Shatner Talks Chris Pine, Star Trek Sequel & Kirk Stereotype + More ShatWatch

William Shatner is once gracing TV screens with his hit new CBS sitcom $#!* My Dad Says. While out promoting that, Shatner talked to Vanity Fair about various things, and once again talked about the Star Trek sequel. We have excerpts of that, plus a video interview and more from Shatner below.

 

Shatner on Chris Pine & Star Trek sequel + Betty White Sex Tape?

Bill has been doing more interviews promoting his new sitcom $#!* My Dad Says, which was again the #1 show for its timeslot last night. A new interview in Vanity Fair is probably the funniest, or at least the strangest. It included this exchange on Star Trek:

Leonard Nimoy had a big cameo in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie, but you were left out. Are you lobbying to be in the sequel?

I’m doing everything I can. J.J. and I used to go out for sushi and argue about the movie, but he’s gotten busy. He’s directing something else, something that isn’t Star Trek. He needs to focus on what’s important, which is planning the next Star Trek movie and figuring out how to put me in it. (Laughs.)

Here’s what I want to see: Old Kirk, played by you, bloated and barely fitting into his Starfleet uniform, encounters the young Kirk, played by Chris Pine, and tells him, “Hey, skinny. I’m you in 50 years! Hahahahahaha!”

(Laughs.) Yeah, I like it. If you come up with a concept that allows Chris and I to occupy the same screen, not only will you be rich, but I’ll invite you to Monday Night Football at my place.

You’ve got yourself a deal. If nothing else, I’d just like to see you showing Chris Pine how to do a proper Kirk.

 I’m not sure he needs my help..

Shatner also joked about making a sex tape with Betty White for the AARP (American Association for Retired People). Read the full interview here.

Video: 10 Questions with The Shat

William Shatner is the latest subject of Time Magazine’s 10 Questions series, answering questions submitted by readers. Bill talks about life being William Shatner, critiques, embarrassing moments and more. One of the questions asked if he had "put the Captain Kirk stereotype behind?" and Shatner said:

Probably not, but who cares? It was a wonderful show. But if you want to say (mockingly) "hey beam me up", I am prepared to nod in consent…and poke you in the eye.

And if you want even more Shatner, he was also interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

Photo: Bill at Equestrian Show

Finally we wrap up this new ShatWatch with a photo from the opening of last weekends World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky, where William Shatner helped open the show.

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Wow. The Shat is simply the best. It would be funny to see him say to Pine Kirk im you in 50 years. Lol. Long Live the Shat.

Love the picture of Captain Kirk’s triumphant return 40 years later to Sigma Iotia II where Bella let him ride on a chariot around the planet’s topmost betting horse track. This picture was taken just before the Federation collected its annual share.

Love that last picture of the Shat!
Anyone else think of “A Piece of the Action” when they saw him in that hat?
:D

#3, hmm, didn’t you get my reference in my post #2?

#2

Hey, MJ, great minds think alike!

I actually thought this was a new episode of Kirk and Spock getting back to Bela Omix and Jojo Krako for thier Piece of the Action.

I actually thought this was a new episode of Kirk and Spock getting back to Bela Omix and Jojo Krako for thier Piece of the Action.

2

Yes, I thought that too. I just assumed he was making reference to that episode. “Right Spocko.”

I actually thought this was a new episode of Kirk and Spock getting back to Bela Omix and Jojo Krako for thier “Piece of the Action.”

Hey you know what? I think that last pic reminds me of “A Piece of the Action”.

Well, at least it’s not “Patterns of Force.”

Spock had to tell Kirk how to drive a stickshift. Not so in the JJverse

10 — LOL !!!

Hey Bill,

Seeing you get to Kentucky often, I was wondering if you ever get to Cincinnati once in awhile? This year, you have to go to Cincinnati to watch playoff baseball as there is none in Los Angeles.

“Old Kirk, played by you, bloated and barely fitting into his Starfleet uniform”

OUCH!

Got class?

Vic

I wonder what Kracko would say to Kirk Now. Maybe Kracko would want a piece of the Shats Action.

How cool that he can laugh at his own age & weight gain. It’s funny, but for a guy with a massive ego, he’s no narcissist when it comes to scoring a laugh (or appreciating one).

