William Shatner has opened up about ‘weeping uncontrollably’ after travelling into space with Jeff Bezos in 2021 – as he reflected on his legendary Star Trek career.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Shatner, 92, opened up about the emotional conversation he had with Amazon founder Bezos after they returned from space aboard Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket.
Shatner was 90 years old at the time of the flight, making him the oldest person to go into space.
Upon returning, Shatner was overcome with emotion as the trip made him come to grips about Earth’s future.
‘I was weeping uncontrollably for reasons I didn’t know. It was my fear of what’s happening to Earth. I could see how small it was,’ he told The Hollywood Reporter.
William Shatner has opened up about ‘weeping uncontrollably’ after travelling into space with Jeff Bezos in 2021 – as he reflected on his legendary Star Trek career; Shatner pictured second left, Bezos pictured far right
‘It’s a rock with paper-thin air. You’ve got rock and 2 miles of air, and that’s all that we have, and we’re f**king it up. And, that dramatically, I saw it in that moment.’
Prior to his rocket launch, Shatner played legendary space traveler Admiral James T. Kirk on the Star Trek franchise.
The show featured a groundbreaking interracial kiss between Shatner and his co-star Nichelle Nichols.
The actor was asked if he insisted on making every take real – even with the network reportedly asking for faked takes as an alternative.
‘I do remember saying, “Maybe they’ll try and edit it. What can I do to try and discourage the editing of the kiss itself?” I don’t remember quite what I did because it’s difficult to cut away [from the kiss in an edit]. But yeah, I remember thinking that,’ he told the outlet.
Star Trek ran for three seasons before it was cancelled – he wound up broke, living out of a truck, and performing summer stock theater.
Reflecting on that period of time, he said: ‘I’m broke, living in a truck, sleeping in the back and trying to save that money so I could support my three kids and my [ex-]wife, who were living in Beverly Hills.
Shatner was 90 years old at the time of the flight, making him the oldest person to go into space
Prior to his rocket launch, Shatner played a space traveler for years as Admiral James T. Kirk on the Star Trek franchise
‘The only thing that ever occurred to me was, “I can always go back to Toronto and make something of a living as an actor there.” I never thought, “Oh, I’ve got to become a salesman.” It never occurred to me from the age of 6 to do anything else.
In 1982, Shatner joined the cast of T.J. Hooker – another iconic series, and one in which he starred in for it’s four year run.
‘It was a terrific show. It had all kinds of drama. I got to direct several of the episodes. And some of my shots are in the opening. I was totally involved, committed to the writing, committed to the directing. You’re running all the time. You’ve got to make decisions and you don’t have enough money.’
His incredible career does not come without disappointments – notably, the 1989 film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which Shatner starred in and directed.
The show featured a groundbreaking interracial kiss between Shatner and his co-star Nichelle Nichols
Pictured with co-star Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock
Shatner called his inability to be emotionally ‘equipped’ enough to handle the film his biggest regret.
‘I wish that I’d had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, “Star Trek goes in search of God,” and management said, “Well, who’s God? We’ll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can’t do God.”
‘And then somebody said, “What about an alien who thinks they’re God?” Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I’m asked, “What do you regret the most?,” I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn’t make the decisions I would’ve made.’
Shatner took complete responsibility for the failure of the film.
‘It is on me. [In the finale,] I wanted granite [rock creatures] to explode out of the mountain. The special effects guy said, “I can build you a suit that’s on fire and smoke comes out.” I said, “Great, how much will that cost?” They said, “$250,000 a suit.” Can you make 10 suits?
‘He said, “Yeah.” That’s $2.5 million. You’ve got a $30 million budget. You sure you want to spend [it on that]? Those are the practical decisions. Well, wait a minute, what about one suit? And I’ll photograph it everywhere [to look like 10].’
In an editor’s note, THR writes: ‘The plan to use one suit famously did not work well onscreen and was ultimately abandoned.’