By Steve Krutzler / 00:00, 23 October 2003 / People

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Leonard Nimoy recently traveled to Brazil where Trek Brasilis and science writer Salvador Nogueira interviewed the legendary 'Spock' actor. We're happy to bring you this exclusive English version of the interview, a special to TrekWeb.

By Salvador Nogueira

The man doesn't require further introduction. For the first time for a convention in Brazil, Leonard Nimoy, 72, was surrounded by a literal blockade done by the Paramount public relations department in Brazil, and only conceded two interviews before arriving, last Wednesday.

One was for "Veja," the largest weekly magazine in Brazil, with 1,000,000 copies each week. The other was for me. See what Nimoy has to say about Kirk's death, Rick Berman, cast conflicts and his career as actor, director, producer, and photographer.

TB: So, first of all, what brings you to Brazil?

Nimoy: I've never been to Brazil before, it's about time, I think. There's a STAR TREK community in Brazil that I'd like to say hello to, to come and meet, and there are some new DVD releases of STAR TREK products, STAR TREK films, in Brazil, which I'm gonna be talking about as well.

TB: Why did you decide to turn to photography, after all this time?

Nimoy: Well, I've been on photography for many, many, many years, ever since I was 13 years old. It's not new, it's been a long term project for me.

TB: Concerning your book, "Shekhina", it did a lot a noise among jewish communities, showing female nudity with some religious symbols. Was that intended?

Nimoy: Oh, no, no (laughs). No, that was not my plan, I was simply following an artistic vision.

TB: But you probably predicted that could be some sort of...

Nimoy: Well, during the process of making the images, showing some of the work to various people, I began to get the sense that there would be some intense discussion about it.

TB: Do you have future plans for your photography projects?

Nimoy: Yes, I'm working on projects all the time, yes. We have a number of galleries in the United States that are showing the work, we have museums buying the work, the Jewish Museum in New York has just bought a piece out of the book, various other museums in the country are buying the work for their collections, and I'm working on other projects all the time.

TB: And do you feel the reception from the critics and the public has been positive?

Nimoy: Very well received, yes.

TB: Let me turn to STAR TREK and ask you, are your days as Spock over?

Nimoy: Are my day... oh yes, oh yes, yeah. You mean as a performer?

TB: Yeah.

Nimoy: Oh yeah, definetely, yeah.

TB: Wouldn't consider coming back if Paramount decides that Spock should have another take?

Nimoy: It's a hypothetical question, which makes it difficult to answer. I just think that it is terribly unlikely that I would be getting that phone call, so I don't spend my time thinking about it. They have not called me in something like 12 years, I don't think there's much chance that they will be calling me in the future.

TB: Did you expect something from the last movie, NEMESIS, which was set in Romulus and could have a connection with Spock?

Nimoy: I never heard anything from them about it.

TB: There's another franchise you were involved with, and that it's THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I heard from a friend you sang a song, called "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"...

Nimoy: Many, many years ago, yes. In the late sixties, early seventies, I was doing some recordings, and a producer sent me this song, called "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," which I thought it was very charming and I was very interested in the Hobbits stories, and I did make a recording of it, yes.

TB: Any chance for a re-release?

Nimoy: I have no idea where the original masters are, to tell you the truth. I am aware that as a resolve of the various Lord of the Rings movies, that some people have dug up copies of that song that I recorded and are playing it here and there, but I don't expect it to become a major factor. I'm not looking for a wave of Leonard Nimoy Hobbit songs all over the world. I don't think it's gonna happen (laughs).

TB: Talking a little bit about his whole surge of The Lord of the Rings, with the movies and all, how do you see the huge growth of the fantasy genre, compared to the steady decline of science fiction in recent years?

Nimoy: Well, I think it maybe healthy. Science fiction in recent years have become more about special effects and explosions, and the Hobbits stories have a core of humanity which I think it's very touching.

TB: Talking about this effect recent from science fiction, we can go back to STAR TREK. From the very beginnings, it was a show that cared a lot about making political and ethical statements through its stories.

Nimoy: Yeah.

TB: This was carried through the movies and, to some sort, to THE NEXT GENERATION, but the newer versions seem to get more bland in this aspect. How do you see the aging of STAR TREK and its metaphorical power in recent years?

Nimoy: It's a very good question. I can respond only in part, because I have not really paid a lot of attention to the kind of work that they've been doing in recent years. I'm not an authority on the total history and curve of STAR TREK, as a result. I can tell you that I do believe that in the earliest years, the three years we did the series and the first few films that we did, we were very concerned with social and political commentary, and I think that was a major part of the success of the work. I was very proud to be connected with STAR TREK, because of that content. I can't really say where it's gone in recent years, so it would be unfair for me comment, because I haven't seen an awful lot of work.