Looking good Bill,

VanityFair’s interview is quite funny and crazy!…..I LOL….hahah….Mr. Shatner was great and I think he really enjoyed……some people may find that the interview was disrespectful…….but I found it very funny!!!!

“Hey, skinny. I’m you in 50 years!”……poor CP…..hahahah…..I don’t wish that for him…..sorry Mr. Shatner……hahahah!!!!!

I think the Vanity Fair Intrviewer’s question was way out of line. Yes, its cool that Shatner can poke fun at himself, but for an interviewer to make a joke about your weight, right to your face, is not professional. Screw that guy.

I sent an email to the editor of vanity fair. that interviewer is a douche bag. So disrepectful.

YES. A thousand times YES. Love all the ‘Piece of the Action’ references – that suit is pretty darn close to the one he wore in that ep too! God, now THAT was a Trek romp if there ever was one. I think the ones where you can tell the writers were deliberately going for fun\campy over playing it straight remain the most endearing. Not to mention that eps like Shore Leave, I, Mudd, Squire of Gothos, Trouble w/ Tribbles, and ‘A Piece of the Action’ have some GREAT dialogue and one-liners. I think it’s probably the stuff that really kept Trek on the map for a lot of people.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090226040221/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/3/30/Kirk_in_control_of_the_mob.jpg/800px-Kirk_in_control_of_the_mob.jpg

-24thCRS!

I’m with you, saavik001. I can appreciate a person willing to laugh at themselves but this was a bit much. I don’t get the feeling that Shatner was aware that he was going to be hit with questions like that. It read like an interview you’d read in Maxim, rather than Vanity Fair.

All I can say is that Bill is a better man than I. If I had been on a phone interview like that one, I probably would have hung up halfway through.

We should all be so lucky as to be as fit and as active and as sharp as Bill when we’re 79 years old. He borders on super-human.

Ok. I vote the Shat for the Next Superman Movie. Well. He is Super.

I wish Shatner well. But what $#!( is in fact said in his show cannot compare with what the man himself has said, by saying words to the effect that mortality is the furthest thing from his mind. Shatner is a superstar, and he should know it, and he is immortal in cultural terms, but none of us are immortal in real terms, and that is something, I think, that we sometimes try desperately to overlook.

If I had a hero in showbiz, I think it would have to be Mr. Shatner himself — a Canadian who made it big in the U.S. of A.; a man of great talents; the center, in some ways, of the fictional Star Trek universe.

I only wish he were a musician, in addition to his other prodigious talents, for this is the $#!( that I, myself, would like to say:

Music is the most evanescent of art forms. It is, and then it isn’t. Like a life, it is there, it interacts, and then it is gone. Forever.

The soul-crushing mundaneness of money cares not a whit about the sacred in life. The lack of funds for music, even for the military, even for a small, even for an infinitesimal tribute, a small, pathetic, poor expression for the multitudes of universes that were created because of the existence of Johnny, who died for his country having gotten his gun, is a signal of our terminal decline as a nation, much to be feared and, I hope, avoided.

A recent NPR piece spoke of the termination of funds for military bands, as a possibility, is simply brilliant as an example of why humanity may have no future in its present form, as I believe in my weariest moments.

I am listening to Mozart’s Magic Flute as I write. I love classical music. I love it with a passion. I believe that it is, as noted earlier, a promise, as well, of other things. Better things. Better things that we hope for in our future as souls.

But, I am not sure those things exist.

I say that we know nothing, not because I devalue our existence, but because we truly partake of only the smallest portion of what we as a species can find in our potential. As individuals, our lights are extinguished after, at most, about a century.

What happens in the hereafter?

Hell, we know nothing of what happens in the here, by comparison to all.

Moving on…..

^^ A recent NPR piece that spoke…

As corrected.

#28

Not to be a Salieri (I love Mozart as well), but the Pentagon is not cutting out every military band, just the ones they feel are redundant. They’re also cutting spending on tech programs that don’t work, and also limiting the amount of high-ranking officers in the military—the so-called brass creep. It’s all apart of the Secretary of Defense’s plan to streamline the armed forces, something that’s been overdue for the past twenty years. (We’re still more or less operating on a Cold War strategy).

