I'll let you in on a secret. The character might be called "George Takei," but when you're in front of the camera, you're a little bit more George Takei. (laughs)
Have you ever had a director ask you to be more George Takei-ish?
Oh yes! But it's not the real George Takei.
My favorite cameo of you playing yourself was on the TV show Psych when you're at a sci-fi convention and the characters kept mispronouncing your name and one of them pretended to be your assistant.
Again, with that show the character was named George Takei, but the real George Takei is not so pompous and egocentric and not so self-centered or totally insensitive to other people. I was playing another one of my colleagues; you guess which. (laughs) I've done enough Star Trek conventions that the fans know me and know that I'm not that character and that I'm acting.
Have you had fans come up to you at conventions who believe that everything on Star Trek is real?
Oh yes! These people know their Star Trek lore, science and technology down pat. And they would ask questions like, "If you left Alpha Ceti 4 at warp 3, why did it take you so long to Alpha Ceti 5?" And what I do at those conventions, I tell them I travel with consultants who are scattered all over the audience, and I'll say, "Consultants, those of you who know the answer, raise your hands." Sure enough, half a dozen hands will go up.
Why do you think sci-fi and sci-fantasy films and TV shows are still compelling to new audiences? Why do you think those genres are important?
Science fiction pricks the imagination. It's the future. Science fiction shows us where we're going and how we're going to get there and what it's going to be like. And what is our part in that future? Good science fiction really engages an audience. For example, the Internet was science fiction when Star Trek and Star Wars first came on the scene. We had that old-fashioned thing called the telephone which we're talking over right now. That was our means of communication. But now we have the Internet which gives us this global immediate access. It's science fiction, but it's a reality today. I remember the movie Fantastic Journey with Raquel Welch in a little capsule going through the human body, and we do have those capsules now. Science fiction becomes science fact because we actively participate in that. Science fiction is the spark of imagination that gets people to think "Why not?" or "What if?" And eventually things that are fictional become reality.
Were you a fan of Star Wars when it first came out?
I enjoyed Star Wars very much but my career was associated with Star Trek and so my pride was with what Star Trek was contributing to getting fans engaged with science fiction. Star Wars is more science fantasy than science fiction.
Some fans even consider Star Wars more as a space western. Speaking of Star Trek what are your thoughts about the upcoming film directed by J.J. Abrams?
I've only seen the trailers. It looks rip-snorting good -- to use a Western term. (laughs) I think J.J. Abrams is a fantastic filmmaker. He's re-energizing Star Trek with a contemporary rhythm.