TB: You were invited to be the director of STAR TREK GENERATIONS but ultimately declined, because you were informed there wouldn't be time to fix the problems you saw in the script. What were those problems?

Nimoy: Ahhn, it's been a long time, I'm trying to remember. (pause) I just felt that the story did not really successfully come to grips with any major concern that interested me. It felt as a mechanical construction of a conflict with an individual, a particular individual whom I didn't care much about him, didn't really represent a meaningful force to me. I just didn't care about it. It wasn't something that touched me, or something that I felt was accessible for me.

TB: Had you been the director of GENERATIONS would Kirk had died?

Nimoy: Oh, another hypothetical question! (Laughs)

TB: Oh, yeah, I like hypothetical questions, you know...

Nimoy: (laughs) I don't know. I can say that I do remember that I thought that it was a rather unglorious death, frankly. It was a battle in the desert with some nasty guy, whom I didn't care much about, and there was not much at stake, except his life, which of course is important, but... when Spock died in STAR TREK II, he died saving the ship and the crew. In the case of Kirk fighting this unimportant character and dying, I thought it was rather unfortunate. I tell you this, hypothetically, if I had been the director, I would have tried very hard to make his death more meaningful, someway.

TB: think the major criticism concerning Kirk's death it was that it was meaningless.

Nimoy: Yeah.

TB: Did you and Rick Berman depart ways friendly, after you rejected the job in GENERATIONS?

Nimoy: Ahhhnahhnnahhnnn... we haven't had much contact since, that's the best way I can put it.

TB: But you were a bit hesitant in answering that...

Nimoy: You can write that "he answered hesitantly". (Laughs) You're absolutely right, I was hesitant, I'm trying to find a way to describe what happened and the simple truth is that we haven't had much contact.

TB: I see...

Nimoy: At the sime time, in fairness, STAR TREK was what we had in common. And since I no longer had any connection with STAR TREK, it's not surprising that I haven't had any connection, no contact with Rick Berman.

TB: Since then, there was no talk to bring Spock or you back for any project?

Nimoy: No. Not that I'm aware of.

TB: For STAR TREK VI, Harve Bennett wanted to recast some original series roles for a younger version of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The studio felt it wouldn't work out, and you came up with another story, concerning the Klingons and the end of the Neutral Zone. I was wondering, what did you think of the original Harve Bennett idea at the time, and what would you think right now if Paramount decides to recast the original series and produce another project in the way it was intended by Harve Bennett a few years back?

Nimoy: I thought that Harve had an interesting idea, but I never did read the script, so I can't really tell you what the potential was. He presented the script to the studio, I was not privy to it, and when the studio contacted me, they explained to me that they had read the script, they decided not to do that particular film, would I come up with an idea for another film. So then I did. So, my connection with Harve Bennett's script was only that I heard about it, and heard about its content, but never really actually read it, so I have no way to judge. It is an interesting idea, to do a prequel film, but so much depends on the execution.

TB: Bill Shatner said lately he pitched a new STAR TREK series to Paramount. Since you're a friend of him, do you know anything about it?

Nimoy: No, we have not discussed it.

TB: Would you work as a producer for STAR TREK, if asked by Paramount? Another hypothetical question...

Nimoy: (Laughs) I think my days being involved with making films and television shows are over. My life is much more important to me now, I'm no longer as compulsive or obsessed about career activity as I used to be. We have a very, very confortable life, my wife and I, we do a lot of traveling. My photography is a wonderful creative outlet for me, and particularly because it does not take me away from home for weeks and months at a time. I could do at my leasure, on my schedule. I doubt very much that there's anything in films and television that could draw me back to that kind of time commitment.

TB: Could you comment a little bit about the difference between directing movies with a cast that you knew for a long time, as when you directed STAR TREK III and IV, and working with a new cast you had no connections before, as in THREE MEN AND A BABY?

Nimoy: Well, obviously, there is a tremendous advantage in having and working with actors who know the characters so well. But I must say that, in THREE MEN AND A BABY the three major players, Ted Danson, and Steve Guttenberg and, and Tom Selleck, while new to their characters, at the same time were fabulously professional people who immediately grasped the nature of the piece, the nature of the characters and I think they played them brilliantly. They found their relationship successfully, they found their chemistry with each other successfully, and with the baby. It was a joy to make that film, because everything just thrown into place so naturally.

TB: But in general terms of directing, is it more difficult to get actors who never played those characters before?

Nimoy: Generally speaking, yeah. In a very general sense, the chances of difficulty are greater, because you're searching for characters. The most difficult thing for me was acting in a film that I was directing. That is really physically very difficult. And I have great admiration for people who have done it for many years, people like Clint Eastwood, who has done it many, many times. I have a lot of respect for what that entails. Tremendous amount of energy, and that goes to physical problems. For example, on the STAR TREK movies which I directed and acted in, my makeup would take two hours, and I had to be on the job, as a director, at seven o'clock in the morning, which meant that I had to be in the makeup chair at 5 o'clock in the morning, to start the makeup process, because the makeup had to be done before I could go to work. I found that by postponing so I can get it down later was impossible. It would add two hours to my workday, every day.