So, I don’t think a few less woodwinds in the Air Force band is going to necessarily signal the end of Western Civilization. Cutbacks need to be made. Hard times and all…

The first leaf of autumn….

30 Excellent points. There will always be The Marine Band, so I’m not worried!

As great as the Shat looks, let’s not forget he is nearly 80. I sincerely hope he lives to a robust 100+, with all his faculties, but 80 is 80. The reality is that he is still here, still active, and still relevant. I hope JJ and the suits realize that they should take the opportunity to give the Shat a decent scene or three in the sequel. Before he is gone.

To hell with worrying about Generations. Life is to be lived, not fretted over. It is crazy that a throwaway movie from 1994 denies us a few moments with the Original Kirk.

One day, not terribly long from now, we will wake to the sad news of the Shat’s passing. If it should happen that he never plays Kirk again, remember the words of John Greenleaf Whittier:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Mr. Shatner still looks good in a suit. <3

32. Hey, we have 79 episodes, an animated series and 7 movies full of moments with the original Kirk. Luckily, we still have plenty of brand new Shatner moments. If we really want Kirk as Shatner, get him to do a YouTube Captain’s Log in character — fans who write, start sending him scripts. I don’t know, I kind of thought the Spock in Trek09 was more Nimoy than Spock. I liked seeing him, but I would have been fine if my last Spock sighting was in TUC (right, no next gen appearance). I know, speak for myself, right?

I know, Team Shat-in-Star-Trek (SIST) and Team NotSIST, will never agree on this.

ps. not sure if Shatner would be offended by the fat/bloated jokes in the interview. Gosh, they made them on Boston Legal all the time.

Future Kirk from 1985A could presumably be still alive, correct? It would be interesting if they made it into a trilogy, had Kirk come back in time in some fashion in order to save both Earth and Vulcan, knowing full well that he will be dead in the original timeline, thus making his death far more heroic than “it was fun” AND returning the timeline to normal. Why not? It worked in BTTF.

The Shat is WORKING that fedora! :D

@23: Great pic! Also, I think you just named most of my favourite TOS episodes.

The man surely can wear a suit and a hat much better than most people half his age! :) And he’s much funnier than them, and he can laugh about himself. And he can look back to a wonderful career, and he’s doing great right now, still being at work and in the spotlight at the age of almost 80. Way to go, Bill!

“Well, in a few years, the Iotians may demand a piece of our action!”

A Piece of the Action on the Big Screen!

There is only one.

Yes, #2. That is the first thing I thought of when I saw Bill in that hat. The episode “A piece of the Action”. He still looks good for almost 80.

I thought the interview was very trashy and disrepectful to Bill. He is an icon to say the least. But to ask him about his ‘toupee’ and his sexual organ still working, was very slutty and classless. But Bill was such a good sport and had some great comeback answers. Personally I would love to see them change the title to “SHAT, My Dad Says!” It would be so appropriate & so much like his Shatnerisms.

#12
You are right that Spock had to tell Kirk how to drive a stick shift. But remember JJverse is the alternate universe. HIs dad was dead and his uncle must have taught him to drive the stick. Sometimes it is hard to keep things in the right perspective.

“What is the biggest misconception about you?”

I’ll answer that one. The biggest misconception about this man is that he’s a deity who must be worshiped by Trekkers night and day otherwise you are a heretic, and that he’s a good actor who’s likable.

Bill Shatner’s nearly 80. When he gets questions from some whipper-snapper, he probably laughs at the young idiot and considers it good sport! I think he’s an absolutely amazing guy!

#44 No fan has ever said that about Shatner, except you. Meanwhile Shatner is laughing all the way to the bank!

IOTIANS’ 11

I recently read a very interesting article concerning nuKirk and Kirk Prime. It was in a collection of articles called
“Star Trek as Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier” edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell. The article was titled, “The Kirk Doctrine” by Steven McVeigh. The other articles are cool too. I think Bob Orci would appreciate all of the mentions of the new movie in the articles. Bob, you should definitely give it a look.

SHAT with his horses. Now THAT’s a TV show!

The important part was Mr. Shatner talking ST12 possiblities, and they are fun!