The Captains

- SPREAD THE WORD -

My name is William Shatner

and I was a starship captain,

but I wasn't the only one,

So were Patrick Stewart,

Avery Brooks,

Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula,

and most recently,

Chris Pine,

That's a lot of captains,

In fact, that's a lot of

''Star Trek,''

Lasers, fire, point blank!

The original series,

despite being canceled after

only three seasons in 1969,

spawned perhaps

the most durable

and profitable franchise in

the history of entertainment,

At the center of each

incarnation of ''Star Trek''

is what has become the truly

iconic character...

the captain,

Engage!

These dynamic and unique actors

have inhabited this role,

each bringing their own

interpretation and personality,

Warp six,

Engage,

The captains,

Who are they?

What were they before

they got the role,

why did they get the role,

what have they done afterwards?

It's a journey of discovery...

by me, you,

and, ultimately, them,

Woo!

Wow!

Hey!

- Spock!

- How are you?

Spock?

I'm not Spock,

That guy called me Spock,

Oh!

We began our voyage,

taking the jet to Toronto

to pick up our

Canadian crew,

Woo!

And surprise,

The president of biz

for Bombardier,

Steve Ridolfi,

met the plane to

say hello to me,

and what do you know?

He tells me he got into

the airplane business

because of ''Star Trek,''

He became an aeronautical

engineer because of me,

I still remember my

first ''Star Trek'' episode

on a little black-and-white

television, 'cause that's

- all we had in those days,

- Right,

Wow,

I had to think about that,

As we flew across the ocean

and as I prepared to

meet the actors...

I had a lot of

unanswered questions,

Not only for them...

but for myself,

Oh, my God,

Patrick, what are you

doing here?

Bill, you called me,

I'm waiting for you,

You said you had something

you wanted to say to me,

I do,

- Hello,

- Hi,

Patrick Stewart,

or as he is now known,

Sir Patrick Stewart,

was Captain Jean-Luc Picard of

''Star Trek:

The Next Generation,''

A superb classical actor,

Patrick is a member of

the Royal Shakespeare Company

and brought a tremendous

dignity to the role,

Being born at

the beginning of the war,

I suppose I was used to

the idea of war

and if something has

always been that particular way,

it doesn't seem extraordinary,

So We Were Very poor,

we didn't have much...

We had nothing, really,

Ieftover

at the end of the week...

but it didn't...

create problems for me

because all my

friends were the same,

There was... there was nothing

you could compare your life to,

so there was no sense of...

being excluded in society

or being without,

because that

was how it was,

and everybody was the same,

I remember a play I did

in a camp that

my mother's sister ran

about something about

the Holocaust,

- Really?

- Yeah,

- And I played this boy...

- How old were you?

Uh, six, five, six,

And one of the kids

played a dog,

and I was saying

goodbye to my dog,

'cause the Germans were

taking me,

that was the... that was

the little drama that we were,

When the play was over,

I looked out there

and the audience was crying

because the subject matter was

so embedded in the people,

And so I took my bow

and my father came

and held me and praised me,

and I'm convinced that

that was the moment

that I thought,

hey, this is fantastic,

This has got me places with my

father and the audience

that I've never dreamt of

and I'm convinced

that that's what...

that's what started me on

my acting thing,

What about you?

I was 12 when I was first put

into a play with adults and...

Well, how did that happen?

I mean, why would they put you

in a play with adults?

I had an English teacher,

He was the man who first put a

copy of Shakespeare into my hand

and said, ''Read it out loud,

this is...''

Why would he do that?

He was an English teacher

who loved drama,

and he was

an actor and director...

amateur actor and director,

and he wanted...

I went to a...

It was not an academic school,

but he wanted us to have some

experience of our dramatists,

and so he would give us...

The first play was

''The Merchant of Venice,''

And he gave me Shylock

to read,

I don't know why,

Patrick, let's examine

that a second,

He must have seen

something, something you did,

Let's pause a moment, maybe you

won't remember what it is,

but maybe if we

Iook at it more carefully,

something will suggest itself

that you haven't

thought of in a while,

You see, here's the other

strange thing,

I never had any

difficulty with Shakespeare,

It never seemed alien

or strange,

I mean, this was

a 400-year-old text,

I found I enjoyed

the Shakespeare,

In those days, there was a lot

of Shakespeare on the radio

and our leading actors

would be playing the parts...

John Gielgud, Alec Guiness,

- I listened to them,

- Yes,

- And I copied what I heard,

- Yes,

And just, the mere

act of copying...

- Even at 12?

- Yeah,

Wow,

You don't have

the emotional experience,

but there is something

in the brain

and in the body that can

make that child connect

to the instrument,

to the bow,

- or to the text on the page...

- The word,

intuitively,

You know, the valley

in the back, as we see it,

that's the beauty

of the thing,

That's how

I see the world,

- As a road to somewhere,

- Like a road to...

Yeah,

Yeah, but where

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