Driving force
Acting still brings joy to ‘Senior Moment’ star William Shatner
How many 90-year-olds can convincingly play 72 to star in a comedy about life-changing love? William Shatner, seven decades into an unstoppable career, shows how it’s done in “Senior Moment,” which streams Friday.
Starring opposite Jean Smart, he plays Victor Martin, a well-off Palm Springs retiree whose life changes are hardly the kind he expected.
“Victor is a retired NASA test pilot who has been very good at racing. Now he’s retired to Palm Springs,” Shatner said last week in a Zoom interview.
“He has his beloved Porsche” — a white classic ’60s convertible — “and drives his Porsche like he used to drive around the track, very fast. He has an (auto) accident, and he is of an age that the judge says, ‘We’ve got to take your license away from you.’
“In taking his license away, they take his life and his self-esteem. Now, he’s got this end-of-life situation that is gonna make the rest of his life meaningful. And he doesn’t know how to do it.
“His finding out how to find love and meaning in his life constitutes the rest of the film.
“What an interesting premise that is! And it’s written with such amusement, that it should be popular.”
Shatner’s comic timing and glove-tight fit with the role is evident, whether by enjoying the attentions of a woman 40 years younger, fixing a cuckoo clock or professing ignorance about the internet.
Is he, like Victor, a car guy?
“I love cars. I love driving fast,” he said. “Every so often I go to a nearby racetrack where they have rental vehicles. We play around and have great fun racing each other in the street.
“My wife,” he added with a shrug, “is always complaining: driving too fast.”
Shatner’s mechanical affections doesn’t stop with cars.
“I love machinery, I love motorcycles.
“I drove a motorcycle from Chicago to Los Angeles a while ago, filmed as a documentary called ‘The Ride.’
“And I love ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,’ that book meant a lot so many years ago.”
As for what keeps him working after a seven-decade career?
“Actually, it’s more,” he corrected. “I started acting onstage, so it goes back further. Of course, I’m asked that question often and, well, I don’t really have an answer.
“When I was asked, ‘What am I feeling today?’ (I said,) I have great joy.
“I get great, great joy in working — and I’m working on new things.”