Slashdot Mirror
William Shatner Replies
1) your reputation
by tps12
I happened to have seen both of your Twilight Zone episodes (the famous "something on the wing of the airplane" one and the less-famous-but-no-less-interesting one where you are obsessed with a prophecy-dispensing toy in a diner) recently. I have to say that in both episodes I was taken aback at the unexpected quality of your portrayal. Even though everyone associates your face with Captain Kirk, the characters in the TZ episodes came through loud and clear, drowning out my preconceptions.
For this reason, I'd like to ask what you think of your humorous reputation for bad acting. Would you blame some of the egregious hamminess of some of ST on the perception that TV (or SF) wasn't "real" acting or was it directing? Or some other thing?
Bill:
Of course, I don't hear the bad reviews or see them. All I know is the glowing notices that people read to me that some reviewer thinks I'm wonderful. So I've slowly come to think that I'm wonderful.
2) Favourite Parody
by hero
Star Trek has been parodied many times in many different formats; other television shows, movies, comics and so on. You yourself have probably been parodied as much or more in people's "Captain Kirk Impression" stand up skits and the like. My question is, do you recall a favourite parody for its comedy or cleverness of either yourself or the series?
Bill:
I think John Belushi probably did the best.
3) First Interracial Kiss
by Irvu
What was it like to do the first on-screen interracial kiss? How much effort did it take to make the studio go along with it, and how much of an effect did it have on you and the show as a whole?
Bill:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
4) Saturday Night Live
by billmaly
Years ago, when you hosted SNL, you participated in the now classic Trekkie sketch (actually, one of my all time favorite SNL sketches).
Was that sketch a catharsis for you, a means of finally casting off some chains and letting the world know what you think and feel, or was it just a sketch? I am not dissing you, your work, or Trek fans, but, let's be honest here, some people do need to, in your words, "Get a life!". Do you/did you feel that way, or was it just an act? Come on, be honest..... :)
Bill:
Ok, I'll be honest. It was a laugh. Pure & simple. You should have at least been mildly amused. It seems to me that you need to get a life.
5) MPAA
by jhines0042
Concerning the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Do you consider them to be a boon or a bane to actors and actressess?
Bill:
Actually, I don't think that actors think much about MPAA. They're more concerned about AARP.
6) Galaxy Quest
by vrone
I will preface this by saying I am a mild trekkie and as such, I immensely enjoyed the 1999 film Galaxy Quest.
I think everyone who has seen Galaxy Quest will agree that the show that it is based upon is, in essence, "Star Trek". It follows that Tim Allen's Character was essentially meant to be you.
So my two part question is this: Did you enjoy the show, and, how accurate was their portrayal of life after Trek?
Bill:
Yes, I enjoyed it. I think Tim Allen was very funny. As for accuracy, not at all.
7) Time at McGill
by peg0cjs
It's fairly well known (at least here in Canada) that you attended McGill University for some time. They even went so far as to rename the Student Union building the Shatner Building.
I've heard that you were invited to the renaming ceremony, but refused to attend. I've also heard that you generally speak very poorly of your time at McGill. What was it about McGill that was so dreadful/horrible/annoying/etc that has made you so sour on the subject?
Bill:
Oh Contrare. That's French, in case you need it, for 'to the contrary.' I had a great time at McGill. I did go to a ceremony at the student union building and my feeling about McGill is that it's a great university and it produced many great students. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.
8) Nerine Shatner Memorial Fund
by Tsar
After the tragic and untimely death of your wife Nerine, a recovering alcoholic, you took the courageous step of establishing a fund in her name to benefit Friendly House, an organization for recovering alcoholics. How is that work progressing, and has your involvement with this effort helped you work through this loss?
I know that this subject must be painful for you, but I'm sure there are many in the slashdot community who would benefit from your experience and insights here.
Bill:
Thank you for asking about Nerine's fund. It benefits a rehabilitation place called Friendly House. They do wonderful work. Nerine has a rehabilitation home with her name on it and my hope and sympathy is for these recovering women.
9) Seriously...are we cool?
by CleverNickName
Hey Bill,
Are we cool, or what? I mean, I always thought you didn't like me, but I had a good time with you at Weakest Link watching the World Series.
So are we cool, or was that just pre-game strategy?
Wil
Bill:
Dear Will,
We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don't do pre-game strategy.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
10) The balance between Hollywood and Real Life
by Geek In Training
As a normal everyday guy from Canada, it seems hard for "the public" to grasp the diparity between "Bill Shatner, age 61, three adult children, loves horses" and "Actor/Singer/Producer/Writer William Shatner blah blah blah fourth wife ... blah blah blah personal tragedy .... blah blah blah inside scoop" that Hollywood and the Tabloid press seem to turn everyone's life into.
