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

hey it's Jeff Boucher you're watching hero complex the show today we go back to Starfleet Leonard Nimoy this is part two of our interview at his house to Star Trek icon today he talks about his stage work today he talks about the origins of this and he also does a William Shatner impression right okay let's go as far as you know when you look back feature films television and the stage as well is there it's a stage for instance that's a very very different exercise than then working on a film set or television set what to what stage experience do you look back on now with great fondness ah after I've finished with the three seasons of Star Trek and two seasons of Mission Impossible I began to explore the stage I had started on stage when I was eight years old so I was really anxious to get back to it and find out where I was with that whole kind of work and I was in Boston yeah I started in Boston yeah and that's the point I did I I did a production of Fiddler on the Roof where I played Tevye and we played Boston and it was my first time back on stage in Boston since I had left in 1949 this was in 1971 so my family could come and see me onstage and I could enjoy being at home and being on stage again in a thrilling production a little wonderful production we plays north of the city we played it down to the Cape and we had a great great time and then after that I did several years of a lot of stage work I'm so close yeah I did Sherlock Holmes and I did my one-man show called Vincent which I toured the country I did a number of plays into the man in the glass booth I did the four-poster I did Caligula that I forget the plays I mean I said I really I had a wonderful time wonderful time and I was on stage on Broadway my second time in Equus when I got a call from again Jeff Katzenberg called me introduced himself he said I've gone to work for Paramount Pictures only like to talk to you about acting in the next drug Trek movie and would you connect a bright line between the release of Star Wars and the course of success there and and that phone call I was doing Equus on Broadway in 1977 when I began hearing about this extraordinary success called sore Wars and on an afternoon off when I was not working I went down to Times Square and walked in with the other was packed cheering cheering screaming people in this this science-fiction movie and I thought I think I'm gonna be getting a call from power pretty soon oh sure enough within a few days they called and said well you know like to talk about making a Star Trek movie they saw the success of Star Wars and I sort of thought well um we have one of those let's do it you know you know be Sherlock Holmes or your real Mission Impossible or certainly Spock there's always been a cerebral or about many of your signature characters and as we get your performances as crew that's interesting is that is that something that you ever felt Restless with yeah I mean actors don't like to do particular types of you know you're sort of touching on the issues of typecasting and and and when I did Spock people would say to me are you concerned about what this character is going to do to your career and my feeling about typecasting is is that it's a double-edged thing on the one hand it can limit the roles that you're being offered on the other hand it helps producers and directors to understand how to use you it gives them a sense of how you might be useful to them and I have never needed worth I've never been out of work since so frequent on the air so it's worth well for me there's one major exception was the role that I was offered in a project called a woman called Golda there was a TV movie about go to my hair I was asked to play her husband who was not a cerebral character at all it was a very decent guy but kind of a guy that made his way through life and she was the aggressor and she moved on in her career and literally left him behind and I thought this is not my I don't know how this is outside my comfort zone not in my comfort zone and I kept rejecting it rejecting it rejecting it the producer of Bennet to his credit came after me time and time again I said no I don't get it I don't know it I don't know how to do that and then he said well that's too bad because you'd be playing off as at Ingrid Bergman oh really hahaha I might be able to figure this out so I took the job hmm I had a wonderful time doing it and she she was brilliant and and Juri Davis I played against Jimmy Davis and Ingrid Bergman they were wonderful people and I was nominated for an Emmy which was very satisfying I never expected that it happened I was very satisfied yeah that's great and he was a key figure on Star Trek as well har-har Bennett definitely oh yeah oh boy oh boy he was big help they helped after the first Star Trek movie which was not terribly successful as a Star Trek film it wasn't in the inland territory he was the one who stepped in and took that Beach whale and put it back in the water he's a great job and with that first film any Robert wises I mean one of the great names in Hollywood history but the film felt a little turgid but maybe kind of slow I think he and Gene Roddenberry were looking for a a Space Odyssey kind of film kind of thing that Kubrick had done she kind of cold cool kind of we're out here in space and quiet and things move very slowly there was a lot of that and a lot of cerebral stuff they just wanted to it wasn't enough drama it wasn't a Star Trek movie really we had had the Star Trek people but it didn't use us as Star Trek characters very well yeah it could have been a whole different crew right you're right it is interesting you mentioned before about the the episodes of the series that that got into ethics or social issues or you know the sort of the physics of humanity the fractured physics of humanity oh yeah was there ever one that you were uncomfortable with or conversely was there one that you were particularly proud of uh for those reasons I don't remember any level of discomfort that may have been the men there were some scripts I didn't think we're very good but not because they were on the wrong side of some political issue or a social issue a moral issue the intentions were always good some just didn't work very well and there was some that worked brilliantly and this there's a show that a lot of people remember and remember well and remember fondly that had one particular moment in it that worked in the rest of it really was kind of repetitive and not terribly well-developed it was the one where the characters the two central characters were black and white one would black on one side one was white on that Frank Gorshin that's right and and I think was Lou Antonia yes the other action and they were there was there were opposites so one was black on the red side one with black on the left and it was vivid and people remember that I mean they remember the antagonism between them and there's a one great moment where Craig says well you people are exactly the same why you add each other and the guys are you crazy can't you see I'm black on the right side he's black on the left exactly ah yes that's the moment in the show that's it the rest of it was kind of well oh we're fighting each other well it was one of the great moments is what it was