Billingsley Talks 'Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth'

John Billingsley chose to work on Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth because he was attracted to exploring the "difference between spirituality and religiosity and where that line is" that it addressed.

Speaking with Startrek.com recently, Billingsley discussed his participation in the independent film Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth,recently released on DVD. "It's a very literate film about ideas," he said. Billingsley was intrigued by "How we take a spiritual concept or a moral concept or set of precepts, and encrust them and codify them into rules and regulations that turn them into the antithesis of what they were originally intended to be."

Man From Earth was the last script written by Jerome Bixby, known to Star Trek fans for penning the original series episodes, Mirror, Mirror, By Any Other Name, Day of the Dove and Requiem for Methuselah, the latter of which may have inspired Man From Earth. After Bixby's death, his son Emerson Bixby produced the script and completed the project.

Billingsley is also busy with charity work. He and his wife Bonita (Bonnie) Friedericy are active board members of the Aids Service Center. They participate in the annual Posada Candlelight AIDS Walk which takes place in Pasadena. "These days ... AIDS has morphed in many ways into a disease that is considered 'chronic' and 'manageable' so the urgency doesn't seem to be there," explains Billingsley. "It's still an extraordinary health crisis, and there are a lot of people out there still passing the disease on."

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