20 Questions: William Shatner

Writer's Log, Stardate 8907.6, Contributing Editor David Rensin reporting I'm in traffic around the Paramount Pictures lot, where William Shatner, also known as Captain—now Admiral—James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, has finally gone where he's never gone before: to direct a feature film, 'Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.' I'll be parking soon and walking to his production offices. There, according to reliable information, we will meet for an interview. I don't know what to expect. A review of preparatory materials indicates that he's difficult to detain and interrogate. Also, that he can talk tirelessly about horses and the environment, as well as space adventures. This much is also clear: The Shatner creature can,at will, transform himself into something called a T. J. Hooker. Yet I have been advised that he will likely be neither Hooker nor Kirk but something far more formidable. Perhaps with a sense of humor. I can only hope so. My job apparently depends on it."

1.

[Q] Playboy: You once said that your life is a single-minded pursuit of the adrenaline rush. How does that inform Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?

[A] Shatner: When asked how this one may be different from the others, someone said, "There is much more running and jumping." And, indeed, there is. A lot of running and jumping and rioting and yelling and screaming. Yeah, the adrenaline rush is the food of life. Star Trek V is an adrenaline rush personally, because it is the culmination of a lifetime of being in the business and finally making a film. I helped write the story, I directed it and I acted in it. I've been with it for three years and it's really good. I've made a motion picture. That's something very few people can say. To hear myself say it sounds miraculous.

2.

[Q] Playboy: You've directed theater and television. What was there about directing a film that your previous experience hadn't prepared you for?

[A] Shatner: I had assumed that the higher up one went—if one takes expensive films as the highest point—people knew more about what they were doing. And it turns out that nobody knows what he's doing. The big lesson is: With a little taste and good sense and experience, oneman's opinion is the equal of another's.

3.

[Q] Playboy: In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, your relationship with Leonard Nimoy was altered whenhe became the director and you were taking orders, so to speak, from somebody with whom you'd been on equal footing.Which of you took direction better?

[A] Shatner: [Laughs] I had more trepidation when Leonard was directing, because at the time, he was an unknown quantity. He probably handled being directed by me better because he has such great equanimity about him [laughs.] He also had mixed reactions to the script and was forceful in wanting certain changes. We felt it very important to go along with as many as we could. Leonard's avery logical person. He approaches things from a very constructive point of view.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Nimoy's reported reaction to being asked back for the first Star Trek film was, "I threwup. [And then] I called to see whether my passport was still valid." Yet he came to terms with his Spock identity and reported for duty. Describe the process of making peace with a character you'll be all your life.

[A] Shatner: On Star Trek, I played the hero. Leonard's character had ears on, which made him freaky, so itwas very difficult for him to get away from it. I've done a lot of other things as an actor, though much of it, in the years subsequent to Star Trek, has been based onthe series' being so popular. I've made a good living. I've lived a wonderful life. I became an international figure. After I decided to be in the first Star Trek motion picture, there was no question about doing another. Even if the movies weren't called Star Trek, the part was good. And, finally, during the past three pictures, I was doing another TV series, and some people now think of me as T. J. Hooker.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Hooker was a tough cookie, a conservative cop in liberal times. What was his biggest fear?

[A] Shatner: Feeling too much for the victims. Most cops are like that. They have to become inured. Otherwise, the job is too tough. There's more divorce, more suicide. The best cops are the professionals who are able to look objectively at the good guys and the bad guys.

6.

[Q] Playboy: As one of the good guys, Captain Kirkoften has brief flings with alien—albeit humanoid—women. Give us Kirk's guide to breaking the ice with alienettes. What's his routine?

[A] Shatner: First of all, you take off your boots [laughs]. You want more? Then you have to find the erogenous zones. They differ on every alien. They may have allbeen humanoid, but that doesn't mean anything. An alien erogenous zone can lead you down all kinds of strange paths—some of which I can tell you and some of which I can't. Let's just say that when you scratch your head, you may be fulfilling the sexual fantasies of some alien. Also, Kirk would often talk about [shrugs] ... love. How it was a wonderful thing. Men, women ... a good approach.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Right. And you used that very technique to get Shahna to help you out of a jam in the episode called "The Gamesters of Triskelion." Later, that same actress apparently put out a provocative poster of herself. Doyou own one?

[A] Shatner: Was she the big-busted girl with the hair?[Smiles] I remember her. I haven't seen the poster,but what I have seen is some footage of her and me kissingin a gag reel. What they did was loop it so it looked likewe were making the same motion again and again. Went on for quite a bit, caused some laughter.

8.

[Q] Playboy: What's an early-warning sign of a Trekkie?

[A] Shatner: It's the wild-eyed look, the hands lifted above the ears and the shambling walk that breaks into a run as they approach me. [Pauses, looks serious] I love Star Trek. I've had the greatest time. And we've spent a lot of this interview talking about it and that's OK. But it's a small part of my life.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Star Trek is a major part of other people's lives. What's your favorite Trekkie story?

