would get things like,
''Hey, beam me up, Scotty!''
A sort of, what had seemed
to me as sort of derisive tone,
And then when the...
my series was over
and a few years later,
there began conventions,
I was asked to do the first
convention,
and I thought,
I'm not gonna do a convention
with all those people
in costumes
and makeup and all this,
and then after a few
conventions,
15000 people would attend,
And I thought,
well, 15000 people,
I guess you can't ignore that,
So I went on and I would
do these conventions
and there'd be all these
people in wardrobe and costume
and, ''What's it like to be
Captain Kirk?''
and, ''Yay, Captain,''
You know, they're taking me
as Captain Kirk,
and I'm not Captain Kirk,
I'm William Shatner,
More, and I think
the right word is ''derisive,''
I realized on that airplane
that I was slightly embarrassed
about playing Captain Kirk,
I never thought of it
in that way, but I thought,
all these people that would come
up to me
and one who came up to me
in Toronto when we landed
to pick up Canadian crew,
the head of Bombardier said
what a fan he was of me
and that he had become
an aeronautical engineer
because of what...
of my appeal to him,
and as I know and I want to
hear about it,
so many people have come up
and said my life has changed
as a result of seeing your work,
and what I have done
always in the past
was go, ''Oh, yeah,''
I'd say to myself,
''Yeah, right,
Not really,''
I mean, you're...
I'm part of this Hollywood
mystique, you guys think...
and you think I affected you,
but not really,
I would deny it,
even if I
didn't so in front of them,
''Yeah, sure,''
And for the first time, when...
when the head of...
the CO of Bombardier,
said, ''I was affected,''
The first time, because
I'm doing research on you,
I looked at him and I thought,
is it possible that what
I did all those years ago
really did affect him?
I was in deniaI
and I was in a sort of derisive
feeling about Captain Kirk
until I saw you
play Captain Picard,
and I thought, you've brought
all your talents,
all your excellence,
all your gravitas
to the part
and then your
statement in which you said
all the kings and emperors
and romantic parts
that you have played
classically and elsewhere
all have led up to playing
Captain Picard,
But I, too,
have played classical roles
and been in wonderful
productions
and I never
thought of it quite that way,
that the way Captain Kirk
changed my life,
I never quite
thought of it that way
until this epiphany
I've had as a result of doing
the research on you,
How extraordinary,
How extraordinary,
I have so many observations
about what you've been saying,
There are many places in which
our careers and our lives
and work overlap,
Tremendous amount,
I don't believe this is
coincidence,
I think Gene Roddenberry
sometimes knew
exactly what he was doing
and sometimes was just working
on instinct,
when he cast you, when,
very improbably, he cast me,
And the story about all my work
prior to ''Star Trek''
being nothing
but a preparation
for sitting in the captain's
chair of the Enterprise,
I said this very
early in the first season
when we were doing
a lot of press
and I found myself
being asked questions
or listening to comments
that were ever so gently,
ever so subtly implying
that given my past,
my history as an actor,
wasn't I just slumming
a little bit now?
You know, hadn't this
just taken
a little bit of a downward...
I was so offended by these
suggestions,
because you know how hard
we worked on those shows,
the hours that we put in,
that everybody put in,
If I filled
that chair at all well,
if I had any authority
on the bridge
or on an alien planet,
it was because of what
I'd done before
that gave me that
confidence and assurance,
and I think thoughtfulness
about the work,
And very early on,
I remember in a conversation
with Jonathan frakes,
Commander Riker,
saying I'm going to do the best
work in this syndicated
science-fiction television
show that I can possibly do,
Who am I to argue with the
Captain of the Enterprise?
What's the name of that planet,
Veridian III?
Yes,
I take it the odds are against
us and the situation is grim,
You could say that,
Sounds like fun,
You applied all your skills
without any sense of it
being less
than demanding,
everything you had,
I don't mean that when
I was shooting,
that I didn't do
anything less than my best,
I was coming from a more
emotional point of view,
I think, and that
I was trying to
generate as much... emotion
within what was written,
to extract as much juice out of
it as possible,
that I, when I look at
some of the things I did, I...
''What was I...
Why wasn't I more diffident
about that?''
Instead of trying to extract
every moment of
drama out of it,
But there's one difference that
separates the two of us,
We have all of
these similarities,
You were creating a show,
We were developing
that creation of yours,
The passion...
You see, it's so good you talked
about the passion
that you put into it,
My passion was
of a different nature
from yours as Captain Kirk,
You were setting the style,
the form, the shape,
the quality of
the energy of that series,
I finally realized that it
wasn't Starfleet
I wanted to get away from,
I was trying to accept the pain
I felt
after my wife's death,
I thought I could
take the uniform,
wrap it around that pain
and toss them both away,
but it doesn't work like that,
Running may help
for a little while,
but sooner or later, the pain
catches up with you,
And the only way
to get rid of it
is to stand your ground
and face it,
from God to you,
Through to me,
What happens when you die?
Tell me,
Wish I knew,
Do you have a thought?
It could be good,
it could be bad,
That makes me smile,
I wish I knew,
Well, what's your feeling about
life and death?
- What's your feeling?
- Well, I don't think...
I think we're just...
these are just...
the bodies are just temporaI
and another word
that you and I can use,
but, you know, we're not our
bodies,
- the're...
- Are we?
- We have a soul?
- I think so, I think so,
And does that soul
go someplace?
- I think so,
- Like where?
- I think it's all around us,
- Yeah?
