The Point Radio: Shatner’s Warp Speed World

Willam Shatner doesn’t slow down. His career is still moving at warp speed with his one man show, a new book (on his friendship with Leonard Nimoy) and a nationwide concert tour that showcases the music of all of STAR TREK. We talk about all that as well as his passion for film making. Plus former PUNISHER Ray Stevenson is back at being bad, this time as Blackbeard in the new season of BLACK SAILS on Starz (premiering tomorrow). How accurate is the portrayal and which other famous pirate is he constantly compared to?

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. Fascinating is the best word I can use to describe it when you sit down with William Shatner. We'll find out what's new in his world coming up. Plus, former punisher Ray Stevens is now Blackbeard of the new season of Black Sails.

We'll find out how that works coming up. Let's get to the point. This is The Point, The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Star Trek has endured as part of the world pop culture landscape for almost five decades now. And along for the ride from the very beginning, there was William Shatner. I asked him, and even in those early days, was there any indication just how big this was going to be?

Of course not. We had no idea whatsoever. I didn't know where it would go, what it would do. I didn't know whether it would be a success. I didn't know whether it would be a failure. I didn't know Leonard Nimoy, all of which came to pass. It went for three years, was cancelled. I lost my friend Leonard Nimoy because the show was cancelled. We all went on to different things. But then suddenly Leonard and I were thrust into each other's company

because there were movies and there were appearances. And so what happened was Star Trek became popular over a period of a few years. And my friendship with Leonard was reignited. And I've delineated, I've talked about my friendship with Leonard in a book called Leonard. It's coming out now. It's received rave reviews. It's called Leonard, My 50 Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man. And it'll be out there in a couple of weeks. So Star Trek came alive. My friendship came alive.

And all this was totally unknown when 50 years ago in September. In his long acting career, was there ever a moment he wanted to get away from Star Trek, maybe put it aside for a while? And if so, what drew him back into it? Please understand that I've done a couple of things other than Star Trek in the last 50 years. So I haven't been in Star Trek for this time or stepping back into it.

I've always been part of my life because I was able to go on to these other shows as a result of the celebrity I garnered on Star Trek. But I never felt bound by Star Trek. I'm always doing these other things, other venues, other media. So Star Trek has given me the celebrity to use to make albums, to do concerts, to write books, do comic books, all that kind of thing. James Kirk, notwithstanding, are there any other of Bill's roles on his huge acting resume he'd like the chance to revisit one more time? Everything. I don't want to devote the time. But everything I've done, I look back and think, God, I wish I'd done X or Y and Z.

I could do that better now. This one-man show, perhaps the sum total of everything, all the skills I've garnered, I wrote it, essentially directed it. I'm even booking the concert tour of these 13 cities. I'm doing that myself. So from everything from producing to writing to directing to acting, this one-man show represents the sum total of my talents. And I keep honing the one-man show. I keep honing the readings of the lines, looking for the laughs, looking for the meaning. One of the projects on Bill's plate right now is Star Trek, the ultimate voyage concert tour.

Taking a look at the series, not from a visual point of view, but from a different side of things. This concert tour takes the music of Star Trek and is played live on stage. 35 musicians conducting the conductor and it's the music of Star Trek. And that would be sufficient if it were just the music of Star Trek, played live on stage. So you're at a concert. But in addition to that, they have a 40-foot screen upon which is projected the scenes from which the music is taken. So your eye is occupied by the scene, your ears occupied by the music, and your intellect is preoccupied by the fact that you're suddenly realizing how enormously powerful the music is.

Because you haven't heard it because it's designed not to be intrusive. So suddenly you're hearing the music and then you're beginning to realize how incredibly important music is to movies. And that's this live, in-concert tour of Star Trek coming to a place near you. The concert tour is coming to a hundred places across the country. So all of your listening audience will be aware of the ultimate voyage they're calling it. Joes also become a filmmaker in recent years with a series of documentaries, including the most recent one, and looks at the Star Trek Next Generation show in the early years called Chaos on the Bridge. What drew him to do this kind of filmmaking?

