From Jim Carrey to Seth MacFarlane, nearly every funny person in Hollywood has a William Shatner impression. But no one has ever answered why exactly the "Star Trek" icon talks like that. Well, we may finally have an answer.
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00:00From Jim Carrey to Seth MacFarlane, nearly every funny person in Hollywood has a William
00:05Shatner impression. But no one has ever answered why exactly the Star Trek icon talks like
00:09that. Well, we may finally have an answer. Ever since he broke out with the original
00:13Star Trek series, Shatner has had a reputation for his big acting style. As such, when someone
00:19does an impersonation of William Shatner, they tend to say every word as if it's its
00:23own sentence.
00:24Jim Carrey spoofed Shatner on In Living Color in this way, and Stewie on Family Guy even
00:36parodied Shatner's infamous rendition of Elton John's Rocket Man.
00:44Kevin Pollak, a master of impersonations, also did the Shatner schtick of repeating
00:49every word like it was its own sentence.
00:54For a Vanity Fair interview, Shatner was asked to watch and rate impersonations of himself,
00:59and his prevailing reaction was one of bafflement. Shatner knows that he didn't speak so theatrically,
01:04nor so haltingly, so why do so many comedians play him that way? For the record, Shatner
01:08rated MacFarlane's, Pollak's, and Carrey's impersonations quite low, although he does
01:13allow that those are comedic exaggerations.
01:15In other interviews, however, Shatner admitted that he does have a particular acting style,
01:23and one that can indeed easily be lampooned. It seems that some of the signature Shatner
01:27pauses were a result of the actor trying to infuse his character with an element of naturalness.
01:32Weirdly, some took Shatner's attempts at being natural as a form of deliberate artificiality.
01:36In 2003, Shatner spoke with The A.V. Club, and the interviewer was tactful, asking Shatner
01:42if the pauses he sometimes inserted into Captain Kirk's dialogue were connected to the character's
01:46thoughtfulness and sense of wonder. Shatner responded positively to the question, saying,
01:50In fact, it was Shatner's awe and wonderment as to what the next line was, but it came
01:56out as Kirk's, as the character's hesitation in describing what it was he was going to
02:00say or do, because it was so exciting.
02:02Shatner also explained a little bit more about his acting style on the DVD commentary track
02:06for Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, where he essentially said that an actor has to find
02:10a balance between nailing their lines and making them feel completely improvised. A
02:14real-life conversation, after all, isn't scripted. He admitted that taking multiple pauses throughout
02:18a scene was meant to make it look like Captain Kirk was thinking about what he was about
02:22to say.
02:23The actor summed it up like this,
02:24There is a line between improvisation and the necessity of saying the words that have
02:28been written. The dialogue needs to go through the progressions of what needs to be done
02:31for the story. On top of that, there is an application of something else, some other
02:35reality.
02:36Shatner continued to define his craft on The Voyage Home commentary, saying that lines
02:40need to feel like they're escaping out of you. The dialogue, he said, needs to feel
02:43just as surprising to the characters as it does to the audience. Shatner's pauses and
02:47delivery are a means of achieving that.
02:49The actor developed his unique style while performing on stage as a young man, and one
02:53can see an element of live stagecraft leaking through in Shatner's on-screen performances.
02:58I don't like mysteries. They give me a bellyache.
03:02But Shatner wants it known that a lot of the famously halting speech he gave on Star Trek
03:06was reserved for Captain Kirk, a role he hasn't played for years. In real life, Shatner doesn't
03:11speak that way. He speaks naturally, just like we all do. An impersonation of Shatner
03:15should, in the best of circumstances, capture the actor's natural overconfidence, his willingness
03:20to take up a room, and an occasional tendency to ramble.
03:23I'm William Shatner, and this is my world.
03:26Shatner spoke recently at a Star Trek convention, and when someone asked him what the next step
03:30of his career was going to be, he merely said,
03:33He's 93, he explained, and there wasn't another act lurking ahead in his career. It wasn't
03:38a depressed observation, but comedically matter-of-fact. If one wants to do an accurate Shatner impersonation,
03:44start with that.