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Ask William Shatner
At long last William Shatner has volunteered himself to be strapped into the Slashdot Interviewee Victim Chair. You know the gig: Post your questions for the man, the moderators do their thing, and in a week or so we post the answers. So here's your chance to ask questions to the star of Iron Chef USA, Miss Congeniality and TJ Hooker!
He once said on Letterman:
"Because I...can't remember....my....lines..."
Hey idiots. You can answer most of these questions at his official site.
Ask something detailed or original.
The Onion AV Club just had an interview with Shatner. Besides being rather interesting, it's a list of questions that you can avoid reasking.
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
Lets not forget the movie "Free Enterprise", which is a true insight to his madness.
So, Mr. Shatner, what's next? Should we assume it'll still be a few years before you're ready to take on Lear? How about Falstaff?
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
he guest-starred on an album released with Ben Folds called "Fear of Pop" a few years ago - it's really friggin' good. Check it here.
No, actually, they multiplied and almost took over the Klingon homeworld. Ultimately, some enterprizing Klingon did some genetic engineering and created a "Glommer". The Glommer is a creature that sneeks up on tribbles, pounces and eats em. It has a voracious appetite.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Big Giant Head (Shatner): I thought I saw something on the wing, but noone believed me.
High Commander (Lithgow): The same thing happened to me!
Hands down, the funniest moment ever on broadcast television. I missed half of the episode, clutching my sides in laughter. No one else in the room got it... Their loss. =)
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
Actually, he spent a great deal of time at the Toronto Shakespeare Company. He was Christopher Plummer's understudy in fact. All joking aside, Shatner was considered a hot property at that time. His first big break was when Plummer was sick one night, and he had to do the Hamlet role. Audiences said he was magnificent. Serious roles like The Brothers Karamazov followed. He was nabbed for Star Trek because of his classical theater rep, and if you've ever watched the old episodes, some of his performances were damn good. He's went the Leslie Nielson route now, and doing a lot of comedy, but drama was originally his forte.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Actually, Mr. Shatner graduated from montreal's prestigious McGill University in 1952. Although enrolled as a Management student, he spent a lot of time in the theatre, being a member of the Red and White Revue, the Player's Drama Club and the Radio Workshop. In a historic 1993 referendum, the students of McGill voted to name their student union building the William Shatner building, and on a 1999 visit to the university, Mr. Shatner was heard to say that all his experience at McGill taught him "the joy of entertaining, the mechanics of production, how to have empathy to fear and how to enjoy and appreciate talent. It's not difficult to be a failure...[The] extraordinary feeling of success is much more rare than failure."
Oddly enough, after graduating with a BCom, his first job was at a summer theatre-- not as an actor, but as a bookkeeper...
Was it really Mr. Shatner's house (well - swimming pool) that featured in the pool party scene in the Wizard of Speed and Time and did he have a screen cameo appearance that got left out because he only wanted to speak Esperanto?
he guest-starred on an album released with Ben Folds called "Fear of Pop" a few years ago - it's really friggin' good
Cool, that link has Real Player streaming samples. Shatner's contribution is audible in track 5: "In Love - David Davidson".
AH! Here is Shatner's "Transformed Man" album with a sample of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" for those of you who haven't heard it. Unfortunately the sample is small and doesn't capture the whole performance, but you get the idea.
OMG Amazon says "Transformed Man" starts at US$75!!!
LOL, you have to listen to all the samples.
Well, let me clarify:
Directors do have creative some degree of creative control, and they are able to influence the tone and mood of their episodes. You wouldn't see an X-files director bringing the same style to, say, Hidden Hills...though it would make for an interesting story!
I know what you're talking about, in reference to shot composition and whatnot. That's usually all the director. Lighting, however, is all the Director of Photography. Usually the DP on a TV show that uses the same sets will have preset lighting (that's why the bridge and Ready Room always look the same, for instance) because it saves time. But! When a creative director tells the DP that he's going for something very dark and moody, or very bright and joyful, the DP will usually jump at the chance to do something creative...as long as it doesn't take too much time.
If I made it sound like TV directors are just point-and-shoot people, I really did them a grave disservice. They are afforded creative freedoms, and encouraged to make an episode their own, to be sure...just as long as it doesn't take too much time.
"Actually, he spent a great deal of time at the Toronto Shakespeare Company ..."
I had always heard that his time was at Stratford, which is not too far from Toronto. He was, in his time there, considered to be one of the great stars of the Stratford festival. If you watch his acting, it may look overstated and comical on television or in movies, but the way he delivers dialog is perfect for the characters he played in Shakespeare's plays. His Marc Antony was reputed to be spectacular. It might not work as T.J. Hooker, but try his stereotypical cadence with Marc Antony's eulogy: "Friends ... Romans ... Countrymen - lend me your ears." Ooooo, don't it just give you chills.
Even heroes have the right to dream