Well, I had the opportunity years ago to do a documentary. I forgot which was my first doc. But in some manner I was given the opportunity to take a camera, or three, and look at a story. And then it became the mystery of the story. What is the story? The first thing that occurs to you doing a documentary is what is the story? Well, that was an interesting interview, but where does it lead? And then I found by about the second or third day, it dawned on me what the story was, and then I focused on pursuing that story. It is the same mystery that you and I have when talking to people as to where that meandering conversation will lead, and suddenly it goes someplace. You realize, oh, that's what the conversation is about.

It seems it was that same kind of curiosity that brought Bill to do a talk show a few years back. Exactly. I love to talk to people in some way, in some manner, whether it's me or what I represent or my perceptions. In many, many cases, I'm able to draw out from people a meaningful moment in their life that they themselves didn't even know was there. So again and again, people would say, I didn't even know about that. I'd forgotten that story. Nobody's ever asked that. You asked me that before. And that's a great compliment. And I lived for that on the talk show that I did.

So what's coming up next? I'm still doing my one-man show. I opened on Broadway some time ago. Got great notices, great audiences. Went on tour for a while. Went to Las Vegas. Recently I went to Australia. Toured Australia, great success. I'm coming back in the last week of January, first two weeks of February. I'll be at 13 cities, somewhere the northeast, the southeast and the northwest. I'll be at a theater near you. So look it up and I'd love to see you come to my one-man show, which is all about saying yes to life.

It's all about the positive aspects of this brief time we have on Earth. Is there a chance that he might take his upcoming book and turn that into a documentary? No, I wanted to step very carefully now. Leonard's son, Adam, is making a documentary. And I think it'll be wonderful. He and his father had an interesting relationship. Even with everything he's accomplished so far, Bill's still got some things he wants to get to.

I want to make a great small movie. I want to make a great big movie. I want to perform in a great role. I'm there. I'm ready and available. Catch William Shatner's one-man show coming to various cities around the U.S. and Star Trek, the ultimate voyage concert tour also could be coming to a city near you. Find out right now at Star Trek, ultimate voyage dot com. The flight radio. It's green light for the Punisher. All that and more as we check the latest in pop culture.

It all starts on free comic book day. Civil War two begins for Marvel with a crossover event that will carry into the summer. And it starts with a free comic that will be given away on that particular special day. And that comic contains an all new wasp story drawn by Alan Davis and written by Mark Wade. Free comic book day, by the way, is May the seventh.

And the Civil War two book is one of two offerings by Marvel. The second is yet to be announced, but we should get info on that sometime in the next couple of weeks. Apparently, John Baron fall pretty much knocked it out of the park as the Punisher in the second season of Daredevil. And right now, it looks like Netflix is planning on spinning him off into another series for their Marvel Comics lineup. No word yet on exactly when that will see production, but you'll be able to see John as the Punisher in the new season of Daredevil when it premieres on Netflix coming up on March 18.

And by the way, Netflix is also giving the green light to another season of Jessica Jones as well, which should premiere sometime in 2017. Much like the Golden Globes, a Critics Choice Award paid a lot of tribute to shows not on the major three networks. Among the winners, Constance Zimmer from Unreal on Lifetime, Rami Malek from Mr. Robot on USA, and Rachel Bloom for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on The CW. Po Jack Horseman won the award for the best animation series. The Badass Pirates on the Star Series Black Sails have a little bit of competition in the new season.

It's Blackbeard, played by actor Ray Stevenson. So why is Blackbeard now part of the story? He's got his own reasons for coming back in. I think it's a lot to do with the lack of a son and an heir, apparently, not the eight marriages, eight wives. And so there's no son. And the closest thing he has to any of that would be this pirate captain who he mentored, which was Charles' name. And to see if there is… is there anything left? Is there any relationship? Is there a possibility? Because in this period in history, because there's nothing like the numbers of people we have on the planet now.

