The Captains Page #3

- a very, very young age,

- How young?

Well, I was singing... I had

a band in the fourth grade,

- I sang with the symphony...

- fourth grade, you did...

- Ten, 1 1 years old?

- Nine, ten, 1 1 , yeah,

And you sang with the symphony?

I sang in a children's choir

in the fifth grade,

- Oh, in a choir,

- And then I sang...

the big thing that started me

was, there's an operetta called

''Amahl and the Night Visitors,''

Yeah,

It's Menotti, and I played

Amahl when I was 1 3,

And I started...

and I... then the acting,

the musical theater kinda came

out of that,

All day long

I'd biddy, biddy bum

Biddy, biddy, biddy

biddy bum

- Yeah, you got it,

- ? ?

Wouldn't

have to work hard

Ya, da, da, da, da, da, da

da, da, da...

I love it!

My parents

were making a living,

Nobody suffered but nobody

had any excess,

I played in

little kids plays,

in parks, and then I got onto

Canadian Broadcasting

Corporation, CBC Radio,

for radio drama,

fairy tales,

and I played Prince Charming,

''Princess,

are you all right?''

- The hushed voice,

- Yes,

''I'm here,''

And then I went on for radio,

more mature radio,

and college plays

and stuff like that,

and so it just evolved

to the chagrin...

Worse than that,

the astonishment of my father,

who really didn't

want me to do this,

He called it hanging...

''Hangers-on,''

You're gonna

become a hanger-on,

You understand that, Bill?

You can't make

a living,

Well, my dad was no psychic,

I started out in Canadian radio

in my late teens,

and before you know it,

I appeared in my first feature,

''Butler's Night Off,''

The '50s became a time of

great opportunity for me

as I did a variety of radio,

theater and live television

productions on the CBC,

Those early days of

live TV have proven valuable,

setting the stage for what

would prove to be

the beginnings

of my life's journey,

William Shatner,

as I live and breathe,

How are you?

I'm very well,

how are you?

Okay, sit down,

Just another day,

sitting on the sidewalk,

- At the office,

- Yeah, sure,

Look at you,

You're me 50 years ago,

You don't

Iook too bad,

Well...

I'm 50 years older,

I wonder

how much I've lost,

You wanna go?

Come on,

Iet me... let me see,

You sure about this?

I... I couldn't be more sure

about anything,

Give me that hand,

Let me feel

a 30-year-old hand,

- Let's rumble,

- Hey, wait a minute,

Let's party,

You already know

what to do, right?

''Over the Top,'' baby,

- Stallone,

- Give me this hand here,

I know, I know, come on,

Iet's party,

Ready?

- One...

- Two, three, go,

Come on, give me...

Hey, wait!

Hey!

Was that a breeze?

Hey, wait a sec, wait!

You did the whole

thumb thing,

- I want another shot,

- Sure,

All right,

You did the thumb thing,

Wrap around... you see that...

yeah, there you go,

Ahh, see that?

- All right,

- Wow,

That's two...

- Best out of...

- Best out of three, why not?

- Best out of three,

- Yeah, sure,

All right, you ready?

Captain Kirk, huh?

- Captain Kirk,

- Captain Kirk,

Captain Kirk,

All right,

one, two, three, go,

Here it goes,

you're going now,

You're going,

Unbelievable,

I can't believe

how strong he is,

Hey, you guys gotta

get out of here,

Move along,

get out of here,

Get out of here, man,

- Well...

- I can't believe it,

Chris Pines is the latest actor

to captain the Enterprise,

and his character is

James T, Kirk, as was mine,

It all becomes clear,

Chris is extremely talented,

and like the rest of us,

thrives on the stage,

We speak to him at

what promises to be

at the beginning of a long

and successful career,

I watched that today,

''Train , ''

what was it called?

''Unstoppable, ''

- I watched ''Unstoppable,''

- Yeah,

And not only did I see

a really entertaining film,

but I saw a great

young actor,

What's his name?

You're wonderful,

- Oh, thank you,

- You've got the whole thing,

You got the looks and you got

the attitude

and everything,

it's really great,

And I saw you doing

some gags,

Uh-huh,

How much of that did you

do on the thing?

I did a lot of it,

Y'know, I don't...

I don't have

any kind of death wish

but I definitely do get

competitive,

Did you feel a sense of risk

at any time you

were doing the stunts?

Interestingly enough,

not really,

I think I was...

first of all,

we had a great stunt team,

I felt very secure

with that,

It's interest...

I think you get into

such a zone

when it is that

kind of high-risk

that your focus is so placed on

the stunt itself

that you don't

have time to be scared,

I...

But it's not Tom Cruise

kinda stuff...

I... I did a cheap

version of what you did

and I had to get up on top of

a train,

I said to

the guy, the director,

''How are you gonna do this?''

He says, ''I don't know,

maybe in a green screen,''

I said, ''What... if I got on top

of the train

''and you went

ten miles an hour,

could you speed it?''

''Aw, yeah,

Iet's just do that,''

Ten miles an hour...

what'd it look like?

It looked like ten miles

an hour,

So we gradually upped the speed

to 40 miles an hour,

- Oh, God,

- I'm on the top of the train,

- Were you scared?

- Out of my mind,

I met your dad,

worked with your dad,

He's a wonderful actor, he's

been an actor all his life,

I mean, you're like, what,

second generation?

- Or is there more?

- I am a third generation,

My grand...

Well, in fact,

I just found this out recently,

my great-great-uncle

was an actor,

so it actually started

way, way, way, way back,

Isn't that amazing?

So the idea of choosing to be an

actor was not foreign at all,

In fact, it might

have been inculcated,

In a way, yeah,

I often say it's like, I know

that my friends' parents

were doctors

or lawyers, let's say,

when they, you know, around

the dinner table,

you would talk about your day

and your day

would consist of cases

or the paperwork you had,

Around my table, it was

inevitably about

the day spent at work,

and the work would be...

would be ''Quantum Leap''

or it would be ''Magnum, P,I,''

So around your dinner table,

it was show business,

Yeah, pretty much, yeah,

And was young Chris

intrigued, or...

You know, I wasn't,

I wanted to be

everything but,

I wanted to be...

You know, I saw ''Top Gun,''

and I wanted to be

a fighter pilot,

How far did that go?

That went about three days,

I have my...

I have a bad case of ADD,

You know, I think, in fact,

having grown up

so close to it,

maybe my reaction

and my experience

with it was different,

instead of wanting to do it from

an early age, I just...

It was what my dad did,

it was what my mom did

and I met some cool people

and got to do some fun things

because of it,

but, you know, I wanted

to be a baseball player,

- I wanted everything...

- Were you good?

I was... I was...

I was, uh...

I was mediocre,

I think when I was young

I was pretty good,

and then once I hit 13,

it was... I realized it

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