William Shatner Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions

Hi, I'm William Shatner,

and I'm doing some

WIRED autocomplete questions.

[energetic music]

If you don't know what autocomplete is,

neither do I.

[energetic music]

First up.

Does William Shatner?

Yes, I do.

Several times a week.

Does William Shatner play guitar?

No, I don't.

I just string along.

Does William Shatner write books?

I'm writing one right now.

I've got several books out there.

I'm writing,

we don't have a title for it,

we haven't even presented it yet,

but we're got like a half a book

and it looks interesting to me.

Does William Shatner speak another language?

I grew up in Quebec.

I used to speak French fairly well.

[speaking French]

That's Spanish.

So I don't remember anything.

Does William Shatner know Klingon?

No.

[imitating Klingon]

Sounds very Yiddish to me.

Does William Shatner have a fan club?

A giant fan club,

which you can just look on my website,

williamshatner.com I think,

and find out.

It's a huge fan club,

and we have all kinds of

wonderful things happening.

You should join up.

It seems I've skipped one

and I'm afraid of it.

You know why?

It's very long

and I'm going to do it now.

Does William Shatner get Halloween royalties?

They mean the mask.

They made it,

a death mask of me,

well, they call it a death mask,

for Star Trek,

'cause there were all kinds of appliances going on.

And instead of having me there for hours

putting on these rubber things,

they had a mask made.

They put the clay and everything.

So they had a mask of me.

So somewhere along the line,

somebody got ahold of that

and then sold it to the Halloween thing.

And then the movie Halloween

needed a villain

and they said go,

they said to someone,

go get a mask from the Halloween store.

And the guy chose my mask

that I have nothing to do with.

My mask became the villain in Halloween.

And when I would take my kids out for Halloween,

they trick or treat and they didn't treat.

The trick was I'd lift my mask

and it would be me.

Next.

What was William Shatner's first role?

The answer to which is a baby.

[imitating crying sounds]

I emerged from the womb.

What is William Shatner favorite role?

You know, that baby role.

When I suckled at the breast

and I was full of confidence

and security.

That was my best role.

What did William Shatner host?

Well I was the host of several germs

until I had my immune system

and I've hosted a lot of shows.

I don't know what I got.

What songs does William Shatner sing?

William Shatner sings on Bill,

which is gonna be released very soon.

First one with Joe Jonas,

the second one with Brad Paisley,

a couple of weeks later,

very soon.

And then the album in September.

It's a great album.

What is William Shatner doing these days?

I am doing a great show

on the History Channel

called The UnXplained.

Then I've got this album,

called Bill,

which is coming out soon,

and I'm writing a book,

and I'm doing personal appearances.

And I'm having birthday parties

for teenagers that are

getting ready to go off to college.

There's a moment happening in my life

where this lovely grandchild,

packing up

and going to college.

And there's this division

that everybody knows about.

And one of the songs

on the album

is me leaving home

and crossing a bridge

and a 18 wheeler's coming my way.

And I'm gonna die.

And it's all of us who cross bridges all the time.

And there's always an 18 wheeler coming at us.

And that's one of the songs.

Next.

What is William Shatner's favorite Star Trek?

Now there's a question I never thought of before.

I've never been asked.

What is my favorite episode?

The great scientist, Stephen Hawking.

I interviewed him.

It may have been his last interview,

but he also said,

I've got a question for you.

And I'm looking at the at the computer.

What is your favorite episode?

One of the greatest minds

of the 20th century wanted to know

the same thing we'd wanna know here.

And I said, I don't know.

For God's sakes, Stephen, I don't know.

It's 55 years ago.

I think there were some that were so good.

Star Trek broke itself down into these great episodes.

There may be half of them were really, really terrific

and the other half were less than really terrific,

but really interesting ideas.

So I don't have a favorite.

What stunts did William Shatner do?

I'd like to say I did all my own stunts,

but insurance companies

[laughs]

don't want you to do any stunts

because you could get hurt

and they would have to pay up.

You see, if you hurt your little finger,

you hurt your little finger,

and I hurt it doing a stand.

Now I can't work for another three hours.

Costs money.

You don't do mostly your own stunts,

except if you can inveigle.

I'll do, I can do that.

So I did a lot of that.

I can do that.

And I did most of my own stunts.

What has William Shatner directed?

We had a big birthday party yesterday.

And I, being the elderly grandpa and father,

sat in a chair and directed the party.

Yeah, you should take those dishes over here.

That was my best directed.

Oh, I directed movies,

I directed television.

I directed.

I just directed a lot of things

and I directed people.

Yeah, you should take that road over there.

Traffic direction is really the best of all.

What is William Shatner's nickname?

One of the songs in this album,

Bill,

is my nickname

and how I got it.

It's called Toughie.

I was named Toughie

because I had a fight every day.

Yeah.

I had to fight a lot of people every day.

So I got the nickname Toughie.

Are you ready?

Next.

Is William Shatner really 90?

See the nine.

What happened is they got the nine upside down.

So yes, I'm 90.

Is William Shatner a vegetarian?

Well, I was for a period of time

and I made the cover of the vegetarian magazine.

I don't know if it still exists or not, probably.

And I was, but I varied back and forth.

Amino acids are apparently very valuable.

And they're in meat.

In any case,

last night at this birthday party,

I had one of those vegetarian burgers

and it was delicious.

Is William Shatner a horse owner?

My financial advisor said to me,

one day,

don't buy anything that eats

while you sleep.

And I have many times.

Is William Shatner going to space?

Well,

the truth of the matter is

I had negotiations

going on to go up in Blue Origin.

And it was like,

oh, I'm gonna go up in the first vehicle.

And I'm gonna to float in space.

I went and saw the vehicle.

Here's where you sit.

And here's what,

and you'll float

and you'll go.

And I'm thinking, yeah,

maybe I can bring some artistic meaning

to what I'm seeing

and the feeling of it.

And then he chose his brother

to go up in space with him.

So, no, it doesn't look like

I'm going up into space

as much as I would have liked to.

But what I really wanted to do

was to come back down from space.

I wanted that guarantee.

They couldn't guarantee me.

Next.

Finally.

How William Shatner changed the world?

Come on.

I changed my underwear this morning.

That's the only thing I changed.

How does William Shatner stay in shape?

[laughs]

I do the best I can.

I hear that, you know,

you keep seeing,

well, as you get older,

your metabolism slows down.

But now I read an article that doesn't happen.

So I don't know.

I'm doing the best I can

with the little I have.

Swimming mostly.

How did William Shatner get the role of?

There's another tape.

Captain Kirk.

They called me

and they asked me

if I would play Captain Kirk.

And I looked at this film

that they had of Star Trek.

I was like, wow, that's neat.

So I agreed to be Captain Kirk.

How long was William Shatner?

How long was William?

What is the next word?

How long is William Shatner?

There's no apostrophe S.

On Star Trek.

Three years on the series.

Then a boatload of movies.

[energetic music]

Those were the questions

that were most popular

on the internet.

My goodness.

I've done the best I can.

I hope you're satisfied.

I will see you soon.

[energetic music]