Nimoy: No More Movies

Original Series star Leonard Nimoy (Spock) recently said he has retired from the movie business.

"It feels very good," Nimoy told Salon.com. But the actor was keen to stress he has fond memories of working on films. "When I was a kid starting out, I did my first movie work when I was 19, 20 years old. I lived in Boston and left home when I was about 18 to go to California to be an actor. The first work that I did - I thought it was the most exciting and romantic thing that a person could possibly do.

"I'd get up before dawn when it was still dark and drive to the studio at 5 in the morning - 'Report to work at 5:30.' 'I'll be there!' - It was so great," Nimoy continued. "Cup of coffee in the car. Drive to the studio gates. Give 'em your name and they open the gates. Spend a day being part of moviemaking. Drive home in the dark. God, it was so great."

The actor explained that his circumstances are now very different. "We have a life now. We can choose by weather. [...] We can be there for kids and grandchildren's experiences, and then leave and say, 'We're going to New York for a week.' Or Lake Tahoe for the summer. Or we're going to Europe because we want to go and this is the best time to go, not because this is when the picture is being shot, but because we want to be there. We want to do certain things there, not go into a studio or out in the woods somewhere at five o'clock in the morning to shoot a scene. I had enough of it. I had 60 years of it."

Nimoy also related how he came up with the familiar Vulcan salute. "We were shooting a scene of Spock going back to his home planet of Vulcan for the first time. This was the first time we saw Vulcan on the series. We had never seen any other Vulcans before. I was very much attuned to the thought that I should be watching for opportunities to add something to the Vulcan culture, to the Vulcan story," he explained. Nimoy first saw the Jewish symbol performed when he was a child.

"So I said to the director, 'There should be some special thing that Vulcans do.' He didn't quite get it at first. I said, 'Well, humans shake hands with each other. Asian people bow to each other. Military people salute. What do Vulcans do?' He said, 'Well, OK. What do Vulcans do?'

"I said, 'How about this?' And she did it in response. And that's how we did it. It's as simple as that. But it resonated very quickly. Within days after that show airing, I started getting people doing this [gesture] to me on the street. Still do."

Much more from Leonard Nimoy can be found in the complete interview with the actor, available by following this link to Salon.com. Thanks go out to MrBrak for this!

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