Leonard Nimoy does a William Shatner Impression on Hero Complex: The Show - Part 2

Hi, I'm Jeff, you're watching Hero Complex, today's

show

we return to Starfleet Leonard the Moy, this is the second

part

of our interview at his home, the Star Trek icon, today he talks about his work on stage, today he talks about the origin of this. and he also

does

an

impression

of William Shatner, okay, let's go as far as, you know, when you look back, feature films, television and the stage as well, is the stage there, for example? That's a very, very different exercise than working on a film. set or a television um what uh what stage experience do you remember now uh with great fondness uh after I finished with the three seasons of Star Trek and two seasons of Mission Impossible I started to explore the stage that I had started on stage when I was 8 years old, so I was really eager to get back into this and figure out where I was with all that kind of work and that was in Boston, yeah, I started in Boston, yeah, and that's the point where I made a, I made a um. a production of Fiddler on the Roof where I played tbia uh and we played in Boston and it was the first time I had been back on stage in Boston since I left in 1949, this was in 1971 so my family could come see me on stage and I could I could and enjoyed being home and being on stage again in an exciting production.

We had a wonderful production that we performed up north of the city, we performed it all the way to the cape and we had a great time and then I did several years of a lot of stage work until I came home, yes, I did Sherlock Holmes and I did my one-man

show

called Vincent , which I toured throughout the country. I did several plays. I made the glass man stand. I made the four posters. I did Caligula. I forgot about the play, I mean, I really had a great time and I was on the Broadway stage my second time in Eis when I got a call again.

Jeff Kenberg called me, introduced himself and said he had gone to work for Paramount. Pictures and we'd like to talk to you about acting in the upcoming St Trek movie and could you connect a bright line between the release of Star Wars and the commercial success there and that phone call you were making on Broadway in 1977? when I started hearing about this extraordinary hit called St Wars and, on a free afternoon when I wasn't working, I went down to Time Square and walked into a movie theater that was packed, cheering, screaming, watching this sci-fi movie and I thought, I think I'm going to get a call from Paramount very soon, sure enough, a few days later they called and said: well, you know, we like to talk about making a Star Trek movie, they saw the success of Star Wars and, uh, something like that they thought. well, we have one of those, let's do it, you know, whether it's Sherlock Holmes or your Mission: Impossible mission or certainly Spock, uh, there's always been a cerebral aura to many of your signature characters and iconic performances.

It's true, it's interesting. That's something you ever felt uneasy about, I mean, actors don't like to do

part

icular types of things. I'm telling you you know you're touching on the topic of casting guys and when I did it, uh Spar. People told me: Are you worried about what this character is going to do in your career? My feeling about typographic casting is that it's a double-edged thing, on the one hand, it can limit the roles you're playing. offered, on the other hand, helps producers and directors understand how to use you, gives them an idea of ​​how you could be useful to them and I've never needed a job, I've never been out of work since St trck aired, so it worked.

Well, for me, a big acceptance was the role I was offered in a project called a woman called Golda, it was a TV movie about Gold of My Air and they asked me to play her husband, who was not a cerebral character in Him. he was a very decent guy, but a guy who made his way in life and she was the aggressor and moved on in her career and literally left him behind and I thought this is not my, no, no, no. I know how this is out of my comfort zone not in my comfort zone and I kept rejecting it rejecting it rejecting it uh the producer har benett, to his credit, came after me again and again I said no, I don't get it, I don't do.

I don't know, I don't know how to do that and then he said, well, that's a shame because you'd be playing alongside ingred bugman. I thought, oh, really okay, maybe I can figure this out, so I took the job I had. I had a great time doing it and she was brilliant and Judy Davis I played against Judy Davis and Inner Bergman, they were wonderful people and they nominated me for an Emmy, which was very satisfying. I never expected that and it happened to be very Satisfy you, that's great and he was also a key figure in Star Trek, ha ha Ben, definitely, oh yeah, oh wow, oh wow, he was a big help, a big help. after the first Star Trek movie, which wasn't very successful as a Star Trek movie.

It wasn't in the territory, he was the one who intervened, took that stranded whale and put it back in the water. He did a great job and by that first film I mean Robert Wise, one of the biggest names in Hollywood. story, uh, but the movie felt a little turgid, but maybe a little slow, I think he and Jean Rotenberry were looking for a Space Odyssey type movie, yeah, something Kubri had done, something cold, cool, we're out. here in space and it's quiet and things move very slowly, you know, there was a lot of that and a lot of brain stuff that just wanted wasn't enough.

Dr., it wasn't a Star Trek movie, really yes, we had the Star Trek people. but it didn't use us very well as Star Trek characters, yes, it could have been a completely different team, right, yes, it's interesting that you mentioned before about the episodes of the series that focused on ethics or social issues or already You know, the kind of physics of humanity, the fractured physics of humanity, was there ever one that you were uncomfortable with or, conversely, was there one that you were particularly proud of? For those reasons, I don't remember any level of discomfort, there may have been some scripts that I didn't think were very good, yes, but not because they were on the wrong side of some political or social or moral issue, uh , the intentions were always good, some just weren't.

It worked very well and there were some that worked brilliantly and there is one show that a lot of people remember and remember well and remember fondly that had one particular moment that worked and the rest really was a bit repetitive. and not very well developed was the one in which the characters, the two central characters, were white and black, one with black on one side and another with white in that Frank Gan, that is correct and I think Lou Antonio was the other actor and they were there, they were opposite, so one was black on the right side, one was black on the left and it was Vivid and people remember that and remember the antagonism between them and there's a great moment where Kirk says that for you , the people are exactly the same.

