Shatner has galaxy of energy

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This article was published 29/10/2016 (3552 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The guest of honour at the Central Canada Comic Con took to the stage at the presentation theatre at the RBC Convention Centre shortly after 6 p.m. Friday night to demonstrate what any Star Trek fan knows to be absolute gospel.

Captain Kirk dies hard.

Actor William Shatner is 85 years old, but he took to the stage with the vigour of a young Klingon warrior. Between autograph sessions on the third floor on the convention centre (in which fans were charged $80 for autographs and photo ops) Shatner came to riff on multiple topics: tinnitus, climate change, skiing and science vs. science fiction. He even indulged in some comic repartee with the man who was translating his talk into American sign language. This is a guy very much engaged in the world right now.

And yet the overall theme of his freewheeling talk was one of nostalgia. When he came into town Friday afternoon, he said, parts of the older sections of Winnipeg — “the red brick buildings,” reminded him of the Montreal of his youth.

“You go from city to city in Canada, and there are parts of the city that look exactly alike,” he said. “I look at some of these brick apartment buildings and (I feel) I was born among them.”

Shatner, who clearly has the work ethic of a sled dog, discussed hosting a Canadian documentary series in which he interviewed scientists and astrophysicists, which put him in the same room as Stephen Hawking, the physically paralyzed astrophysicist who painstakingly used a computer translation device to ask Shatner the piercing question: “What… are… your favourite episodes?”

On the subject of the landmark science fiction franchise that jump-started his career, Shatner marvelled.

“This is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek,” he said to cheers from approximately 300 people in attendance. “It’s incredible. How can that be possible when I’m not even 50 years (old) yet?”

During the question-and-answer section of the event, a fan asked Shatner how his relationship with Star Trek had changed in the 50 years since NBC broadcast the original series. That got him on the topic of Leonard Nimoy, who died in February. Shatner wasn’t maudlin, but he recalled Nimoy fondly.

“He was a brother,” Shatner said, explaining the anxieties of a career in show business can occasionally create strong bonds.

“We were fighting this war together,” he said. “That anxiety, it bonds you.”

After the original series of Star Trek was cancelled, that should have meant the cast members would go their separate ways.

“But in Leonard’s case, we were thrown into each other’s company for a variety of reasons. We started making the movies, we started making appearances onstage,” he said.

“We began to understand how much we had in common with our families and our whole lives,” he said. “So we had this great thing going, this great friendship.

“But mainly, we made each other laugh.”

Shatner will be at the convention signing autographs until 3 p.m. today.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing