One Star Trek Actor Still Regrets One Of His Most Famous Line Readings

18.03.2024 - 14:59 / gamerant.com / Katarina Trajkovic

William Shatner, StarTrek's legendary Captain Kirk, has recently shared his perspective on the iconic final scene of his memorable role. Decades after its original airing, the actor confesses that he would approach the scene differently if given the chance.

Now at the age of 93, Shatner is the central figure in the forthcoming documentary William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill, which serves as a retrospective of his illustrious 70-year career. Within this documentary, Shatner delves into his experiences on the set of Star Trek, a period of immense significance in his professional journey. Reflecting on this pivotal time, Shatner candidly expresses a wish to revisit and potentially revise a specific scene from the series, highlighting his dedication to his craft and his continual pursuit of perfection.

In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant during the documentary's promotional tour, William Shatner discussed the iconic scene of Kirk's final words «Oh my» from Star Trek Generations. He candidly admitted, «I never quite hit it,» expressing a desire to redo the scene. Shatner elaborated on his vision of Kirk as a character defined by curiosity and courage, acknowledging that his portrayal at that moment did not align with his initial intentions and was not his best performance.

Shatner elaborated on his approach:

The thing an actor can bring to a written word is the interpretation of how to say it. I love you. I love you. I love you. Variations on the words. So if the writer has written I love you, and the actor gets a hold of it and does something totally unthought of, that's a big deal. The director either gets upset or goes with it. In this case, I thought of Kirk as being so courageous in life that when he faced things that he didn't know about, like the strange, the weird… the entities that the writers thought up, when he faced death, he would face death with a sense of adventure. 'Oh, what's going to happen now?' So I ad libbed, Oh my.' And I wanted that 'Oh my' to be 'Oh my,' like, dreading it but, but looking forward to the adventure — somewhere in between, you know, and it would be very obvious to you what he was thinking. And I never quite hit it. I never quite got that nuance that I was looking for. I had another couple of takes, but they didn't understand what I was doing.«He further explained: „Every time he faced an animal, an entity, he didn't say, 'Oh my' [with fear or disdain], he would say, 'Oh, my look at that. I wonder if it's going to eat me?' You know? I think that was his attitude.

Shatner emphasized Kirk's defining traits of courage, curiosity, and adventure. He envisioned Kirk as someone who approached the unknown with a mix of both fear and excitement, embracing life's mysteries.