William Shatner opens up about turning 90, loneliness and what keeps him going

how are you doing i'm doing so well what about yourself not too bad not too bad everyone do you feel like i heard myself say what a boot oh my god i talked to a canadian my canadian accent came back that is a part about yourself that's part of my public service is to get you acting more canadian you know yeah i guess uh we're recording this what a few days before your 90th birthday happy birthday thank you what are you doing to celebrate i don't know uh there's there's a there's a plan afoot and i'm not sure what that plan is uh and i don't want to burst the bubble by inquiring and uh and so i've left it totally alone and i'm um but what i usually do on the day that i'm free and i don't know whether i'm free of that day or not is um i might ride uh a horse uh uh competitively i'm into this sport called reigning so we we do that a lot uh i've got dogs that uh we work with and we've got a wife and children got uh some writing to do i've got uh uh a book uh for a book club that i think and i got an album that i i'm ready to release and a podcast that i'm i'm going to do so there's a few things to do 90 mean anything to you what does 90 mean anything to you like those round number birthdays it's disgusting it's a disgusting number i mean i don't like 90. well you know when i heard that 90 was coming up i thought what the heck is that i remember 90 way back when i was in canada and i thought 90 you know what people don't live until 90 and here i am you look good though if you don't mind me saying even on radio yeah i mean that's where you got to look good well let's talk that's what i look the best why do you think they put me here bill why do you think they got me here you know exactly i got the face for radio but why are we on radio tom why are we why aren't you showing this well i'm showing this but this is going to be on youtube and all that stuff you know on the internet okay and it's got a tv show too this is also a tv show but it's mainly a radio show okay multi-platform can we talk about the movie the senior moment so your character victor martin is a retired pilot dealing with some of the downsides of aging i know that i'm telling the people listening of aging like having his driving abilities questioned not understanding things like snapchat were you able to relate to your character at all well i love driving fast cars i have in the past uh driven in celebrity uh road races and even non-celebrity road races so i've driven uh cars uh on tracks and in the streets uh very quickly i moved very quickly um and i love machinery i've driven motorcycles uh a good part of my life [Music] and and the machinery the the book uh zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance do you know it at all times yeah yeah sure do so the thesis is that even machinery can lead you into a contemplative uh attitude if you will uh if you focus on it and the industrial world and the beauty of the machine and all all of those things uh are involved in in having in in thinking about uh cars and and motorcycles uh and i i am of that feeling so i love beautiful cars uh beautiful mechanical things i i um i did a a uh documentary uh a while ago called i called it the ride i directed it and i rode in it and i rode a new motorcycle from chicago to los angeles and i called it the ride and and that ride with this new motorcycle and the way it went so i had a feeling for machinery long ago that this guy exhibits in the movie and when they take his driver's license away because of an accident and they take his life away and i understand that because now he can't move he he there isn't even any any great public transportation around where where this character lives so not only have they taken his transportation away but they've taken his life his life blood is his existence away and you say you can relax he's got he's got to find it do you say you can relate to that that's what the movie is is about uh finding another life uh as circumstances have dictated so i i understand that as well how do you understand that how do you relate to that ah tom good for you because well no i mean you picked up on that that's great uh how do i understand changes in life because life is constantly change change is the the unit uh uh of existence everywhere change is constant so changes in your life like you and i are no longer the same having just asked that question and now i'm getting an answer we're no longer the same we're different so those minute changes uh collect into massive changes in our life and we got to go with them so our life changes all the time and if we realize that and go with those changes and not fight our fate that is that's the good life i think the bad life the life of turmoil is trying not to change yeah and especially i get that especially in the context of of getting older i want to play you're in luck i want to play another clip from the film take a listen i think you have the wrong idea about me huh how's that oh gosh i don't know i haven't always been this old lady they're not old i'm not old we're young just double the age i'm still trying to figure out what i'm gonna do when i grow up well then let's not that's your character and his love interest caroline summers played by gene smart i feel like we don't see a lot of these kind of conversations in movies about dating later in life what what what drew you in what what what drew you to the project oh what drew me to the project it's a funny movie about the evolution of just what i was saying before the evolution of life so here's this guy having to adjust to a monumental change in