Shatner Boldly Goes Where No Talk Show Host Has Gone Before

William Shatner has been friends with Leonard Nimoy for 40 years. After all that time, what could he possibly not know about his Star Trek costar?

Well, his old buddy told him a story about the grandfather who validated his decision to go into acting. And how when Nimoy returned home for visits, the grandfather — a leather maker — said he could tell how successful Nimoy had been, or not been, by the condition of his leather shoes.

It’s that kind of revealing story the host delights in hearing on the set of Shatner’s Raw Nerve, a talk show that features him getting his celebrity guests to open up in a way not possible during a regular press junket.

Along with Nimoy, the guest list for the half-hour chats includes Tim Allen, Drew Carey, Jimmy Kimmel, Howie Mandel, Judge Judy, Valerie Bertinelli, Kelsey Grammer, Jenna Jameson and Jon Voight. The series airs Tuesdays beginning Dec. 2 on Bio Channel.

Shatner shared with us how he goes about interviewing someone, a little bit about the fate of Denny Crane, and what it’s like watching Star Trek move on without him.

What made you want to get into the talk show game?

William Shatner: It seemed like a good idea, and then it turned out to be a better idea. I love talking to people and finding out about people; that’s always been sort of an enjoyable thing. I’ve done a lot of interviews for books and things like that — I’ve interviewed people for books, and enjoyed that meandering conversational pathway. So when I was asked to do it I thought it’d be a good idea. And then it turned out to be a happier circumstance than even I could have imagined because I found myself talking to people that were able to reveal themselves in a non-pressured situation — like right now for example interviewing you, you interviewing me and wanting to come up with something succinct, and having the right anecdote, but I’m not asking for any of that. I just want to have a conversation and let the conversation flow where it will. I want to come up with something that eventually is meaningful to the person I’m interviewing and to me the listener, but I don’t know what that is [ahead of time]. And I don’t have any preconceived plan. Just let the conversation take its natural form, which is quite different from any other kind of interviews, including those pressurized interviews on the air when you’re almost obligated to come up with something terrifically entertaining, and a couple of laughs, an ooh and an ahh and you’re off.

So no blue cards sitting in front of you during the chat?

Exactly. No countdown, where you see the host’s eyebrows getting twitchy as you’re launching into a story and you know you’ve got about twenty seconds and they’re wondering whether you’re going to finish it.

Is it similar to “Mind Meld,” the movie you did where you and Leonard Nimoy engage in a long-form, casual interview?

It’s exactly like that. That’s a perfect example. In fact, I think that’s probably what sold A&E on asking me to do a show like this.

The “Raw Nerve” part in the title implies that there’s going to be some sensitive stuff that maybe gets under people’s skins. What kind of stuff are you going for, exactly?

Not to where it is tabloid sensitive, but in-their-lifetime sensitive. Some incident, some experience that they had that might be meaningful to me, the person listening, but is part of their life that they may not have spoken about. For example, talking about Leonard Nimoy, I interviewed him again for this, and he told me the story of when he had decided to be an actor. His parents were really against it, but his grandfather, his father’s father, who was living in the small house that they were living in, he gave Leonard permission, his blessing, to go seek his destiny. Every time Leonard came back to the house for a visit, his grandfather would talk to him, of course, but eventually, his hands would run down to Leonard’s shoes because the grandfather was a leather worker, and made his living making various things in leather, including shoes, and could tell Leonard’s situation, whether he was doing well financially and even emotionally by the condition of his shoes, and it was so revealing and so moving. It exemplified what I’d like to do with every subject that I get to speak to.

And you’d known him how many years, and you’d never heard that story?

I’ve known him 40 years, and he said as he was leaving that nobody had ever asked about that story. In an opposite vein, [there was] Jenna Jameson talking about her childhood and a moment in her life when some criminals … her father was a policeman, and these guys were after him for revenge, and she and her brother and her father lived in a mobile home and they opened fire, and it was a shootout while the kids were in the home. And she remembers to this day and described in detail, because that’s another thing I try and get them to do, to remember exactly, not to gloss over — “and then there was some shooting.” What was that? Where did they come from? What were the flashes like? Where was your dad at the time? What did you and your brother do? Did you suck your thumb? Were you lying flat? Try to describe in fine detail what that was like.

Is that just a matter of asking more questions or just letting them talk?

Well, it’s both. And I don’t know whether I have a technique other than to listen carefully and try and place myself inside their head, and if they glossed over something that I wasn’t getting, I’d go back and get it and maybe open another door.

You’ve known some of these guests a long time, but are there some you’re meeting for the first time on the show?