TB: Concerning the question of the transition, having been an actor with this groups of actors, and then you became a director. How that worked out?

Nimoy: Well, there was some tension to begin with, when I was given the job to direct STAR TREK III, my first directing job on STAR TREK. There was some tension. I think the other cast members were sort of curious, and wondering, and testing to find out whether this was gonna be a successful project, they wondered I perhaps didn't know what I was doing. But I think it all worked out very well. We discovered it was possible to do that, and it is possible to one of us to take on the directing job without being an authoritarian, and still maintaining relationships of friendships and working together successfully, artistically and creatively, I think it worked out very well.

TB: And how was that with William Shatner in STAR TREK V?

Nimoy: Same thing, same thing. I think it was pretty clear that Bill had a very strong vision of what he wanted to do, and everybody respected that. Bill is a very, very hard-working guy. I think that commands respect.

TB: Shatner wrote in his memory books that he discovered somewhat late that some of the actors from the original STAR TREK were not very happy with him. He said he didn't know about it when the actual production was going on. Did you notice anything of the sort, during the production, that some actors, like, say, Jimmy Doohan were not happy about Shatner, or something like that?

Nimoy: I think one of the funniest I heard of, that Bill told me that when he had this confrontation, finally, with Jimmy Doohan, when he had discovered that Jimmy was very angry with him, he confronted with Jimmy Doohan, and said, "Are you angry with me?", Jimmy Doohan said "Yes." "What is it that I did? What are you angry about? Can you tell me what it's about?" Jimmy Doohan said, "I've forgotten". (Laughs) I think that's a marvellous comment of the whole story.

TB: Indeed. How often do you see the people from the original cast?

Nimoy: I see Bill fairly regularly. He and I both traveled a lot in different directions, we try to get together with our wives for dinner whenever we possibly can, and that happens several times a year. And Bill has a charity horse show that he does, which I participated in a couple of months ago. We are friends. The others I see less frequently, but I feel very warmly towards them and I hope they each of me, we see each other occasionally at STAR TREK events.

TB: Concerning another of your projects, the ALIEN VOICES. What motivated the project originally? Is it still going on?

Nimoy: I love radio. I grew up on radio, listening to radio when I was a kid, listening to radio dramas. I have a great respect for the original classic science-fiction stories which were the basis for science-fiction literature. John de Lancie, who played Q in THE NEXT GENERATION show, that is a very talented man, came to me with this idea that we could record radio productions of these great classics. I was excited by the idea, we took the idea to the Simon & Schuster audio division, and they agreed to sponsor it. And we did a total of, I think, six productions. And is that still going on? No, we have done what we're set out to do.

TB: So there won't be another confrontation of Q and Spock?

Nimoy: Oh no, I don't think so. I think we did that quite successfully, we had a wonderful time doing it, we performed it several times at various STAR TREK events, and we recorded for Simon & Schuster and we're done with it.

TB: Was there any influence from the original broadcast of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" in 1938?

Nimoy: The first time that John de Lancie and I worked together, he was directing the production of "The War of the Worlds" and asked me to do the role that Orson Welles had originally done. This was for National Public Radio broadcast, and we did record that, and that was the beginning of our relationship.

TB: You like to do voice projects. You've done a lot for animated pictures, and so on. Is that part of what you most liked to do?

Nimoy: I enjoyed a lot, and one of the things that I enjoyed so much about it is that it does not involve long location stays, it does not involve a lot of heavy makeup applications, there's no concern about wardrobe, it's all in the imagination. And I enjoyed doing that kind of work.

TB: I guess nobody has a perfect answer for the question I wanna make, but for you what makes STAR TREK so special and durable over the years? Everyone has got a reason, what is yours?

Nimoy: Well, I think it's a combination of things. I think, as I mentioned before, there's a content, a subject that had a ressonance, that ressonated in our society, and in the societies around the world for that matter. The human content, the social commentary, and so forth. I also think the chemistry between the cast, between all of us as cast members were very successful, and I think he had a brand of humor that the audience enjoyed. Remember, it's a magic that happens or doesn't happen. It is not something that you can design scientifically.

TB: Talking about science and credibility, Spock may be remembered as one of the first, if not the first, credible alien characters on TV. But of course you didn't know it was going to work out from the beginning. Were you worried when Gene Roddenberry first approached you to do the character?

Nimoy: I was, I was worried about it. I had a fairly successful, very active acting career, and I was concerned that if the character was unsuccessful, it might be damaging in the career sense. At one point I actually considered the possibility of doing a makeup that was so desguising that when I came out of the job, people wouldn't identify me with that character, so that I wouldn't necessarily have any damaging career effect. But, although we know the story worked itself out, I was concerned, yes. But it worked out fine.