his life and and and adjusting to it finding gene smart and and uh and finding love uh where he hadn't had it before because he was so involved with driving and riding and all that it's it's and and it's funny and i like funny it's funny and serious and so you can do both and making people laugh is really uh a wonderful in the theater when you get a laugh in the theater it's a joyful thing it's the actor who's gotten the laugh even though he may have if it's in the theater and you've gotten that laugh 50 times that 50 first time is just as joyful as the first they're you when you when you have a good joke and you tell your friends a good joke and they laugh and you go oh you're a little inner feeling oh i made them laugh that's what the actor feels and so here this amusing movie that has a kind of depth of uh uh an in-depth idea but people are laughing at the humor the at the humanity the humor based on humanity it's it's it's great i mean there's actually there's nothing else for an actor to get that kind of reaction uh laughter or tears that's why we are actors how are you finding the pandemic you know i've been thinking a little bit and listening to the news and reading the news hearing about um you know folks experiencing great loneliness during this pandemic you know um it's been particularly i think all the time especially for people of a certain age but certainly devastatingly during the pandemic are you lonely at all tom that's a really interesting question and it's interesting from another several different points of view in this new album love death on horses which is what it's named at the moment i don't know whether the label will change it or not i've written a series with some two wonderful guys a poet and a musician we put together a a a rather extraordinary i believe a rather extraordinary album based on experiences of mine which i will talk over with the poet and we go over to nova and find out what emerges this song that is my song it's about things that i've felt or done one of the songs is called loneliness and the the song is about having always felt lonely and what is that and is it what what's at the end of life will there be anybody there at the end of life is the open question of the song ends it's one of the sad or more profound songs in this album which has both but loneliness is endemic to human beings we are all essentially alone as much as we are with other people we are alone now people who are religious say well there's god and god is with you and is the father figure and i don't happen to believe that i envy those who do i think we die and uh our our our bodies uh are consumed and we enter the universe in fact there's another song on this album in which i say i want to be a tree there is this this uh thing where uh you are buried in a pod and and then a tree is placed over that pot and the tree gets nourishment from your body and you you in essence become the tree and that's i and the song is i want to be a tree and ends with i'm telling you i want to be a tree because that's how i want to go is there something at the end of life is there more is can you reach a communion with someone or something that voids the loneliness that we all feel i don't know i i pose it as a question to me loneliness has been a a factor ever since i was conscious and going to school in montreal and being alone so loneliness and i don't know why you picked up on that uh is a huge factor in my life i suppose it's just been on my mind during the pandemic i should i should reintroduce you here i'm speaking with william shatner i got to talk to anthony hopkins and stanley tucci independently recently and they both starred in films that dealt with aging and and in in some cases dementia and they talked about the fear they felt inhabiting those characters and anthony hopkins said to me something along the lines of like it was scarier than any other horror film playing myself getting older but i have to say from the conversation so far i sense a feeling of comfort you have in getting older well i wouldn't call it comfort i'm so delighted to hear those two names i i uh we befriended each other uh uh uh and i didn't know stanley at all but i admire him as an actor and his latest show is interesting um getting older is terrifying really when i uh was getting this computer up this morning and i'm not handy with it i called my assistant on the phone help what was the number they got and while i was preoccupied with doing all that i suddenly thought what's the name of the movie i'm promoting i couldn't think of senior moment and i thought i'm having a senior moment and then i got it but wow and i'm thinking that's what people feel when older people or anybody look it's like they're driving someplace and suddenly they say where am i where am i going what am i doing and that mmm shaft of fear hits you like wait a minute i don't know where i'm going i'm totally lost i totally don't know where i'm going and what i'm doing i had that for a moment oh man a split second yeah and i had an insight like a flash of brilliant light like oh that's what that's what uh having uh being senile must be like but i had a flash into it terrifying you were i heard you were diagnosed with prostate cancer about five years ago and then the test results were reversed what happens to you what changes for you i forgot about that what changes for you when you're living with that diagnosis and then what changes for you i did have i did that do you remember that well the worst thing that can happen is that you lose uh uh you know you you'll pee in your bed and i thought that's the worst doctor thing i've ever heard no no no that's not