it's is it was a fantastic moment it's interesting to see the show and some of the things that happen I mean who would expect to fight alongside Abraham Lincoln I mean how did you know to find yourself on an adventure on another planet with Abraham Lincoln now he's fighting vampire that didn't work very well as I recall it was an interesting attempt it did not really come to life like four score and seven years ago and you played this character in so many different media and different medium I mean you've feature film television animated cartoon video games that's that's he's been with you quite a while yeah a lot a lot how do you how do you how do you feel about where you left him with the JJ film which was great I feel very very good about it Zachary Quinto was a very intelligent and very talented actor anybody is he's pretty good he knows what he's doing and he knows how to do it and he has the training to do what he what it is that he want to do so I'm very pleased with where the character is and I had a good time on the last that last film dropping in there and and particularly playing scene with him which was really interesting I feel good about the character I feel the character is still very very useful and very interesting but it's still somewhat enigmatic I think I had pretty much played out any enigma about the character Brik people pretty much knew who I was and hope to going on with me but zactly has the opposite needs to explore some new territory because he brings a new new condition of his own to the character and he will the the familiarity that the audience has with the characters and as you're saying you know the the as the mystique goes away it's replaced by connection and familiarity that that's that's a difficult balance to though as you move forward because at some point you want to do fresh and new things with the characters yeah but you also don't want to be contrived well I had the opportunity to do that because the character went through some cycles including the death and resurrection you know that's a pretty good cycle right there so I was given good writing I was giving a good opportunity to explore the character this has a long history it traces back to your childhood in a very compelling moment do you mind tell him we got a beautiful script written by Theodore sturgeon wonderful science fiction writer of the script was called amok time a.m. ok amok time and it was lovely it was poetic it was exciting it was dramatic and it was about Spock having to go home so that was home planet of Vulcan to be married to fulfill a marriage betrothal and go home or die was the story and Kirk had to get Spock to his own planet to save his life so when we got there we discovered that the the wedding ceremonies to be performed by a character named kapow played by Celia laughs kia wonderful Viennese actress and she's the matriarch of the planet she's a powerful figure on Vulcan and I'm to approach her and I'm a very sensitized to the idea that this we're seeing other Vulcans for the first time we're on the Vulcan planet for the first time what's Vulcan all about right what are the one of the one of the mores of the culture what kind of what can I find what can I show an audience or bring to an audience about the Vulcan people so as I'm approaching her and we say hello to each other and she said welcome home and I remember exactly what I said what the dialogue was but I said to the director I think we need something that Vulcans do when they greet each other because humans have certain kinds of things that we do we shake hands we salute each other we bow to 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 an experience that I had that obviously made a big impression on me because I happened when I was about eight or nine years old I was in the synagogue with my family my Orthodox synagogue the men sitting downstairs the women upstairs at the balcony with my grandfather my father and my brother and myself comes a point in the service where the a group of men I think there must have been five or six of them as my memory they are called Kohanim they are members of the priestly tribe of the Hebrews at this particular moment they get up in front of the congregation face the congregation from the stage what knows the Bema in Hebrew and they they chant a particular prayer which is translated entropy the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon you may the Lord send his graciousness unto you and grant you peace they chanted and were chanting it in Hebrew and I'm too young to know what it meant I'm too young to know why they were gesturing but they were doing this with their hands facing the congregation and while they were doing that my dad was saying to me don't look well there's this crazy fervent chanting going on this shouting this prayer in Hebrew and and they're shaking and they're rocking it was kind of a kind of a frenzy and I peeked I saw what they were doing I immediately went to work to learn how to do that I had no idea why they were doing it and much later I found out that this is the shape of the letter shin in the Hebrew alphabet which is the first letter of the word shot die which is a name for God so the sense is they're using a symbol of God's name as they bless the congregation with that with that blessing and you're not supposed to look because I was told many years later that during that benediction the Shekinah also starts with a shin comes into the sanctuary to bless the congregation and this is the feminine aspect of God and you don't want to see her because the light that emanates from a day at he could hurt she could blind you or even worse so we introduced it that day the director said okay let's do that well and that's how it got in the show and immediately immediately on the street people started doing that I don't wait we study we've touched something it's one of those magic things that happen sometimes when you present an idea and a big yes comes back couple it's been a big yes ever since a big yes absolutely yeah absolutely well fantastic well what a treat it's always nice to see you write to talk to you having us in your home let's do this once a day for you no wait I have one last question for you at when we had you at the Film Festival you mentioned a Shatner you did the Shatner doing the human lon do you remember that oh yeah yeah let's do clear that it was at the end of Star Trek to Spock had died saving the ship and the crew and Shatner doing the eulogy for Spock and Spock's body is in a black tube that's gonna be shot into space and Shannon has this speech and he said of all the souls I've met in my travels his was the most human you're inside the giant Tic Tac like what the heck is going on it was very touching actually yeah it was it was well thanks for all the the space travels and and years and years of insights to live longer for you - thank you

Channel: Nerdist

Views: 1,682,650

Keywords: Leonard Nimoy, Nimoy, Star Trek, Trek, Geoff Boucher, LA Times, Hero Complex, Hero, Complex, Whales, photography, television, movies, space, sci-fi, science, fiction, Science Fiction, William Shatner, Shatner, George Takei, Twitter, Takei, Star Wars, Paramount, theater, Equus, stage, Vulcan, live long and prosper

Id: -QxprD3Ii2M

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Wed May 23 2012