TB: What, at the time, made you think the audience perhaps would "buy" it and things would work out?

Nimoy: The thing I enjoyed most about the potential of the character was the internal light that the character had, because Gene Roddenberry told me immediately that this character had a mixed heritage, half-human, half-Vulcan. There was the internal conflict--trying to be Vulcan and controlling his emotions while his human side was still present, there was the sense of alienation, the fact that as a child, growing up on Vulcan, he was not totally accepted because other children knew that he was a half-breed with a human mother. I found these very useful and exciting character elements to explore, as an actor.

TB: As a matter of fact, I work now as a Science journalist, and perhaps STAR TREK had a lot to do with me doing that right now. But one thing that is interesting and came to my attention, is that sometimes, when I interview a scientist, they say STAR TREK has some damaging effects in the way people perceive science. One thing an astronomer called Don Brownlee told me is that people expect, and I think Spock's role as a credible character has much to do with that, people except to find aliens we could relate to. When we say, perhaps there's some bacteria on Mars, they think, "oh, this is not fun. I'd like to meet an alien I could talk to". How do you see this effect of Spock managing to create the image of how an alien should be.

Nimoy: This is the first time, since 1965, when I became a ball of STAR TREK, so that would be 38 years. The first time in 38 years that I've heard anybody, particularly a scientist, say that STAR TREK or the Spock character were damaging in some way to science. Believe, the very first time I ever heard that. On the contrary, I have heard countless times people who have said that STAR TREK and the Spock character were stimulating to people's imagination and wondering about the Universe, the questions of the history and the future of humanity. We have here in Los Angeles an observatory, a major observatory known as the Griffith Observatory, which is undergoing a major reconstruction right now, and they are introducing a theater, which they never had before, and it will be used for various presentations, live presentations, lectures, demonstrations, films, video and slides, and so forth. It will be named the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater. As the major, very renowned institution, I don't think they would be accepting the STAR TREK identification, the STAR TREK connection, if they thought for a moment that there was such a thing as damaging connection relationship with STAR TREK. So I am profoundly shocked to hear that anybody would be talking about the damaging effect of STAR TREK on science. I had occasions of meet with Phillip Morrison, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when I was preparing the story for the STAR TREK IV movie, STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, which became the movie with humpback whales. And I had a very fascinating conversation with him, in which I said to him, There was a movie called "The Day the Earth Stood Still". I asked if he was familiar with it. Are you familiar with it, Salvador?

TB: Yeah, it is a Robert Wise movie.

Nimoy: That's right, yeah. And asked if he was familiar with it. He said, vaguely, he remembered the film. I reminded him that there was a scene at that movie in which the character played by Sam Jaffe, who was sort of the model on Albert Einstein, a major scientist in the United States, struggling with a problem on a blackboard, a very complex equation for which they have not found a resolution. And the Michael Rennie character, a man from this other planet came in and saw this unfinished equation on the board, and simply shocked him with the appropriate answer. When Sam Jaffe, as his scientist character, sees the solution on the board, he comes to understand that somebody if knowledge beyond his has visited here and put that answer on the board. And when he discovers this from Michael Rennie character, he says to him: "There are a number of questions I'd like to ask you".

The suggestion is he would ask him for, to give some answers to questions that have been plaguing mankind. God knows what, what is the cure of the cancer? How do you resolve this issue, that issue? What about the expansion of the Universe, talk to me about it, what do we not know that you know? And I asked Philip Morrison, I said to him, "If you were in the presence of that kind of na alien, who had all that kind of intelligence, what questions would you ask?" Morrison, a major highly respected astrophysicist, and he said to me, "It's not gonna work that way". "If and when we come in contact with na alien intelligence, it would take a tremendous amount of time, if ever, before we are able to communicate on ideas like that. He says, science-fiction suggests that there is another Universe that is perhaps a 100, or several hundred years ahead of us in knowledge, and we are all running on a parallel similar track. That is simply not going to be the case. It may be of an entirely different organic construction, how their minds may work very different than ours, we may never be able to successfully communicate with them.

And it was that conversation that helped me to understand that, yes, there is in science-fiction this suggestion that we will find a way to communicate, to talk to aliens, or they to us, and some would be more primitive than us, and some would be more sofisticated than us. And it was that conversation which lead me to the use of the humpback whale and the whale song in STAR TREK IV. Because I began to understand that in that whale song there was a communication taking place between whales that was not intended for humans to understand, and we might never understand. So that is my long answer to your comment that science-fiction has been damaging to science on our planet. I don't believe that. There are differences between science fiction and science, but on the other hand there are great scientists who have told me that science-fiction has spurred the science fiction imagination.

Special thanks to Trek Brasilis.