William Shatner has flown into space — no, for real — on a Blue Origin rocket ship, the oldest person ever to leave Earth’s atmosphere at the time.
He’s booked to appear at three “Comic Con” shows before year’s end, released the documentary You Can Call Me Bill and two LPs in 2024 including the children’s album Where Will the Animals Sleep, is hosting an Antarctic cruise in December, and will boldly go to Detroit’s Fisher Theatre Wednesday night for a Q&A session following the screening of his 1982 sci-fi blockbuster Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
William Shatner is 93 years old. Go on, tell us again how busy you are.
“What happens is, I’m in the theater, so they know I’m still alive and haven’t been struck by a car,” he tells Metro Times in a recent phone conversation, explaining the timetable Trekkies and other audience members will experience at the Fisher. “I have a bite to eat, relax, and wait until about the last five minutes of the film.”
He continues, “Then I come to the wings and listen for the applause. They move around a chair or two, then I come out. And coming out is always a bit of a shock, because the film is over 40 years old. I have fun with that. I am a little unrecognizable. ‘Shatner is here? Where is he?’”
Don’t kid yourself, Bill. The face of the handsome actor who helped transform a three-season NBC TV series into one of the highest-grossing multimedia franchises of all time is still instantly recognizable to millions, be they Enterprise extremists or not. In viewing Wrath of Khan again, you may be struck by the fact that nearly every member of the film’s cast — including Khan himself, Ricardo Montalbán — has passed on. Even Cheers’s Kirstie Alley, who made her film debut in Khan, died two years ago.
Then you may also hear Shatner’s line as Captain James T. Kirk early in the movie with a different ear: “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.” If anyone can show us how to live long and prosper, he’s the man. So one of the first questions somebody should ask Shatner at the Fisher is, what keeps him going?
“How about fear?” he replies instantly. “Do you read those ads where they say ‘The End Is Coming,’ ‘The Economy Is the Worst,’ ‘Buy This or You Won’t Last More Than 10 Minutes’? It’s all based on fear. And it’s such a shame. We should be living for joy. That’s what I’m doing. I’m living for joy. I enjoy what I’m doing, I’m enjoying talking to you, I’m going to enjoy coming to Detroit and having a great time. It’s a unique evening in the theater.”
Shatner is a fan of Detroit. A native Canadian, he crossed over from Windsor many times as a young actor, and headlined the Motor City Comic Con a decade ago. But of all the films in the Star Trek franchise, why is he bringing us Wrath of Khan instead of, say, the first film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture?
“I had my choice of films,” he explains. “That first film was a big film. They spent a lot of money on it, millions and millions, and had a great director, Robert Wise. It had the best of everything, and it gave birth to a nice film. It’s made money over the years but didn’t do as well to begin with as they’d hoped. They decided not to make any more films, but eventually regretted that and turned it over to the television department.”
He adds, “If their feature film was successful, they would continue to make more. Well, it turned out to be successful, and the reason why is because they harkened back to the television series, which told meaningful stories. That’s why I’m out with this film. It’s a meaningful film, it’s filled with emotion and character, and it’s very entertaining. That’s why I went with it, because of entertainment and its emotional bridges.”
He won’t be watching it with you. Like many actors, Shatner scrupulously avoids watching himself on screen. “I haven’t seen the film in a long time,” he concedes. “I’ve directed quite a few films, for television mostly, and it’s agony watching the rushes from the filming the day before of scenes I was in. So if I can avoid watching my work I do so, and Star Trek’s on every day in Los Angeles.”
But he’s open to all manner of questions in the Q&A. “‘Why are you here?’ is a good one,” he jests. “‘How old are you?’ All kinds of weird questions, and for me, some of the fun is taking a question and trying to work with it, because a question is an evidence of interest.”
It’s been three years since Shatner’s real-life space mission, and upon exiting the Blue Origin he said he experienced what’s called the “overview effect,” a state of awe in viewing the Earth from afar, sometimes mixed with overwhelming sadness. Given time, any further perspectives on space?
“Well, what I experienced was not uncommon,” Shatner muses. “When I was up there I was filled with the awe and wonder of space, just the mystery of it, the unknown. We have telescopes, explorers, but we still don’t know anything.
“But then I looked back and saw this fragile rock. It looks tiny through the window, and in reality, how tiny it is. Small galaxy, medium-sized star. I mean, we’re nothing, the rock is nothing. We walk around like heavyweights, and we’re destroying this little rock.
“And the sadness of that I felt profoundly,” Shatner recalls. “I didn’t know I was feeling that grief until hours after I had landed, and that was why I was so filled with the love for this incredibly beautiful planet and the destruction that we have evoked. And lately, how much effort is being put into trying to repair what we have done.”