so that was incredible i forgot i that totally went out of my mind how do you know that tom well you know here at the cbc where you know we we work on this stuff man but you know what i mean if you had asked me did you ever have cancer scared i would have said no because it's so frightening it went out of my mind well that's what comes to mind when you start talking about how scary it all is not to bum you out here but i wonder when you get a diagnosis like that and then it's reversed it must have a profound impact on you in some way well imagine the fear not only do you have cancer you're going to die but you're going to die uh no you're not going to die because cancer of the prostate uh is long forming on you and you can take it out but you have all those other things you can't control your bladder you can't control anything what what that's just awful i just day before yesterday i took my one of my wonderful dogs we have a male and a female dog and took the female dog thinking i don't think she's three i don't think we can go through another heat period where i lose her for three weeks to get her out because we have a male dog as well and i i gotta put send her off again as i have seen so many of my females i don't think i can do that what i'll do is i'll fix her right so before yesterday we had her spayed yeah because if we were going to get another puppy we would buy one from a great breeder and i'm thinking like i've taken this wonderful being and by some command god like power i've said i am taking your organs out of you and you got operated on and she's walking around you know we got to keep her still and yeah and all that for the next week or so and then she'll be fine but she would have lost her ability as a female she would have lost her reason for being and that's part of what i was feeling when i had that moment of the prostate uh scare and then you get it reversed you know what i mean right and you get what oh my god how could you have told me that to begin with and and but i can't do that with uh her name is espresso i can't bring espresso's organs back i it was a faithful decision it was i i think if my dogs are my are my friends i mean they go with me everywhere yeah uh these two dobermans and and they're like you know going in the car of course we're all going in the car no matter where i go so mostly i'm with my dogs and and uh and so i i treat her like a person you know and i talk to them and they listen and they react i mean there's no question in my mind that these dogs and all these other animals to some extent understand uh community this kind of communication they are are of course communicating with each other but the the connection we have with life and and life forms like dogs is profound and for me to make that decision it should have reminded me of the prostate scare but it was so scary i guess i tossed it out of my mind you know we we can't talk much longer i'm getting the i'm getting the wrap up notice but i i do want to ask you sort of two show me show me what that looks like what's a wrap-up no it was like a little chat chat message that said hey you know like like a little tournament i would love if it was that wouldn't that be great no that's what they do to me at most of my meetings that one right there you know you've spoken long enough uh yeah that's that that's uh that's what god is saying to me well let me ask you two questions to close things up with the two quick ones one is so yeah you got the new film senior moment your tv show unexplained you get the blues album just out you're you're looking great you're looking healthy at 90 years old got the podcast you got a lot to celebrate two things what's the first thing you're gonna do when you're able to be with people again when this is all over and two when you have a bit of a dark scary day what gives you hope first thing i'm gonna do is uh the one of my favorite things to do in life is to go to a lovely dinner with some great people two or three limited number so you can have a wonderful conversation about like like we're having loneliness uh interesting you you've chosen some interesting material that there's no time to really amplify uh but just to sort of pass by wonderful stuff tom thank you uh and the scariest thing uh for me is that was your question no what's giving you hope what gives you hope on a scary day a scary day is dying and i don't know about hope uh the the mystery of loneliness now comes in the mystery what's going to happen that's scary and there's no cease from that how do you how do you how do you have eggs like how do you have lunch how do you have dinner like how do you i try to focus on the beauty of life of the beauty of life which is eggs and the mountains the horses love dogs tea taste of orange which i just had the sensory and philosophical beauty of life the connection that i know that all life has is something so profoundly moving that i think of it a lot that which the connection that we all have from the lowliest slime which has a manner of seeking life slime seeks life slime seeks life can you imagine it kind of finds its way and then you have orcas that think how to kill a shark i mean it's it's so beautiful i try to focus on that you've given me a lot to to focus on myself and you've also given us a lot of joy through your work um thank you for your time today thank you tom wonderful interview tom i appreciate that bill

Channel: Q with Tom Power

Views: 478,879

Keywords: william shatner, senior moment, william shatner interview, william shatner podcast, tom power, q cbc

Id: 3imVbP_stB4

Length: 23min 2sec (1382 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021