Complex Numbers

Captain's Log

The personal lives of celebrities are generally not ones I care much about, but sometimes I run across an article like this.

‘Take it easy, nothing matters in the end’: William Shatner at 90, on love, loss and Leonard Nimoy  
His career has taken him from Shakespeare to Star Trek – and soon he will be swimming with sharks on TV. He discusses longevity, tragedy, friendship and success

The interview is from May, so I suppose the sharks thing has already happened -- I vaguely remember hearing something about that, but Shark Week interests me even less than the Olympics or the personal lives of celebrities.

I could have done without the breathless immediacy of the present tense in the article, but the content is interesting enough. It helps to read his words with the distinctive Shatner voice in your head. You know you have one. Everyone does.

His tone is often heavily ironical, as if he is daring you to accuse him of playing a joke on you. This has led to much discussion from fans about “the Shatner persona”, although Shatner scoffs at the phrase. “I don’t know what that even is,” he says.

I think they think you play up to their expectations, I say.

“What are their expectations? That I’m Captain Kirk? Well, I am Captain Kirk! I don’t know what people mean when they talk about my persona. I’m just myself. If you’re not yourself, who are you?”

Indeed. Even actors.

There is a website dedicated to Shatner’s toupee, but his youthful appearance goes much further than impressive hair. Has he had some serious work done?

“No. Have you?” he shoots back.

No, because I’m just a journalist and can’t afford it, I say.

“Ha! Well, I don’t have any secret potions. It must be genetic. I ride a lot of horses and I’m into the bewilderment of the world, so I open my heart and head into the curiosity of how things work,” he says. I’m not sure if “the bewilderment of the world” is an ingredient Olay can bottle, but it certainly works for Shatner. That, and horses.

I am not going to the Shatner Hell Toupee website. If you must, the link is in the article. The important thing is the way he put "I'm into the bewilderment of the world." I can relate, even if I know I'm not going to make it to 90.

As for the horses thing, I think I remember reading somewhere that the horseback scenes from Star Trek: Generations were filmed on Shatner's farm with Shatner's horses. Dude can ride, that's for sure.

“Yes. Are you married?” he asks, not very subtly changing the subject.

Well, I say, I’ve lived with someone for a decade.

“And how’s it going?” he asks.

Well, we have three kids so there’s not much time to think about that, I say.

“And you bore them all?”

I what?

“You. Bore. Them. All?”

I’m not sure if he means did I give birth to them or do they all find me incredibly tedious, but either way the answer is yes.

I have to think he was deliberately playing with words. Gotta admire a good punster.

Shatner has been thinking about other dawnings because over lockdown he has been working on another spoken-word album.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Maybe I could watch Shark Week instead.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just drifted with the currents of happenstance,” he says.

I'm just leaving this here for anyone who still thinks that dedication, goal-setting, and hard work are the keys to success. They are not.

He is a good sport about it, but when I ask one too many Trek questions (ie two) he changes the subject and tells me he has recently done a project with a company called StoryFile, which will recreate him as a 3D talking hologram.

Life imitates science fiction.

It feels rude to ask a 90-year-old if he worries about death, so I ask instead what he wishes he had known at 20 that he knows at 90.

“Here’s an interesting answer!” he says perkily. “I’m glad I didn’t know because what you know at 90 is: take it easy, nothing matters in the end, what goes up must come down. If I’d known that at 20, I wouldn’t have done anything!”

And there it is, folks: the most important life philosophy one can adopt.

I only quoted a few things from the rather lengthy interview, but it's worth reading for the other bits, especially about him and Nimoy.