William Shatner reveals Star Trek executives wanted Spock’s pointed ears removed
William Shatner has revealed television executives wanted to get rid of Spock’s famous pointed ears before Star Trek reached the screen – but the show’s management refused.
The 95-year-old actor, who became a television icon as Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek, recalled the battle over late actor Leonard Nimoy’s defining Vulcan appearance during a conversation with Paul Wesley for Interview Magazine.
Wesley, 44, now plays a younger version of Kirk in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, while Shatner held the role when the original series launched 60 years ago.
Shatner said: “The first thing they said with Spock is, ‘Get rid of the ears’. And bless our management, they said, ‘No, we’re not getting rid of the ears’.”
Nimoy, who died aged 83 in 2015, retained the distinctive prosthetics and went on to make Spock one of science fiction’s most recognisable characters, appearing alongside Shatner throughout the original series and in subsequent Star Trek films.
Shatner told Wesley that Spock’s unusual appearance represented the freedom science fiction gave the programme’s creators.
He said: “In that pilot, I was attracted to the magic, the imagination behind that pilot with the swollen heads and the pulsing. It was such wonderful makeup. It was intriguing from many points of view.”
The programme had an unusual journey before Shatner joined the series.
NBC rejected the original pilot, The Cage, which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, but took the unusual step of commissioning a second pilot with a new script and an almost entirely different cast.
Nimoy was retained as Spock, while Shatner was brought in to play Kirk.
The resulting second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, helped convince NBC to order the series.
Shatner said: “There was a magic about the pilot, and that became the magic of Star Trek that caught the imagination of the audience.
“You can have weird people coming out of a rock and saying, ‘These are the people who live on this planet’, and accept it because you don’t know who’s living on that planet in the sky.
“That science-fiction magic was a big propellant in the popularity of Star Trek.”
His recollections come as Star Trek celebrates its 60th anniversary, with the original programme premiering on NBC on September 8, 1966.
The series initially lasted three seasons, ending in 1969, but subsequently developed an enormous following through repeats and expanded into television spin-offs and feature films.
Shatner reprised Kirk for the big screen, beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and continuing through films including Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Shatner has also been working on William Shatner … And You, a new book examining the effect Star Trek has had on viewers.