[A] Shatner: I got into a car with a driver some years ago, and he stopped the car in the middle of the road and said, "I've got to talk to you." I thought, Oh, my God, what a place to be hung up with a Trekkie—no escape and the doors were locked. He said, "I've been looking for you for years," and I thought, Well, this could get dangerous. Then he said, "I was a prisoner in Vietnam," and I began to listen more carefully. He said, "I was captured early in the war, along with several of my buddies, and whatever you saw in The Deer Hunter was child's play compared with what we were put through. We were kept in cages half under the water and all that. We could have gone insane. The only way we kept our sanity was by playing the Star Trek game. One of us would pretend to be Captain Kirk and others Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew, andwe'd do episodes. We did that for the length of time that I was a prisoner of the Vietnamese, and I wanted to thank you. It's been a long time." By that time, we were both crying.

10.

[Q] Playboy: In the film Big Bad Mama, you co-star with Angie Dickinson. There are at least three seminude scenes. When you read that script and knew you woulddo those scenes with her, how much did you offer to pay toplay the part?

[A] Shatner: I gave them a blank check. Angie is beautiful. She is luscious, sensuous, intelligent.... I have to censor myself, because my kids will read this. But I'll tell you this story: When we first read the script together, everybody was embarrassed because at times Angie and I were going to have to be nude. So we all agreed that when thenude scenes came around, we would empty the set and only absolutely required personnel would remain: the cameraman, the first assistant director; that's about it. Angie started the movie about two weeks before I did. When I came in,the first scene, of course, was the nude scene [smiles.] So I got my body make-up on and wore my shorts undera kimono to the set. Angie was already there, in her dressing gown on the bed. I awkwardly took off my slippers and stepped out of my shorts and kept my robe clutched around me. That's when I noticed that her robe had spilled open alittle and she wasn't wearing any shorts. Then I heard thefirst assistant director say, "All right, everybody, only the essential personnel will stay. Everybody else, please go." A general movement began toward the door when I heardAngie say to me, "Oh, Bill, Bob's make-up; do you mind if he stays?" I said, "Oh, no problem." She said, "Bob, you can stay—uh, George! Uh, Dick! Fred ... " and gradually, one by one, she named them all, friends she had made during the first two weeks. By the way, I've had other nudescenes. I had to make love to Anne Francis on stage in Remote Asylum. Live. I had to reach an orgasm at the Ahmanson Theater, in Los Angeles, in front of twenty-two hundred people, every night for six weeks. That was tough. Because how much do you reveal? Are you a screamer or aren't you?

11.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of screaming, you once recorded, to music, what can only be considered imaginative recitations of such popular songs as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Mr. Tambourine Man. Are they something you'd now like to forget?

[A] Shatner: [Laughs] There were quite a few. There was a whole record. The idea was to combine a modern song with some classical piece. So we took a song that was popular at that time and tried to act it as though it wereprose. Or we took some prose and wrote music for it. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds went with something out of Cyrano de Bergerac, I think, in which Cyrano says, "I will stand by myself"—the speech in which he says, "I'm my own man." Well, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds—it was a drug song, and I performed it as best I could, as though I were drugged—segued intoa stalwart man's saying, "I may not be a part of everybodyelse, but I am my own man." Some cuts worked, some didn't.I haven't heard it in a long time.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Are an actor's nightmares more likely to come when he's asleep or awake?

[A] Shatner: Mine came to me on a live television show,years ago, when I was crossing the stage. I was playing a scene with Lee J. Cobb. And the camera was following me asI walked across the room, and in that walk, getting from point A to point B, my mind went, My God, there are thirty million people watching me walk. And then I couldn't move my left hand with my right leg. I became somewhat spastic.At that moment, I realized the enormity of what I was asking of the human mind. I was asking thirty million people to suspend disbelief and assume that I was this person walking across the room. That kind of third-person view of yourself as an actor is the most dangerous pit we can fall into.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Captain Kirk has certain mannerisms. One is an urgent, neo-Shakespearean phrasing when he's trying to be convincing or making a moral statement. He'll linger on a word, midsentence, then say the rest rapidly, often running past the period into the next sentence. Another characteristic is the shrug, sometimes accompanied by open arms, bent at the elbows, cupped palms and wide eyes. Why did you employ these devices?

[A] Shatner: There were two things at work. One was what I do naturally. Because it was a series, and because fatigue means you have no time to separate yourself from the character, I tried to retain in Captain Kirk what was the essential me, I guess. I'm dimly aware that Captain Kirk phrased things in a certain way, and I'll do that on occasion. But I try not to be deliberate or even cognitive about it. It's all just part of me. The second thing was that Captain Kirk is an enthusiast, a man of the future. As such, the attitude of the body and the voice is one of trying to look forward. Kirk isn't a cynic who simply sits back and listens and ponders. But again, I don't think of it in technical terms. I am Captain Kirk, I am T. J. Hooker. These things are like the breath of life.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever declined the opportunity to take your shirt off on screen?

