An historic first meeting occurred last night in Los Angeles. The original captain of the starship Enterprise, William Shatner, and the second man to play the iconic role of James T. Kirk, Chris Pine, met face-to-face only a few weeks before the opening of J.J. Abrams stellar reboot of “Star Trek.”
“I saw Bill last night actually for the first time at his charity show in Burbank,” Pine revealed today. “He was very kind and it was a very short meeting. He had a lot of people to see. It was big event that had been taking place all day, but my interaction with him has only been really wonderful.”
Pine, a 28-year-old star in the making, also described how he first reached out to Shatner before shooting began.
“I sent him a letter very early on in the process and explained to him who I was and who this punk kid was taking over for him, for the time being, the role and he was very kind and wished me all the luck in the world,” Pine says. “I know Leonard [Nimoy] was the same way [with Zachary Quinto], there was a wonderful feeling of handing over the mantle to us and wishes for luck and all that. But it was more about allowing us the freedom to make these characters our own without having the feelings of weight and expectation and responsibility.”
It’s not surprising the in-person meeting took so long. Shatner has voiced his displeasure for some time about not being a larger part of the new “Trek” film. The “Boston Legal star’s long time friend, Leonard Nimoy, returns to the franchise in the iconic role of Ambassador Spock. It’s clear director and producer J.J. Abrams wanted to make Shatner a part of the new series latest incarnation, but what he could offer wasn’t enough for the Emmy winning legend. Making matters even more difficult was the fact that Shatner’s Kirk met an unsatisfactory end in 1992’s “Star Trek Generations.”