At the end of the day, has the fame been worth the price? Is knowing that you've raised three daughters and entertained people for several decades worth the cost of your privacy? Do you feel that overall, you've gotten a fair shake, even after all the public airings of your alleged failings as a person? Are you going to continue to live in the limelight during your golden years, or settle in and call it good, letting the cards land where they may?
Do you feel you've finished your professional legacy and are ready to leave it for media history, or do you fret over whether or not that legacy is "good enough?" And the same regarding your personal legacy as a man, a husband, a father, a son? What advice can you give to others so that they don't have any regrets?
Bill:
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
Mr Shatner seemed a bit rushed didn't he?
This is one of the shortest replies we've had for a slashdot interview. Too bad, it could have been real great. I guess the myth might just be better than the man.
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that was probably on purpose.
Billy boy did as good as he could with the lame, suck-ass questions that were presented to him.
Why couldn't we come up with some halfway DECENT questions? ("Seriously... are we cool?")
Query by committee, I guess, produced borked results like these above.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
...or did he manage sound flippant? He seemed to treat this whole thing as a joke.
Good show, Bill!
Short? Yes. Rude? Where the hell did you get that idea? He mostly seems to be trying hard to be amusing, with some success.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
While he answered all the questions, his answers were certainly terse. I realize that he is probably a busy man, but if you're going to agree to do something like this, I would have hoped he would have put some more of the ole "William Shattner that we know and love" into it. Of course that the bothered at all was certainly nice of him.
/. is? Not that we're some all powerful force or anything (well except for unsuspecting websites) but I wonder if he thought that we were just a group of a dozen pimply faced nerds not very far removed from Trekies/ers?
That said, I wonder how much of the way he replied had to do with his not fully grasping what
My suspicions are confirmed. William Shatner even has theatrical pauses when he writes! (Don't ever change, Bill)
What was the CleverNickName question all about? Maybe the poster could explain? I almost fell off my chair laughing at the reply.
Except for the one about his wife, none of those questions seem vaguely interesting to me.
I don't mean to flame, but could someone PLEASE explain questions number 9 to me?! I don't follow Bill's every move.. so I might not (along with others) understand inside jokes.
Also, questions asking actors about when they were called bad actors are USELESS. What the hell are they supposed to say to that? Of course Bill is going to give you a bunch of wisecracks... what else could he do?
And none of you asked ANYTHING about his personal life!?! I didn't see a single personal question there, aside from "what do you think of this", and "what do you think of that".
Christ.. at least ask when he lost is virginity or something.
Ok... I've flamed, take it.
There's something to be said for brevity.
Anyway, considering that a lot of the questions that were proposed in the original "request for questions" tended to be the ones that everyone always asks; and that he has nothing to gain by divulging copious stuff to Slashdot; and that in general there were a lot of people asking questions designed to bring up (potentially) embarassing stuff from his past - I can't see why he'd go into a lot of detail for us.
I for one really appreciated the brief, but sincere, answers about his wife's foundation; and his policy on regret. Simple, clear thoughts. Nothing wrong with that.
I thought his Mr. Tamborine Man was even better.
"Mister Tamborine Man! MISTER TAMBORINE MAN!!!!!!!"
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
Would it have mattered? He would have just given a short, uninformative answer anyway.
Honestly, this was the most boring interview on /. ever. I am no fan of Star Trek, but jeez Bill, why agree to an interview if you are just going to give these types of answers?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I saw Bill on Letterman last year... he behaved exactly the same way. Letterman tried to get him to talk about his reputation as a bad actor, and basically he joked about it and didn't seem to care. Personally, I believe that sees this whole thing as the best joke ever. Who cares whether he's a good actor; he has a permanent career as the ex-captain Kirk, a lot of great stories, and a heck of a lot of fun. He can ham it up whenever he wants and get tons of attention from a huge community of fans. I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he recorded "The Transformed Man," when he did the SNL skit, and whatever else. He was very funny on Letterman. He's got a great sense of humor, and love it or hate it, he has a history of answering probing questions by joking around. This is not special behavior reserved for slashdot. He's just having a great time, and the whining, criticism and complaining from his "fans" are all part of the joke.
Many of the questions didn't warrant long answers. He could have gone into long personal detail about the favorite parody, but he wasn't asked "why?"...
Perhaps Mr. Shatner didn't feel like relating his life story for #7, and what more would you have him say to #9?
The answers were much like answers on any typical television interview, they were to the point.
The interview would have beet better, perhaps, if it was longer, but that is a Slashdot limitation, probably out of respect for the interviewees. It was a glimpse, just a glimpse, though, at a man.
