The Many Iterations of William Shatner 152
pickens writes "The NY Times weekend magazine has a long profile, well worth reading, of self-described 'working actor' William Shatner. He began acting at age 6 and at one point in the late 1950s was mentioned in the same breath as his contemporaries Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford — until, without explanation, his career faded before it bloomed. Shatner, now 79, pulls no punches in his memories of the Star Trek years. 'I never thought it'd become a big deal, just 13 episodes and out,' says Shatner. 'I didn't think I was hard to get along with. There were a few disaffected actors who came in once a week. I had nothing to do with them. Friendly! I was working seven days a week, learning 10 pages of dialogue a day. They had one line!' Which was the beginning of the William Shatner character. 'They said I was this William Shatner character, and I figured I had to be it. Pompous, takes himself seriously, hardheaded.' Shatner said that that character evolved slowly, until one day he realized he couldn’t change it. 'So I played it. But I didn’t see it. That character doesn’t seem like me to me. I know the real William Shatner.'"
Hmmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes.... well... this... should.... be an interesting.... read...
Slow... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry... (Score:5, Funny)
...I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
I thought the film with the horses was Generations (Score:1, Funny)
but it's been a long time and I've worked hard to block out certain memories.
My main memory of Generations was my wife and I sitting in the theater, watching Kirk ride a horse. At one particular scene where Kirk is on his horse, silhouetted against the sky, I turned to my wife and said in my best pair of mock upper-class British accent:
"Did you hear about old Kirk? He's retired from Starfleet and went to some godforsaken planet to marry a horse."
"Marry a horse? Is it a female horse?"
"Of course it's a female horse. There's nothing queer about old Kirk!"
The laughter in my section indicated that this was a bit louder than I had intended. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.
Delusions of Grandeur (Score:5, Funny)
Certainly I don't know what Tim Allen was doing. He seemed to be the head of a group of actors and for the life of me I was trying to understand who he was imitating. - William Shatner, on Galaxy Quest
At the 2009 Vegas ST convention Shatner was on stage and fans were asking questions. A fan of the original series went up to the mic and told him how good of an actor he was; he then proceeded to take the next 20 minutes agreeing with her. At some point I said in a low voice 'It's like throwing gasoline on a flame,' (a quote from Galaxy Quest describing the parody character of Kirk at a convention) and the entire section burst out laughing so much he had to stop talking to find out what was going on.
Re:Weird Coincedence (Score:4, Funny)
When his wife died by drowning in the pool at their home, I got weirded out because I had just watched an episode of Columbo where he played the murderer and, you guessed it, he killed his wife by drowning her in the pool.
Truly, a life imitates art moment.
Well he is from the Stanislavski school...
Re:Distance to himself (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, yeah? I'd ask Wil Wheaton about that.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
It's fat, white actors all the way down, son.
Re:SNL skit (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
That don't mean shit, dickwad. Nobody liked me in school and I wasn't an asshole.
Another thing about Shatner (Score:2, Funny)
Re:SNL skit (Score:3, Funny)
Well, to be fair, when looking at the constant downward slope of quality over the life of SNL, that statement is true no matter which point on the X axis you choose...
irritations? (Score:1, Funny)
I really thought the title read "The Many Irritations of William Shatner" :)