That’s exactly it. That’s my original point, which was it’s turned out to be better. Over the years there were people I really wanted to speak to among actors, for example. I always wanted to meet Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier, to name two, and just recently Paul Newman. I would have loved to have taken them to dinner and gotten them to talk about themselves, although that’s very difficult with an experienced actor who has to speak about themselves so often — they are reluctant to go there again. That’s one of the problems we all face, and I understand that perfectly, but I would have loved to, in an unguarded moment, spoken to those three men, and I never did. But all of a sudden I have an opportunity here for somebody like Tom Hanks, who is an acquaintance of mine, who I’ve talked to about coming on the show. He said he’ll come when he has something to promote, like in the spring when he’ll have a movie to promote, and I don’t want the subjects to promote things. We’ll do the promotion for them, both before and after. I don’t want them to feel any anxiety, or any pressure to have to bring up the movie [they’re] promoting. We’ll say the movie is being released on such and such date. But I’ve always wanted to speak to Tom in this manner to get an in-depth conversation going where he drops his guard for that moment and reveals a little of himself and maybe I can get him to do that.

Does this desire to go deeper come from a career of being interviewed and not being happy with the process?

It’s a career of being interviewed, but it’s also a career of interviewing. For several books that I’ve written I’ve had to do interviews and get to some subject matter that I needed to curry. I needed to plow and see what lay beneath the surface, and if you do it to abruptly, without finesse, people can clam up as I’m sure you only too well know. So you have to be careful how you conduct a conversation. There are elements of making love there, where it’s gentle and it’s caring and feeling the other person’s thoughts and emotions.

When people talk about the Golden Age of Television, they talk about late-night talk shows where the function wasn’t exclusively to promote a project, but instead to just have regular conversations, perhaps about society or literature. Is that your inspiration?

Even then, I’m trying to think of what I did, because it’s way in the past … Tom Snyder. I did his show. He was acerbic and he asked probing questions, and if you went with it that was one thing, but the subject has to have great confidence that whatever he says is going to be all right, and the interviewer has to be careful as well. Whereas in the format that we’re doing, we’ll film for an hour with just me and that person, and I’ve got the chairs set up so that we’re side by side. It’s like a loveseat, like I’m looking at them directly just an elbow-length away. I’m almost violating their personal space but not quite. But I’m in an intimate proximity. I did want that sofa that was obviously made for that purpose, where each person sits at one end but you’re looking at each other. So we’re turned toward each other with nothing in between us — no desk, no table or anything like that. Our elbows are almost touching. I’m able to look into their eyes and they into mine and they will see my earnest desire to hear what they have to say.

Is it tough to book guests when they hear they’re going to have to go beyond the standard interview?

I think it must be. Up to now, people have come on because I’ve had some sort of association [with them], whether it was peripheral or deeper. But once the show is on the air it would be my expectation that people would see I’m not after anything sensational but emotional, and that they would come on and have an interesting time with me.

With “Boston Legal” winding down, is “Raw Nerve” something you’re eyeing for your next long-term gig?

Well, it doesn’t take that much time, so I can do an order of 13 [episodes], if we can book them, in a couple of weeks. So I’m not looking to this to be the next thing I do. I don’t know what the next thing is right now. It’ll make itself known soon.

You wrote in “Star Trek Movie Memories” that one of the things you find most difficult to deal with is forced free time. Is that why you stay so busy?

It’s a dichotomy. I want to have the free time. I’ve got this wonderful family, a great place, the most wonderful wife, and I’m desirous of spending more time with everybody and taking them on some trips and stuff like that. Yet at the same time, I love the challenge of performing or directing or writing or whatever it is that I’m doing. I love the challenge of finding those entertainment qualities that I’m looking for. So it’s a dichotomy which everybody lives with.

How are you dealing with the end of “Boston Legal”?

It’s tough. I’m sitting here in my dressing room talking to you. I’m surrounded by scripts and things I have to learn, and magazines I need to read, today’s newspaper, and I’ve got … all the work things I have, but I’m in effect in a monastic cave, with the exception of this phone, I’m not bothered. But I come in early, I sometimes come in an hour, hour and a half early, no matter what my call is and work here on one thing or another because of the quietude and the isolation and the focus. I’m here. There’s nothing extraneous here. There’s no dog, there’s no child, there’s no telephone if I take it off. It’s just this. On the other hand, I had to drive here through rush-hour traffic, which sometimes can take an hour. Therein is the dichotomy in a nutshell. So I’m beginning already to grieve the loss of friends and acquaintances on the show [and] the solitude that this invokes and the concentration on the performing of an interesting character that’s almost always well-written. [It will be difficult] to go, after four and a half years, into the open market again.

Is Denny Crane going to go out in a blaze of glory?

(Pauses) Yes. And that’s all I can say.

OK, one “Star Trek” question. For the last 40 years you’ve been asked about your association with “Star Trek,” but now you’re being asked more about not being in “Star Trek.” Has that been an adjustment?

I’ve been playing it up a little on the website. J.J. Abrams apparently said the other day, because I’ve been joshing him about supposed cameo [in the upcoming feature film] and all this, and he apparently said, “I don’t know when my life became answering Shatner on the website.” It’s true, why am I not in Star Trek, and the truth is, I don’t really know.

Aside from the movies, you’re involved in other “Trek” properties, mainly novels. Will that relationship continue?

Not at the moment. I think everyone is going to wait and see what happens with the movie. We’ll see if the franchise is alive and well.