It's not in
a pearly gate or...
No, no,
But the souls,
the essence of the lives
that have been before
are around us,
AIways, always,
And so there's... so...
And do they have
an influence?
- Oh, absolutely,
- And helping guide,
Yeah, sure,
So you don't think in terms of
life and death?
I don't,
I think about it in terms...
You know, for other people,
but I think...
I'm so... the more we're...
The longer
I'm here and the more I see,
the less I think about that
because so many people don't
get it as long as I've had,
so many people don't
have as much as I have,
and so I think as you get older,
you know, people always talk
about perspective,
but I think
you get more grateful,
Mr, Shatner, you are
well-traveled, well-read,
You've loved often and well,
You've experienced
a great deal of grief
and probably no end of problems
that none of us will ever know,
so I have to conclude that
you're an examined person,
so I want you to really answer
this question,
When you die,
do you believe that there
is a life after that
or do you believe that it is
ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
When I had to play the death
of Captain Kirk...
the night before,
I said to myself,
I have to look at the moment
of death,
how will I feel?
And so I imagined myself
on the threshold,
I fainted once
when I drank a cold beer
after a hot workout
and I went out...
- How typical of you,
- And I went out,
I chug-a-lugged a cold beer,
and sooner or later
I passed out, and I was...
20 seconds later,
I was going, what happened?
But I remember
the closing in,
Yes,
The ''iris-ing'' in
of my feeling,
And like how they're...
Holy cow,
Zoom... and I was out,
So what is
that moment of death?
Where is that margin
that you say
I'm alive and I'm dying?
I'm dead,
I had to imagine that,
Then, I had to
characterize it
by what would Captain Kirk do,
So there's
two answers here,
One is, the death of
Captain Kirk,
I imagined Kirk with
a lifetime of looking at the...
The alien,
- The alien coming towards you,
- Right, right, right,
And instead of fear, I always
play, wow, look at that!
Oh, his giant teeth
is coming towards me,
that sort of thing,
awe and wonder,
I figured Kirk would look
at the moment of death and go,
''Oh, my,''
It was...
fun,
Oh, my,
I'm frightened of death,
I'm scared,
- Are you?
- Yeah,
I thrust it out of my mind and
probably by the dint of work
'cause I know death
is over my shoulder,
by the dint of work that
I'm doing, I'm alive,
By the passion I feel
for my wife, I'm alive,
by my family affairs,
I hold them so close,
I'm alive,
But death is right there,
And I'm fearful,
I'm panicked, I'm...
What are you fearful of?
Losing all this,
Now you're out there,
you finished ''Star Trek''
and you leave,
- Where do you go?
- Here,
Did you know
you were coming here?
Yeah, I have nowhere
else to go,
I have nowhere else to go,
You know when people say,
''Oh, what are you doing now?''
Well, I mean, what I'm doing
always,
I'm right here,
Here you are
At home
So happy
And yet you yearn
For more
What do you
yearn for?
What do you want?
What's life
Going to tell you?
You look at me
And wonder
You see?
You look at me and...
- Think
- No,
Doubt
You
Yeah,
Look at me
And wonder
Will the flame
Go out,
No.
No, no, no...
That flame is there
No one is sure
Of sunshine
No one is sure of rain
Yes!
All we know
But my love
For you
Will always
Be there
Will linger
On
And on
And on
All I know is that...
I have found...
a greater peace,
a greater tranquility,
a truer sense of who I am
and why I'm here
on stage
or in front of a camera
than I find in life,
Not fame, not money,
not even the craft itself
is more important to me
than the people that I love,
And that's
where I've come to,
I suppose that was always me,
but it takes some years
of feeling...
the deep
strains of love,
It's the only mystery that...
that is infinitely
important,
No, it's this thing
about the freedom
of how we conceive,
how we perceive each other,
the world,
the possibility of things,
I've always wanted to believe,
so when they present
something like
''Quantum Leap''
to me, or time travel,
I want to believe that,
I want to believe
that we can do that,
because I know that
we can split the atom
and move it from one
side of a cement block
to the other side of it and put
it back together again,
so theoretically,
we can do that,
So I'm on board, I'm there,
And when I see...
When your guys' show is on and
I'm looking at you guys flying,
I'm thinking, we're gonna be
able to do that someday,
It was one of the best
experiences of my life,
I met some of
the closest friends
that I think I'll ever have,
It certainly changed
the trajectory of my career,
but fundamentally,
and I think what acting is all
about and what you've shown
a great deal of,
especially with ''Boston Legal,''
is a sense of humor,
There's a fun, there's a joy,
I know...
that if it were all to end...
this evening,
everything,
I would be largely known
for my work on
''Star Trek,''
I would be Captain Picard,
Not Macbeth,
not King Lear,
not Shakespeare,
any of those things,
but Captain Picard,
And I am absolutely
fine with that,
Wow,
fine,
In this instant,
for you to have said that,
here's the gift you've given me,
I've made this long journey
from Los Angeles to London
to talk to you
and the gift I've got
is my realization
that I too would
feel the same way
if they say,
''That was Captain Kirk,''
All of the sudden,
I've suddenly
had a release to say,
I'm happy with that,
why not?
Great character, long-lived,
45 years later, people are
still talking about Captain...
Who does that?
- Unprecedented,
- Unprecedented,
So what if they say,
''Beam me up, Scotty''?
Yeah, yeah,
''If I could I would,''
should be my answer,
So, Scotty,
wherever you are,
it's okay to beam me up,
But not yet!
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