WHERE NO NONAGENARIAN HAS GONE BEFORE
From outer space to crooning with an orchestra, William Shatner isn't slowing down any time soon
Two years ago, it would have seemed unimaginable that William Shatner could do anything to eclipse the towering shadow cast by Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk.
But then he went into outer space.
It's not a bad conversation starter, even in a room full of devoted Trekkies.
In a moment that seemed both slightly surreal and fully appropriate, Shatner blasted off into the cosmos on Oct. 13, 2021, on-board Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket for an 11-minute jaunt to the edge of outer space. At 90, the actor became the oldest person to travel into space. It made headlines around the world.
When talking about the historic trip shortly afterward, Shatner was near euphoric about the profound experience. So it may be surprising to learn that he initially said no.
“It was the second sojourn for Blue Origin and I thought `Ahh, I'm not going to get up second,'” Shatner says in a phone interview with Postmedia.
“So I turned it down when they said would you like to go up next. Then, upon a little reflection, I thought `Why would I not want the thrill of going into space, as uncomfortable as it may be?'”
So Shatner went ahead, providing a tantalizing hook for the media: The man who played the galaxy-hopping Capt. Kirk is boldly going where no man his age has gone before. But the actor says he was surprised it garnered so much attention.
“I just sort of thought I'd go innocuously there and back, and nobody would notice,” he says. “I didn't realize it was going to be as popular an event as it turned out to be.”
On this particular day, Shatner says he doesn't know whether talk of his space flight will make it into his appearance as one of the star attractions of the upcoming Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this year. Nor does he know what format his appearance will take.
In 2011, Shatner appeared for the first time on a Calgary Expo stage. It was an event overseen by two hosts. In 2016, he returned to the Calgary Expo stage by himself in an appearance that recalled his entertaining one-man Broadway show Shatner's World: We Just Live In It. Left to his own devices, the actor didn't mention Kirk or Star Trek until the very end, and that was only in a vague response to a fan's question.
“It depends on the mood and the mode,” Shatner says. “There's no plan afoot. I just start talking and try to entertain the audience for an hour.”
Even with his recent real-life, otherworldly adventures, it's safe to say there is a large segment of his fan base that would be happy if Shatner simply regaled the audience with Star Trek stories for an hour. But that has never really been his style. Despite playing Kirk for three seasons in the original series and seven films, and having directed a number of documentaries about the Star Trek phenomenon — including 2011's The Captains and 2012's Get a Life! — Shatner says he hasn't had much to do with the Star Trek universe after appearing as Kirk for presumably the final time in 1994's Generations.
In March, the New York Post ran a story about how actor Paul Wesley, who has been cast to play Capt. Kirk in the second season of the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, found himself sitting next to the actor on a flight to Los Angeles.
Wesley snapped a photo and put it on Twitter. Shatner tweeted out his own message to the new Kirk: “Keep my ship and crew safe, Captain! Congratulations!” Asked if he had any advice for the young actor, Shatner just chuckles. “No, just the advice you'd give anybody: Try to remember the words,” he says.
As for his own future, Shatner remains busy. He is starring in an upcoming film called Keeper of the Cup, which is described by IMDb as a “raucous road comedy.”
It's directed by fellow Canuck Jason Priestley and co-stars Dan Aykroyd. Shatner's role hasn't been revealed but the storyline revolves around three “maturity-delayed” and frustrated Toronto Maple Leafs fans.
There's no plan afoot. I just start talking and try to entertain the audience for an hour.
He is in his third season of the documentary series The UnXplained for History, which he hosts and executive produces. It followed the similarly themed Weird or What, which found the actor lending his humour and gravitas to narrating stranger-than-fiction, true-life tales involving various mysteries.
He is also scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center April 29, which will have him performing original songs backed by an orchestra. The songs come from the same writing sessions that produced his 2021 album, Bill.
“These are songs I helped write and am going to perform on stage and in front of people for the first time,” he says. “For the album Bill, we wrote 25 songs and we used 13. So that leaves us several songs in excess. So we're taking some of those songs and making an evening for Earth Day.”
In short, Shatner says “I don't look back, I try to look forward.”
Still, he does have a story about his first experiences at a fan convention. It was back in the 1970s and dedicated to Star Trek. The format was perhaps not as fully set as it is now and it became a bit of a cautionary tale about not being prepared.
“It was a very weird experience to be in front of 15,000 people and not know what you're going to say,” he says.
“There's a traditional actor's nightmare where you are naked in front of an audience and don't know what to say. So there I was with my clothes on not knowing what the next words were going to come out of my mouth. That was pretty harrowing.”