And the man standing in his status, and indeed his legend that he leaves behind, was the most important thing. If you lost status in life, that was it. You know, you could throw yourself off the tarpy and rock. But to see if there was any spark of something that could be reignited. But what happens when he arrives back in NASA, he sees that… and this is what he says to Rachman Vane. He looks around him and he says, I see what you've done. You've basically done the worst thing ever.

You've made it prosperous. You've turned men soft. There's no pirates around because they've all got their money and they've all got their… He says, nothing's… because you're now also trying to create this society with like the one where we left. And he's basically come back and holds them right up and says, what? I'm thinking. And of course, because it's him, this sets in motion a sort of… it's a real dressing gown. And we'll see the dynamic as to whether or not the… because this is very much a kind of father-son relationship.

Or, you know, heir apparent with Vane and how that plays in. And that's what I love about Kautz and all this world of ships and the huge set pieces and the gallons and the fights and the battles and all this sort of stuff. There is this human, this real human condition of father-son, mentor, founding member of one of the original sign… One of the original drafters of the pirate charter and walking, living sort of legends that people just stop their breath when they… The last thing I expect to see is this guy walking into a tavern or walking down one of the streets and he has that effect and he would chill used to great effect.

And if challenged, he'll meet it out swiftly. So yeah, it's definitely… and then the relationship with Flint is dealt with very well. It's like they're kept at a kind of distance initially because we're establishing other things in Flint's way on the waters and all that. And then there is a kind of… ultimate, of course. Right? And that's all I can tell you about that. The biggest challenge for Ray here is the preparation to become the character.

The horrible thing is that you're up at four in the morning and you get in there about half past four or something and it's like, it's still dark and it's just your body screaming that nobody should be up at this time. You should be going home. And you lie down and the first thing they do, you have to clean shade, and then they slap glue on your face. They basically paint your whole face with tacky tacky glue and it just never feels good. You don't get used to that. And then it's all the sticky, sticky, stabby process. And you just… but I suppose I was just… I wasn't freaked out by it. I was kind of used to it. Yeah, so as far as beard acting is concerned, the only thing I did this time was it was my mustache.

And which was fine when you're shooting and then when you're not shooting and walking around with this massive sort of handlebar mustache, which I found never to do again. It was neither one nor the other. It wasn't me or the characters. So it was fine while we were shooting. So this time I'll have to provide that as well. Like some other characters in Black Sails, Blackbeard is a well-known character in history. So how accurate is this portrayal? There's a lot of research available, a lot of material available on the character itself, which is a double-edged sword as well because, I mean, like all these things, history is a thing that's written by the victors. And also, and all sensationalist writers, like the American Cowboys, that whole serialization of the Wild West and all this that was sent back East for people to, you know, titillate over and get excited about some of this.

So there's a lot of that going on. And at that period, they were writing about, you know, yield, e-pirates and cutthroats and all this. So in amongst that, there's a thread that you can glean. And obviously there's some serious historians trying to put this stuff together. There comes a point like with everything where you have to push all that sort of general knowledge aside sort of thing and concentrate on the script because ultimately you're playing the script. And what you could bring to it was there was, and what's beautiful people portrayed, I think, in the series is that it's much, much more about the man, the myth and the legend has already been established. So he's coming in as Blackbeard. He's not actually, it's not about him establishing his legend.

He's saying it's like if you have Keith Richards walking a bar and there's guys there and they go like, I used to play the guitar. You know what I mean? It's like he walks in and there's guys in the tab and going, you know, he used to be a pilot. You know what I mean? It's just he has that effect. He has that charisma and you wouldn't actually lock eyes with him. He just carries that with him and it carries it from, you know, out of bluster or anything because he's, that's it. He's earned it. And so you've got a guy who's, you're trying to play somebody who has got that presence and that charisma.

It's like unleashing a crack and he just turns up. If he looks at you, he sort of puts you straight on edge. Why is he looking at me? I mean, I'm glad. Am I glad he's looking at me? I mean, no, no. I mean, so so you a lot of it is done in subtleties and in the writing. And then when he gets in, when he engages with the likes of Rachid and Vayne, what have you, he knows what he's what he's bringing with him as well. And also he's got quite a bit to say. So the research and all this is great to a point, but obviously we had to avoid the fact that he was from Bristol. And so that heavy Bristolian accent, unfortunately, is the big card accent that most people think about when pirates are.

