AGD
06-23-2002, 08:31 PM
My Dinner with Shatner
I just spent the afternoon and dinner with the William Shatner and it was an interesting experience. I thought you all and our friends on shatner.com would want to hear about it.
The afternoon started when I showed up at the Trek Convention to find Bill on stage with JJ. It turns out Bill had been on stage for an hour and JJ had just gotten up to give the paintball spiel. JJ saw me in the back of the crowd and called me up on stage in front of everyone. As I trotted through the crowd JJ announced me as the Borg General to a booing reply from the crowd. I defiantly thumbs downed the crowd as I climbed on stage. Bill turned to me and said something like "So you are Tom Kaye?" and then there was a pause. I could see him change gears, he eyeballed me up and down and I could see a look in his eyes, that look reveled what he was thinking "so YOU are my competition!". He then changed gears again and said something about a "big strapping guy" or similar and went on with the show. The changing gears theme would be a recurring one throughout the night.
We eventually ended up in his hotel room with a couple people doing interviews. I watched again as he changed gears from relaxed and funny to controlling the pace of the interview. The interviewer was obviously in the presence of GOD and stumbled around showering Shatner with gifts and getting autographs. He asked Bill if he would like to see an outake from Star Trek 5 and he said that's not necessary but this guy proceeded to show it too him anyway. I can now understand why actors get short with fans because they are so overwhelmed they don't know what they are doing.
Bill gave an excellent interview and smoothly changed gears again when the interviewer asked him to do something over the top. He went right in to using some expletives we wouldn't print here on AO. In all he was very smooth and professional and showed a lot more courtesy than some of the fans.
Next stop was dinner where I knew we would be more intimate and I could see the real Bill. I had heard a lot of negative things about his personality, even from other actors and I was waiting to see if they were true. We sat in the corner of a local restraint and JJ got things up to speed. Bill listened attentively while I described my dino and telescope hobbies and he got an overall view of why I was there. We then changed gears again and talked about Shatnerball. To my surprise he was very focused on the whole paintball project. His gears turned while he tried to come up with different ideas to get all types of people involved. I found out that he was definitely a big picture thinker, likes to solve problems and gets excited when he does. He said that he was competitive and I believe him. He is one guy that doesn't like to finish last, in that respect he does match the character he is so famous for.
Dinner ended with a conversation about his horses and competing in the arena. I was surprised to find out that horses had not been a life long passion but something he got into only a few years ago. In his own words he went from "not remembering the pattern" to winning second place in a national competition. Again his ability to focus comes out with a positive result. In all I found him to be genuinely humorous, sharply focused, and wanting to do more things than he has time for. Was he Captain Kirk? Not really, but the real Bill Shatner is way more interesting.
AGD
I just spent the afternoon and dinner with the William Shatner and it was an interesting experience. I thought you all and our friends on shatner.com would want to hear about it.
The afternoon started when I showed up at the Trek Convention to find Bill on stage with JJ. It turns out Bill had been on stage for an hour and JJ had just gotten up to give the paintball spiel. JJ saw me in the back of the crowd and called me up on stage in front of everyone. As I trotted through the crowd JJ announced me as the Borg General to a booing reply from the crowd. I defiantly thumbs downed the crowd as I climbed on stage. Bill turned to me and said something like "So you are Tom Kaye?" and then there was a pause. I could see him change gears, he eyeballed me up and down and I could see a look in his eyes, that look reveled what he was thinking "so YOU are my competition!". He then changed gears again and said something about a "big strapping guy" or similar and went on with the show. The changing gears theme would be a recurring one throughout the night.
We eventually ended up in his hotel room with a couple people doing interviews. I watched again as he changed gears from relaxed and funny to controlling the pace of the interview. The interviewer was obviously in the presence of GOD and stumbled around showering Shatner with gifts and getting autographs. He asked Bill if he would like to see an outake from Star Trek 5 and he said that's not necessary but this guy proceeded to show it too him anyway. I can now understand why actors get short with fans because they are so overwhelmed they don't know what they are doing.
Bill gave an excellent interview and smoothly changed gears again when the interviewer asked him to do something over the top. He went right in to using some expletives we wouldn't print here on AO. In all he was very smooth and professional and showed a lot more courtesy than some of the fans.
Next stop was dinner where I knew we would be more intimate and I could see the real Bill. I had heard a lot of negative things about his personality, even from other actors and I was waiting to see if they were true. We sat in the corner of a local restraint and JJ got things up to speed. Bill listened attentively while I described my dino and telescope hobbies and he got an overall view of why I was there. We then changed gears again and talked about Shatnerball. To my surprise he was very focused on the whole paintball project. His gears turned while he tried to come up with different ideas to get all types of people involved. I found out that he was definitely a big picture thinker, likes to solve problems and gets excited when he does. He said that he was competitive and I believe him. He is one guy that doesn't like to finish last, in that respect he does match the character he is so famous for.
Dinner ended with a conversation about his horses and competing in the arena. I was surprised to find out that horses had not been a life long passion but something he got into only a few years ago. In his own words he went from "not remembering the pattern" to winning second place in a national competition. Again his ability to focus comes out with a positive result. In all I found him to be genuinely humorous, sharply focused, and wanting to do more things than he has time for. Was he Captain Kirk? Not really, but the real Bill Shatner is way more interesting.
AGD