Canadian actor and OG Captain Kirk, William Shatner, has revealed a surprising truth about his TV legacy — the 90-year-old has never actually watched Star Trek.
Speaking with People about his latest project — a new film titled Senior Moment in which he stars as a retired NASA test pilot alongside Christopher Lloyd, who plays his buddy Sal — Shatner explained that watching himself portray James T. Kirk on screen is too "painful." He did admit to watching the 1989 Trek film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but only because he directed it.
"There are many episodes I don't know, there are some movies I don't know," he revealed. "I directed one of the movies — No. 5 — I had to watch that one. But it's all painful because I don't like the way I look and what I do."
Shatner didn't clarify if he'd ever bothered to tune in to any other Gene Roddenberry-created spinoffs — namely The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine or the more recent Picard — in which he doesn't appear in any major recurring roles, so we'll just hope that he isn't depriving himself of excellent sci-fi content based solely on some enduring sense of personal shame.
Thankfully for Trekkies, Shatner's image as the original series' captain lives on despite the actor's own distaste for his work.
Speaking with People about his latest project — a new film titled Senior Moment in which he stars as a retired NASA test pilot alongside Christopher Lloyd, who plays his buddy Sal — Shatner explained that watching himself portray James T. Kirk on screen is too "painful." He did admit to watching the 1989 Trek film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but only because he directed it.
"There are many episodes I don't know, there are some movies I don't know," he revealed. "I directed one of the movies — No. 5 — I had to watch that one. But it's all painful because I don't like the way I look and what I do."
Shatner didn't clarify if he'd ever bothered to tune in to any other Gene Roddenberry-created spinoffs — namely The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine or the more recent Picard — in which he doesn't appear in any major recurring roles, so we'll just hope that he isn't depriving himself of excellent sci-fi content based solely on some enduring sense of personal shame.
Thankfully for Trekkies, Shatner's image as the original series' captain lives on despite the actor's own distaste for his work.