Same thing why are they with each other and the guy said are you crazy? you can not see? I'm black on the right side he's black on the left exactly that's the moment in the show that's all the rest is just kind of well you know we're fighting each other it was one of the great moments it was a fantastic moment and it's interesting to see the show and some of the things that happened, I mean who would expect to fight? alongside Abraham Lincoln, I mean, how do you know you're on an adventure on another planet with Abraham Lincoln now that he's fighting a vampire?

That didn't work out very well, as I recall, it was an interesting attempt that didn't really come to life like four score. and it's been seven years and you've played this character in so many different mediums and in different mediums, I mean, feature films, television, cartoons, video games, that's right, it's been with you for quite a while, yeah, a lot, a lot, how do you do it? How do you feel about where you left off with JJ's movie? Which was great. I feel very, very good about it. Zachary Quindo is a very intelligent and very talented actor.

He really is. He's really good. He knows what he

does

. and he knows how to do it and he has the training to do what he wants to do, so I'm very pleased with where the character is and I had a good time on the last one. filming, getting in there and, in particular, performing a scene with him that was really interesting. I feel good about the character. I feel like the character is still very, very useful and very interesting, if somewhat enigmatic. I think he had already interpreted enough. Enigma about the character, people knew who I was and what was going on with me, but Zachary has the opportunity to explore new territory because he brings a new condition of his own to the character and he will have the familiarity that the audience has with the characters and, as you say , you know that as the mystique disappears, it's replaced by connection and familiarity, that's also a difficult balance as you move forward because at some point you want to do it. fresh and new things with the character, yes, but you don't want to be invented either.

I had the opportunity to do that because the character went through some cycles, yes, including death and resurrection. You know, that's a pretty good cycle, so I was. given good writing, I had a good opportunity to explore the character. This has a long history. It goes back to your childhood. And it's a very compelling moment. Would you mind telling me that we had a beautiful script written by Theodor Sturgeon? A wonderful science fiction writer. the script was called amok time am or k amok time and uh it was charming, it was poetic, it was exciting, it was dramatic and it was about Spock having to return to his home planet, Vulcan, to get married and fulfill a betral marriage and Go Home o dying was the story and KK had to take Spar to his home planet to save his life, so when we got there we discovered that the wedding ceremony will be performed by a character called chipa uh played by Celia Lovsky, a wonderful. um you come actress and uh she she is the matriarch of the planet she is a powerful figure on Vulcan and I must approach her and I am very sensitized to the idea that we are seeing other Vulcans for the first time we are on the planet Vulcan for the first time what is Vulcan about what are the customs of the culture what kind of what can I find what can I show an audience or about what can I bring an audience? the Vulcan people, so when I go up to her and we greet each other and she says welcome home and I don't remember exactly what I said, what the dialogue was, but I said to the director, I think we need something that the Vulcans. do when you greet each other because you humans have certain types of things that we do, we shake hands, we greet each other, we greet each other in certain cultures, he said what would you like to do and that's where I came up with this and it came from a experience that I had that obviously made a big

impression

on me because it happened when I was about eight or nine years old I was in a synagogue with my family my uh in an Orthodox synagogue the men sitting downstairs the women upstairs on the balcony and with my grandfather, my father, My brother and I come to a point in the service where a group of men, I think there must have been five or six of them, it is my memory, they are called kohanim, they are members of the priestly tribe. of the Hebrews at this particular time stand in front of the congregation, look at the congregation from the stage, which is known as beima in Hebrew, and sing a particular prayer which translates as may the Lord bless you and keep you. let his face shine upon you, may the Lord show you his grace and grant you peace, they sang, they were singing it in Hebrew, right, and I'm too young to know what it meant.

I'm too young to know why they were gesticulating. but they were doing this with their hands facing the congregation and while they were doing that my dad was telling me don't look good, there's this crazy, fervent singing, they're shouting this prayer in Hebrew and they're shaking and they're shaking it, it was kind of a frenzy and uh, I peaked, saw what they were doing and immediately got to work learning how to do it. I had no idea why they were doing it at all. I later found out that this is the shape of the letter Shin in the Hebrew alphabet, which is the first letter of the word Shai, which is a name for God, so the sense is that they are using a symbol of God's name while blessing to the congregation with that with that blessing and you are not supposed to look because many years later I was told that during that blessing the shahina also begins with a shin that enters the sanctuary to bless the congregation and this is the feminine aspect of God and you .

I don't want to see it because the light emanating from a deity could hurt you, it could blind you or even worse, so we introduced it that day, the director said, okay, let's do that and that's how it came into the show and immediately immediately. people on the street started doing that I thought who have we touched we've touched something it's one of those magical things that happens sometimes when you present an idea and it comes back a big yes it's been a big yes since then a big yes absolutely absolutely good, fantastic, what a delight, it's always a pleasure to see you, it's a pleasure to talk to you having us at your house, let's do this once a day, you know, wait, I have one last question for when we had you at the film festival that you mentioned uh uh Shatner, you madeShatner doing the human line, remember that oh yeah, yeah, it was very clear that was at the end of Star Trek 2?

Spock had died saving the ship and the crew and uh Shaton is doing the eulogy for Spock and Spock's body is in a black tube that will be filmed in space and Shatner has this speech and he said, uh, of all the souls that I have known in my travels, hers was the most human that you were within the giant Tic. Tac, what the hell is going on out there? It was very touching, actually, yes it was, it was good, thank you for all the space travel and the years and years of knowledge, may they live and prosper to you too.