William Shatner spent his life “going boldly” where perhaps no man, but few, have gone before.
The phrase “to go boldly where no man has gone before” – was of course popularized in the original version. Star Trek series, which debuted in 1966 and starred Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, the principled shepherd of the starship Enterprise. Shatner narrated the famous line over the opening credits of each episode, indelibly linking his voice not only to pop culture iconography, but also to an ethos that has inspired generations of fans.
A new documentary, William Shatner: You can call me Billwhich is now in theaters, traces Shatner's career and the philosophies he developed about life and the world during his 93 years on Earth – and a short time in a spaceship above. In the film, we learn that this phrase also gave him marching orders as he went through the triumphs and tragedies of his life. It served him well over a seven-decade career, including studio films of the 1950s and '60s, recovering from unemployment after starring in Star Trek, and rebranding himself as one of Hollywood's most self-aware and self-effacing celebrities, always on the joke of what it means to be William Shatner. (There's a reason so many of us book trips through Priceline.com.)
You can call me Bill presents Shatner recalling this experience where, truly, few men have gone: his 2021 space flight where, at age 90, he became oldest human fly in space. Shatner's sense of wonder mixes with melancholy as he reflects on this film feat, in which he is surprisingly and deeply candid about his mixed feelings about a life well-lived and his inevitable next daring adventure : death, and what it could mean. .
William Shatner, circa 1988
John Downing/Getty
“I’m 93, so there’s a stretch there,” Shatner told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed in a Zoom interview about You can call me Bill. He recounted a scene from a movie he had watched recently. He couldn't remember the title, but he remembered the sequence: a car speeding down a Florida causeway that connects the southern islands. A plane had blown up part of the road miles in front of the car. “The car is speeding towards the hole in the road. We know they're going to go there, unless they see it. And they won't see it.
“That’s what I think about in my life,” he added, looking melancholy. “There's a hole in my pavement, and I don't know when it's going to hit, but I don't have that long yet.”
A nonagenarian with a prodigious career and pop culture legacy, this is obviously not the first time Shatner has been approached to participate in a documentary about his life. He always refused offers. “It seems so final,” he said. “It seems like you make it, and then you die.”
William Shatner in Star Trek
Silver Screen Collection/Getty
The difference this time was in the way the film was made. Production company Legion M financed much of the documentary through crowdfunding, allowing fans to receive a percentage of the profits generated by the film. “I’ve never financed anything,” Shatner said. “It looked like begging.” But he found something innovative and intimate in the fact that it is a project shared with the fans, those who have invested in his career and to whom he can now return that investment by giving them access to his story and his beliefs through his interviews in the film.
There was another compelling factor: “This documentary is my love letter to my family,” he said. If he ever considered doing a project like this, he didn't want it to be one of those superficial pop documentaries where the subject keeps any deep or dark anecdotes or thoughts at bay. “I wanted to be honest with them about how I felt about what I had done and answer the questions in my soul. I'm not sure other people who do this have this attitude. It came from deep within me. It's kind of like I'm naked in a way, but I thought that was the best way to go about it.
William Shatner and Sandra Bullock in Miss Conviviality
Warner Brothers/Getty
SO You can call me Bill Shatner doesn't just wax poetic about an overview of his IMDb page. In the first moments, he marvels at the “preciousness” of a world that has evolved over billions of years, then denounces its “extinction” which is occurring “by humanity’s own hands.” He speaks almost immediately of death: “The occasion of your death is meaningless. You are one of the billions and billions who have lived and died on earth. And, what is perhaps most interesting for Star Trek passionate, we quickly learn his thoughts on whether we are alone in this universe: “Our ignorance is so deep. And the more we know, the more we realize how stupid and selfish human beings are and think we are the only ones. »
It's not that the documentary avoids the biography, the stories of how he was chosen for Star Trek, or how he feels about people imitating his voice: “People are supposed to imitate me… I can't hear it. ” (He still has a sense of humor about it, though.) But these are plot details, bullet points on which he colors his most intense thoughts about mortality – reflections that are almost brutal in their frankness, but also refreshingly wise in their honesty. about what it means to have lived a life.
William Shatner, circa 1975
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
“If we consider that we are born alone, we all die alone.” Shatner told Obsessed. “Do we ever find a life partner so close and meaningful that you are not alone? Or is our condition to be alone and endure it, because that is part of the pain of life? There are pleasures that abound: good food, good company, good work. I mean, there's so much joy waiting for us. Can we mix the two and participate in all of this? Can we participate in the sadness and loneliness we all feel and still experience the magic of life?
We look at each other quietly for a moment – stunned silence on my part, and him understanding that questions like these require time to mull over. After a few seconds, he looks out the bright window over his left shoulder and looks back at the camera, smiling.
“I’m looking out the window right now as I talk to you,” he said. “I see green trees. I see a city. I see mountains. I see the sky with the birds, the Earth pulsing with life and waiting to be discovered. What makes me so sad, what came to mind when I got off the spaceship I left on, is this absolute realization. I knew this, but it was dramatically shown to me when I looked at the planet (from space): how closely everything is connected.
Audrey Powers, Blue Origin vice president of missions and flight operations, William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of Medidata Solutions, salute on the landing pad of the Blue Origin's New Shepard after their flight into space on October 13. 202.
Mario Tama/Getty
So what does “depart boldly” mean now? What does this mean to someone who has been saying this for more than half their life – someone who has legitimately been where none of us would ever dream of going? As Shatner faces the final stretch of the causeway, does this mean anything new?
“It has always been my intention to approach life boldly as best I can,” he said.
There are so many people “that you and I know,” he said, who face disappointment, tragedy or heartbreak and wallow in negativity, stalling their lives. “It’s so easy to hide in bed and not participate in life.”
Such a waste.
“I don’t think you’re coming back,” he said. “I don’t think there is life after death. I think that's it. This is the journey you take. It is the sadness, the joy, the ecstasy, the love that you feel in this one participation in life. We must therefore take the bad with the good. Let evil invade you. And I say that in theory, because often, in bad times, it's horrible. It's difficult to do. But if you keep that in mind, I will; I will participate in life and not hide; I will boldly go into that hurt locker again – it’s the only way to do it. The only way to live.
