Shatner: Willing To Return As Older Kirk
2 min read
Even though William Shatner will not be seen in Star Trek Beyond, he would not be averse to reprising Captain Kirk in future Star Trek movies or shows.
After dying in Star Trek: Generations, novels brought Kirk back to life. “When we finished our movies — the six movies I made — we were putting Kirk into glasses, graying hair, a little old,” said Shatner. “I wrote a series of novels [in which] they allowed me to tell my story of Captain Kirk. So in a series of Star Trek novels, half a dozen of them, I — taking from my own life, of life and death and love and loss — I created this whole world of Star Trek for Captain Kirk. I would have loved to have done them [as movies].”
Even if resurrected, how would Kirk appear given that the actor who would play him is in his eighties? “How would they handle it,” he asked, “in science-fiction terms? I’m older; I’m heavier, I’m — all the problems of age. So what did Captain Kirk do? Die and age? Doesn’t sound ‘science-fictiony’ enough. Or maybe you make him really old. I don’t know. It seems to have beggared Abrams’ imagination.”
But Shatner would be willing to play the iconic Captain one more time. “I would play an old Captain Kirk, absolutely,” he said. “You would have [to have] an interesting character, not a cameo, like ‘Here I am, aren’t I interesting?’ It’s the ongoing world; it’s the world within science-fiction. Yes, you age within the universe. Time goes on, but time bends, as well. There’s so many things you could do.”
A forty-minute minute podcast, in which Shatner talks Trek, is located here.
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