I for one enjoyed it.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Maybe I'm reading Wil's question wrong, or maybe everyone else (including Bill Shatner) is.
/. asks exactly what happened during that personal time.
But I thought Wil's usage of "cool" in that question was to find out if the two of them were in good relation, as opposed to "cool" being hip, rad, happenin', "in orbit" or whatever terminology (antiquated or not) you feel like using.
Bill to Wil: "I look forward to some personal time with you. "
I look forward to another Interview where
I'm not sure which I find funnier. Shatner's hillariously dry wit when answering these questions, or the fact that 90% of /. seems to be completely missing the point and taking great offense at them.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
You guys are SO nice! Calling his answer "brief" is tactful. How about terse, concise, laconic, dismissive, flippant, hasty, or good old rude? (I have more suggestions, more profane.)
I could have written the replies for him -- and been more interesting. He phoned this in.
Review the Q&A and it's obvious he simply ducked most of the questions or gave his equivalent of "no comment." Only on the topic of Nerine Shatner did he seem engaged.
This confirms everything I have heard about him being a sophomoric self-centered jerk. It's disrespectful -- the editors probably spent ten times to time preparing the Q's as he did ansering them.
Yeah, I know the whole bit about how he shouldn't be chained to a role from 25 years ago, and how he really isn't blowhard James T. Kirk, but he doesn't have to give interviews, book signings,, and the like except to promote himself -- and make money. He's milked the Trek thing for every penny while complaining all the while how oppressed he is. Contrasted with actors like Patrick Stewart, by all accounts a 24/7 class act, or Avery Brooks, who wants no part of the Trek typecasting and so doesn't do the interviews, book signings, and the like. I respect either choice and not Shatner's.
I think the statute of limitations for respecting him for his past work has expired.
That's one of the only questions he ANSWERED.
The open-ended questions could have been better, but this was an invitation for him to be reflective -- not cross-examined. I guess no one did the research to find out that "Bill can't reflect."
Seeing the "Biography" of Shatner. It's really quite informative - and it helps put the interview in context. There is a lot to the man, he's a true original.
;)
Two quotes stand out:
These are excellent words to live by:
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
And this statement, of course, should make sense to most straight men:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
Keep going, Bill
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
You don't go to McGill to learn french. And most Anglophones in Montreal probably have just as bad spelling. And if he dictated this and somebody else typed it, then it's not even his fault.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
You know what bothers me the most?
The fact that none of the questions remotely touched off on OSS, Linux, or stuff that matters to geeks the most.
I wanted to know what Shatner thought about linux, et al. Even my question went unnoticed.
What a waste of opportunity. Great. Now I will know what that interracial kiss was all about. I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN!
"I think Deforest Kelley the Irrascible Grumpy Old Man would be much cooler than William Shatner, the washed-out, bitter actor."
He's also dead, which I think was the parent poster's point.
I think it's called:
CYA -- Cover Your Ass.
The less he says, the less likely he is to be lambasted for it for years in the future. A lot of his answers were conservative, but at the same time seemed to be just having fun.
I AM a long-time trekkie and a fan of the original series and Shatner's character Captain Kirk, but IMHO William Shatner has to be one of the most over-analyzed actors in human history. I mean, what did he REALLY do besides Star Trek and TJ Hooker (and how many people will still remember TJ Hooker in 10 more years if they even remember now)?
The truth is that Shatner is a pretty average guy in the fact that most people could probably act as well as him, he just had a big break called "Star Trek". Maybe that's why so many people grill him. I don't think he merits an interview anywhere, but that's probably why he seems to tell so many people to "get a life" -- in other words, why does anyone care about him or his life?
When you stop and think, for a man that lives under a microscope and has most everything he does, says, where he goes, etc. printed and reported about him, I'm impressed that he was willing to answer the questions in the first place.
What did you expect he to say?
I'd be willing to bet that if he gave longer answers, folks would be complaining that he was gloating, bragging, or just being a windbag.
What I got from the answers is that he likes to keep things short and to the point. Personally I like that, but that's just me.
Take a moment to just be glad that he took the time to answer at all.
Just my two cents. Now excuse me while I go and "Get myself a life."
(Now where did I put that remote...)
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
"My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day."
Wow, my respect for Mr. Shatner just tripled. So well said. Such great words to live by. I thought overall his responses were a bit short (but the questions were pretty awful to begin with), however there was a great sense of humor and insight that I wasn't expecting. My hat is off for him. --P
worst, interview, ever....
There are too many complaints about his answers. Let us remember that although Slashdot calls these interviews they are not. These are questionaires. An interview, at least in front of a camera, can capture much more than answers. Interviews puts them on the spot. Can capture emotions to help determine if their answers are true.