By GustavoLeao / 10:24, 30 August 2009 / Star Trek: Nemesis

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BIGFANBOY.com posted a new interview with Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy and here are few excerpts.

Leonard: What do you want to talk about?

Mark: Let's talk about how STAR TREK kicks ass again!

Leonard: Ha! It does, it did, it is.

Mark: It's gotta be really gratifying.

Leonard: It's great. We're experiencing another resurrection. We need one every few years. It's a terrific movie and doing fantastic business... and finding a whole new audience, as well as bringing back the original audience. The franchise is healthy again, and I expect there will be more films. I understand that there's another script being developed right now. I have no idea what it's about or who is going to be in it. I expect Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto and the rest of those good people will be in it. And the same writers are working on it, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman. J.J. Abrams will produce, and decide later if he wants to direct it, which is his option. I hope he does, because he did a great job on this movie. I was with him the night before last at the Saturn Awards. He's a very busy guy. He's got I don't know how many TV series going and several movies going. He's the new Spielberg. And he's very good at it, so it's exciting, and I feel very good about being back in STAR TREK. It's been I think... I'm guessing about 18 years since I acted in a STAR TREK film... 18 years between the last one and this one.

Mark: Looking back over your career in the past few decades, you've been extremely selective about the roles that you take. What was it about FRINGE and the role of William Bell that attracted you and made you say I think I want to come back to television.

Leonard: Well you know... I owe a lot to J.J. Abrams. After we did the first six STAR TREK movies, when the first NEXT GENERATION film came along, I was sent the script and I found that in one scene, I think it was the very opening scene of the movie, it indicated that Spock was present along with the rest of the original series cast. Spock had five lines of dialogue... none of them were "Spock" lines, in the sense that there was no character in any of the dialogue. It was expository dialogue that could be spoken by anybody else in the room, and in fact that's what I said to the producer. "You could just divide these lines amongst other people in the room, and never miss Spock." And that's exactly what they did. I didn't want to be there if I couldn't make a Spock contribution. In that movie, as a result, there was no Spock and Kirk was killed. And I felt... it was was not my position to say anything about it, it was not my movie... I wasn't producing, I wasn't directing... but I felt that they were dispensing with two very valuable characters in the franchise. But they obviously had a cast of their own... good people, Patrick Stewart and the rest, good people. And they felt that they could go their own way, and they did for several films. And I was okay about that. I went about my business doing an occasional piece of work, but mostly photography from that point on. Eighteen or seventeen years later I get a call from J.J. Abrams, who said "We'd like to talk to you." And I went to a meeting where I was deeply moved by the conversation, because Orci and Kurtzman the two writers and J.J. talked about Spock in a way that I hadn't heard for years. They talked about the original intent of STAR TREK, the original philosophy of STAR TREK, and the original value of the Spock character. And I was very touched by that, because I thought they were offering me a homecoming in a way. They were offering me closure which I did not get originally. I did not get a closure on the first films. And I was very touched by that, and I said I would look forward to reading a script. I didn't guarantee that I would do it, they didn't ask for a guarantee on the spot, but they said "We're going write a script, and there will be a lot of Spock in the script. And we'd like to know if you'll at least read it and consider doing it." And I said "Yes I would." I got the script and they sent... a young fella came with the script from the studio, and said "I'm to sit here and wait while you read it."

The full interview is here.