[A] Shatner: [Laughs] I declined on T. J. Hooker. There was a point when I wondered if I could still doit. I looked at that guy who had lifted weights when he was doing Star Trek and thought, I've got to do a lotof running and a lot of starving to get down to that weight and shape again, if I ever could. [Pauses] I never thought much about having a good body, because I was gifted by having a good body. I didn't do much in the way of care, nor did I ever abuse it by drinking or smoking very much. But I didn't know I could build muscles untilmuch later in life. While I was doing Star Trek, I worked out. I ran. I lifted girls [laughs.] But I didn't lift weights, technically. Now I've gotten into it. But two things happen as you get older: Not only does gravity take its toll but you think, Is it worth missing this great-tasting dessert for the narcissism of taking off your shirt, or is life too short?

15.

[Q] Playboy: When you see yourself on TV, do you change the channel?

[A] Shatner: Yes. I just don't like to look at myself. I don't like to see youth slipping away. There are a handful of people who, like me, have grown up in television—I've been on since the early Fifties—and I've watched myself grow into the thing I am now. Seeing old photographs, buried in the attic someplace, that's one thing. But to see yourself walking around on a television screen in one instant and then to compare that with your present-day form in the next is tough [smiles.] However, I believe that if I can keep upping the limit of what I thinkI'm capable of doing, I can give myself the illusion that I'm not slowing down. That means I get up earlier, I attempt to do more things. I keep my mind open for new ideas. And, of course, I read Playboy. Perhaps this is all an illusion, but I'm living on that illusion.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Of the four main actors on T. J. Hooker—you, Heather Locklear, Adrian Zmed and James Darren—who spent the most time in front of the mirror?

[A] Shatner: [Laughs] Well, it wasn't Heather. It was a toss-up among the three guys, with Jimmy winning by a whisker.

17.

[Q] Playboy: You're from Canada. What do Canadiansknow about this country that Americans tend to miss?

[A] Shatner: Canadians know that the lakes and rivers of eastern Canada are being eaten up by the lack of commitment of major industrialists in the central part of the United States to put scrubbers on their smokestacks. All thatdebris is blowing into Canada, which is known for its cleanliness. All it takes is some money to stop the sulphur clouds. There are endless discussions about it, but nothing is being done. In the meantime, nature is dying. [Pauses] I have, ready to be released next fall or winter, aten-hour series called Voice of the Planet, based on the Gaea principle of mother earth; that is, all matter is a part of mother earth and we have to start cleaning our act up immediately or we're all going to die. I think the end of the road is in sight. There's a cliff and we're all going to go over it if the polluting of the planet doesn't stop. We must stop swiftly and dramatically and the Americans have to be in the forefront, as we are in everything else. So, hey, if you like Star Trek and you want to see me again, don't litter, or write to your Senator and your Congressman and give some money to buy some land and save some rain forests, or save a whale, or neuter your pets, or don't have too many children. There are many things we can do that will help in some small way.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Recently, sixteen-year-old Wil Wheaton, one of the actors on Star Trek: The Next Generation, visited you on the set of Star Trek V. A localnewspaper quoted you as telling him: "If this were my bridge and my ship, you wouldn't be allowed on." True?

[A] Shatner: I didn't know who the young man was; he was in costume, and he came onto the set to say hello. I said, "Where are you working?" and he said, "Next Generation," and I said, "God, they're getting younger and younger," laughed, and that was it. Besides, I don't watch the new show—for two reasons. One, I don't watch episodic television. Two, if I did watch, I'd have to express an opinion. If I didn't like it, it wouldn't be politic for me to say so.

19.

[Q] Playboy: When have you most wanted to say, "Beam me up, Scotty"?

[A]Shatner: Of late? [Laughs] A guy in a car, trying to pull in front of me in traffic, gave me the finger. Traffic stopped and I stopped. I got out of the car. I was in a rage. He got out of the car and got taller and taller. I thought, What am I doing here, outside the car, with a potentially crazed man? So I made a lot of loud noises and, at that point, I think "Beam me up, Scotty" would have been a good phrase.

20.

[Q] Playboy: One last question: In Star Trek's final episode, "Turnabout Intruder," Captain Kirk is forced to switch bodies with a jealous old flame, Dr. Janice Lester. With which real woman would a guy who has played only the manliest of men like to switch places for a day?

[A] Shatner: None. I'm so content being a man that I would miss the clanging of my balls.

our ambassador to the universe describes the earth without a future and angie dickinson without underpants