mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com (11/02/90)
This article originally appeared in the 10/14 issue of West, the Sunday magazine of the San Jose Mercury News. Interviewer Bob Frost is a free-lance writer based in San Francisco with wide experience in feature and news writing. His phone is (415) 221-3514. [Reprinted in rec.arts.startrek.info by permission of Bob Frost] INTERVIEW By Bob Frost William Shatner << NOTE: I have changed words that were originally italicized to be included within single quote characters instead - David >> Best known as `Star Trek''s James T. Kirk, Shatner, 59, will be seen this week on the five-part TBS environmental miniseries `Voice of the Planet.' Q. How do you explain the continuing success of `Star Trek' on TV and in the movies? A. First of all, it's an action format. Second, the program is hopeful. The central premise is that there will in fact be a future. Also, the cast of characters is appealing, and there has been an attempt to make the stories meaningful. Now, having gone through the list, you really don't come up with why it's still so successful -- the real answer is somewhere in the realm of chemistry, in the interactions of all these elements in a special way. Q. Do you have a favorite episode from the TV series? A. No, but frequently I was asked to do rather weird things, like having a girl in my body, and playing a double character. Those were good fun. Q. There have been five `Star Trek' movies. Which one do you like best? A. `Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.' Q. The one you directed. A. Right! My second favorite is `Star Trek IV.' I think the movies got progressively better as we went along. We added humor, and got more adept at putting up on the screen that elusive chemistry we were talking about. Q. Was it rewarding to direct `Star Trek V'? A. Very much so. If I were to pick the top accomplishment of my career, that film would be it. The real kick about directing science fiction is you can start from a clean state. You can invent things to your heart's content and you don't necessarily have to explain how it works. For example, in `Star Trek V' we shot a scene -- it doesn't appear in the finished film; I don't know exactly why we cut it -- where Kirk and Spock have to make a visit to the men's room. And the camera angle shows them from the waist up, a frontal view; they're just standing there, several feet apart. They don't fuss around with their zippers or anything. There are none of the sounds you associate with a trip to the men's room; just Kirk and Spock looking slightly bored. After a half- minute or so they just walk away -- they're finished. Well, how did they complete their mission? That's up to the audience to speculate on. Q: Will there be more movies in the series? A: There are some plans for a new one. There is a plot outline and there is work being done on a script, but whether that will turn into a film is unknown. I don't know if I'll direct or not. I don't even know the story at this point. This sort of uncertainty is typical for this business. Q: What are the differences between Captain James Kirk and T.J. Hooker, the cop you played on ABC from 1982-1984? A: I always thought Hooker was basically an angry man, whereas Kirk was essentially noble. I would approach each scene with that in mind. I did quite a bit of research for "Hooker" and came to admire many of the police officers I studied and worked with. Q. I'd like to ask you about a couple of your early roles. You appeared in 1961 as Spencer Tracy's aide in `Judgement at Nuremberg.' A. I have only one Spencer Tracy anecdote to offer. I met him at the start of filming and he was quite nice to me; the next day he had a scene in which he gave a long, impassioned oration. This speech of his surprised and interested me -- I had been a stage actor for the 10 years preceding this, and hadn't realized film actors had to learn and deliver so many lines at once. I went up to Tracy and expressed my surprise to him. Ho looked at me for a moment and turned and walked away. He never spoke to me again. Q. In 1962 you were in a very interesting film called `The Intruder,' playing a racist demagogue named Cramer. A. Roger Corman directed it. He says it's the only film he ever made that lost money. It was about small town racial prejudice, shot in Sikeston, Mo. The residents didn't take too well to their town being the site of this film, and our lives were threatened. Very serious threats. Somebody attacked one of the extras. Equipment was damaged. Those were three tough weeks of work. The film got excellent reviews; perhaps it wasn't sold right. Q. Usually when it came to physical danger in your career, it was of your own choosing -- you're known for doing your own stunts. A. Often it was quite stupid for me to be doing them. The most danger I've been in -- I can't remember what the film was, but I was lying flat on top of a train, going along at 30 or 40 miles an hour with very little to hang onto and a curve to make it through. We did 10 or 12 takes of that scene. I could have lost it at any moment. It was exciting at the time but I can't believe now that I did it. It was ridiculous. Q. You grew up in Montreal. You've been quoted as saying you were quite lonely as a child and teenager. A. I guess I was. I don't know why. One reason, maybe, was that I was very good at athletics and loved acting too, and those two worlds didn't meet. There was a certain amount of derision from each world for the other. I was shy when I was young. Very shy. Basically I still am. Q. As you noted earlier, the idea behind `Star Trek' is that humankind has a pretty good future. Are you personally optimistic about the years to come? A. The long-term future of human beings on Earth will be decided in the next 20 or 25 years. This is the most dramatic turning point in the history of humanity. We've got a window of at most 25 years during which we will make choices, as regards the environment and world population, that will determine whether we live or are wiped out. The TBS miniseries `Voice of the Planet' is good television for anyone who wants to help Earth have a future. David B. Mears Hewlett-Packard Cupertino CA hplabs!hpda!mears mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edited by Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith - the official scapegoat for r.a.s.i. Email submissions to trek-info@dweeb.fx.com, and questions to trek-info-request@dweeb.fx.com