Some of his hair pieces are so ratty looking, I sometimed wonder if he didn't cut a brown tribble in half and plop it on his skull.
Why Bill Shatner speaks the way he does
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Some of his hair pieces are so ratty looking, I sometimed wonder if he didn't cut a brown tribble in half and plop it on his skull.
I suspect his pieces looked like that because he does run them ragged. His current rug, in fact, looks worn thin. Instead of respecting his rug, he does everything to his head that he'd do if he still had his real hair. He's wearing helmets and hats of all varieties, for his various exploits. He's jumping in the pool with it on with all of those chemicals in there. If he had a closetful of hairpieces, it would be fine ... but he just buys the one and puts it through its paces, until it tears, or hair starts falling out of it. I'm typing all of this, like he's still the age he was in STAR TREK II. The Man's pushing 90, but even now, he treats his rugs like they're disposable.
Chevy Chase was Spock; Dan Aykroyd was McCoy.My favorite Shatner impersonation was done by John Belushi on SNL, with Dan Akroyd as Mr. Spock.
Kirk delivering the Gettysburg Address...
"Four.....score....andsevenyearsago!......"
"Four.....score....andsevenyearsago!......"
In Shatner's case, I've heard that said before, yeah. I can't remember where though.
Hey, Kirk taught me the preamble to the Constitution. (Well, him and schoolhouse rock.)
Examples of Shatner's goofy acting are him as Mirror Kirk and channeling the personality of Janice Lester in Turnabout Intruder, lol. Examples of his exquisite and powerful acting are littered throughout the TOS movies. He's honed his craft or returned to his earlier form and he can certainly act with the best of them.
His mode of speech is easily lampooned (check out the youtube video in my sig). But that alone makes no comment on his ability or the worthiness of his style. Good actors and bad actors can be lampooned alike.
His mode of speech is easily lampooned (check out the youtube video in my sig). But that alone makes no comment on his ability or the worthiness of his style. Good actors and bad actors can be lampooned alike.
I think Shatner's biography says that he was stage trained, like Off Broadway in Canada, or something to that effect.
Oddly enough, I almost detect shades of Scott Bakula in that.
A biography I read said that Shatner had been a member of the Royal Canadian Shakespeare Theatre Company. If this is true, or even if was merely part of a local Shakespeare company, he had much the same training that Patrick Stewart had, but got in front of a camera much earlier in his career. This would have had an effect on his performances.
That's sounds exactly like what I read in his bio somewhere. He was trained in performing classic literature. Very impressive.
He, along with many other film and TV actors who started careers before 1960, trained for theatre and in a style that was intentionally somewhat exaggerated so the people in the farthest seats could hear and see expressions, line delivery and so on. In the hands of capable directors, such actors could dial it back for the more intimate camera acting. With weak direction, they often fell back on old reflexes. It is an issue in reverse as well. Actors who've had primarily been in TV or film productions, and who do it well, are not necessarily all that good on the stage.
If this guy did a "serious" impression rather then a caricature he would sound JUST like Shatner. He could voice Kirk. Wow.
Maurice LaMarche is a great voice actor as well as an impressionist. You'd be surprised at how often you hear him and don't realize it.
Breathing life into this almost-dead thread:
In the performance of his one-man show that I saw, Shatner specifically traced this style of acting to doing "The World of Suzie Wong" on stage in 1958 with France Nuyen. He said Nuyen was new to the stage and often forgot her lines, saying something else that wouldn't lead into his line. While thinking of how to get the story back on track, he would say something like "Suzie... just... what... doyoumean... by... that?
Certainly an exaggerated if not fabricated story, but funny.
In the performance of his one-man show that I saw, Shatner specifically traced this style of acting to doing "The World of Suzie Wong" on stage in 1958 with France Nuyen. He said Nuyen was new to the stage and often forgot her lines, saying something else that wouldn't lead into his line. While thinking of how to get the story back on track, he would say something like "Suzie... just... what... doyoumean... by... that?
Certainly an exaggerated if not fabricated story, but funny.
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