So, you know, are and all this sort of stuff, whereas the Bristolian accent is wonderful and rich, but it would lead to it would lend itself towards perhaps that sort of assumption of getting all too card parity. But that's not what it's what it was about. But it was the essence of the man from Bristol who was actually he was a tremendous strategist strategist and seaman and captain. And and, you know, I knew all about the power of of display. I mean, that's why he would dress the way he did. He was six foot three, six foot four in 1720. The man was a colossal. He was a giant. But he so he basically knew about the theater of putting that effect on so that the other ships they were after would just hopefully capitulate because then there was no loss of life. And then they'd get all the booty and everybody's happy. And then there's no bloodshed. He didn't lose any crew members living off the ledge and maintaining his prowess.

It's a strange thing to try and make make make that balance. But ultimately you're playing, you know, you're serving the piece. You're playing the drama itself. There is a lot of work here to make everything very authentic right down to the weapons. It's amazing working with the with the weapons guys. And like on Punisher, we worked. I worked with the Marines and also with some force recon guys. And they were just I mean, I wanted to make sure we didn't have those, you know, the old Hollywood guns that never ran out of bullets. So I mean, there was there was all and G.I. Joe as well. There were madly loads and all sorts of stuff.

So you want to get it. Do you want to do it enough time so that it becomes automatic? Because sometimes like with Punisher, especially, but I mean, a lot of people are going to watch it. Maybe they're going to be it's the army guys who are training and training and training. And they're going to see something like even your hand positions on your weapons, you're the use of the weapons, the reload. They're going to say, you know, that's what we've been doing. And they'll see you do it in such a way that they're going. That's why we'd be seeing it every day because you know what I mean? So they're not thinking like, you know, he knows nothing.

And I mean, so that sort of authenticity, the weapons training, obviously, with things like Musketeers, thigh killing training, because it's a certain type of a certain type of sword fighting. Which anybody goes to the gym, I think they dread. Oh, now lunges. Hey, well, that's what it all is. But it's lunges with intent. And I think when you're when you're working with weaponry, I work harder than I'll ever work in a gym because it's fun. And you're doing you're basically working on a choreographed dance as well. And so you're doing all these extra work. And at the end of the day, you're shaking my jelly. I never mean I never at the gym like that.

But because you're you've got a weapon in your hand and you're learning these set pieces and moves, I mean, ultimately, the person is the weapon. That's what you learn throughout all this training, no matter what period it is, the real weapon is the person behind it. And if you get that, if you get that right, then how you handle the weapon. So when Blackbeard's compared to other famous pirates, well, where does he stand, especially with one Captain Hook? I think with Captain Hook was always a kind of a kind of subtle nod towards Blackbeard.

Do you know what I mean? There was always this extra menace of that sort of almost stereotypical pirate personified by the images of Blackbeard, not by images of any other pirate. So the fact that Blackbeard is now in in pan is kind of like, let's just own up. And I saw that as well. It is him and everything. And it's more like then what he represents is that amongst all the theatricality, there is an underlying real menace. And I think that's what Blackbeard's real strength is. He can be as theatrical as you want. He can stand on a private ship with burning tapers and all his pistols lined up. And if you laugh at him, that's your last laugh you're going to take.

Because underneath all that, there is a real menace. I think that's what gives validity to Pan's constant fight with Hook. You know what I mean? So I think that's probably why. Ray Stevenson as Blackbeard this season on Black Sails. See new episodes every week on Starz or catch up right now with Starz on Demand. That does it for the podcast, but we're back in a few days and you can always find us on websites like ComicMix.com, TrekTVNews.com, PopCultureUpload.com,

and all the past episodes are waiting for you right now on the iTunes 5cast directory. On Twitter, you can follow us under PC upload on Instagram under Pop Culture Upload, and we're The Point Radio on Facebook. Check in and then check back with us in a few days.