Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspeak!

[Samuel T. Cogley]

So I was watching the "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" DVD last night and listening to the commentary track featuring Shatner and Nimoy. During the scene with Kirk and Dr. Taylor at the Italian restaurant, William Shatner began to describe how an actor should read his lines.

It's probably the most insight I 've ever come across into why he feels the need to speak the way he does.

He feels speaking like that is the "peak" of what an actor does. Interesting that he's the only actor on the planet that does it. If he's right, he must be the greatest actor of all time!

Here's what Shatner had to say...


"There is a line between improvisation... and the necessity of saying the words that have been written... and go through the... the progressions of what needs to be done for the story. On top of that... there is an application... of... something else... some other reality. It's hard to put into words... that... the actor can bring. Sometimes, that... at your best... it has an improvisational... it's almost... it's escaping out of you... and when you hit that... where it's almost a surprise to you the actor... as it is... to you the audience, it's like archery... where the ideal time to loose the arrow... is when it surprises you. Or the time to take a shot with a rifle is... you're on the hair trigger... and the rifle suddenly... is pressed... by... breath... almost. And so these lines... so an actor should... breathe the words out and they... happen... almost inadvertently. If you can achieve that, the inadvertency of... the artistic inadvertency, you've... gotten to the peak of what an actor does. I'm always looking for that.

To relate it even more closely, it's like... this conversation. It's like what I'm saying now. I'm not quite sure of what's coming out of my mouth. And when I hear it, I know it's right, or it needs correcting. 'What I really mean to say is...' So when I hear it, I know it's either right or wrong. And that's the way it should be as an actor with his lines... only... the lines have been written and so you know it's right. But it should have that, 'Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I meant to say... Or it isn't.'"

Genius! :thumbsup:

 

[Christopher]

Well, yeah. I'm surprised it needs to be explained. I noticed that decades ago, how Shatner delivered his lines as though his character were making them up as he went and having to pause to think, as opposed to the less natural way in which other actors recite memorized dialogue without a break. Real people hesitate and hem and haw all the time as they speak. So it's always puzzled the heck out of me that people find Shatner's delivery strange.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Christopher said:
Real people hesitate and hem and haw all the time as they speak.

True. But none of them sound like Shatner does when he's acting.

 

[Woulfe]

My brain just imploded at the whole thing....

So.... Shatner.... Explaneing.... Shatner.... While.... Doing.... Shatner.... * brain implodes again *

 

[Plum]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

And. I. Don't. Pronounce. Every. Single. Word. As. If. It's. It's. Own. Sentence. - William Shatner, Montreal Comedy Festival.

Shatner is a terrific actor! Don't tell me actors haven't been... spacing... their... lines... for dramatic effect because they didn't copy Shatner. They did! They do! Jason Alexander is the only actor with the guts to admit it though.

 

[Christopher]

Samuel T. Cogley said:

Christopher said:
Real people hesitate and hem and haw all the time as they speak.

True. But none of them sound like Shatner does when he's acting.

Depends. Shatner post-1967, after an on-set explosion gave him severe tinnitus, I'd agree that his acting style became somewhat more stilted. But catch him in anything before then and he's very naturalistic. Maybe not entirely naturalistic by modern acting standards, but certainly in comparison to other actors of his generation and training. (Also in The Wrath of Khan, where Nicholas Meyer strove to tone down his excesses and get the most unaffected possible performance from him.)

Also, I think that people tend to focus on his most extreme and over-the-top moments and treat them as his baseline, which just isn't fair. And frankly, I think that a lot of people's perception of Shatner's delivery is shaped more by comics doing impressions and parodies of Shatner than by Shatner's actual speech.

(It's the same as with Schwarzenegger impressions. Just about anyone who tries to do one will do it with very clear, overpronounced consonants, especially Ts, even though Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent does exactly the opposite, softening and blurring the consonants, especially Ts. What most people think of as a Schwarzenegger impression is really a secondhand impression of bad Schwarzenegger impersonators like Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live. It's human nature sometimes to consider a caricature more "real" than the real thing.)


As for actors emulating Shatner's style, I think Dwight Schultz is a prime example. Not just the cadences of his voice, but his whole performance style seems very much like Shatner's from the '70s. Like Shatner, he's the kind of actor whose work is visible on the surface -- you can see him crafting his performance, shaping each syllable and pause with meticulous care.

 

[MANT!]

Woulfe said:
My brain just imploded at the whole thing....

So.... Shatner.... Explaneing.... Shatner.... While.... Doing.... Shatner.... * brain implodes again *

*PLOP!*

 

[Nebusj]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Christopher said:
Also, I think that people tend to focus on his most extreme and over-the-top moments and treat them as his baseline, which just isn't fair. And frankly, I think that a lot of people's perception of Shatner's delivery is shaped more by comics doing impressions and parodies of Shatner than by Shatner's actual speech.

I'd like to point out in emphasis of this point, that too much Shatner Impression is formed by imitations of imitations of imitations, that the 1981 SCTV episode ``I'm Taking My Own Head, Screwing It On Right, And No Guy's Gonna Tell Me That It Ain't'' features a Movie Of The Week starring Dave Thomas as William Shatner. Thomas's impression is very distinctly Shatner, and it's a vastly more natural performance than any of the impersonators do.

(The episode's on the Volume 2 set of SCTV episodes, and if you don't watch SCTV I'm very sorry but you can't be my friend. Plus there are a lot of good Trek references in the series.)

 

[jimbo1973]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Here in Alabama, we got a nmae for that..Horsepoo!!! :lol

 

[Christopher]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

The ironic thing is, there really is one Trek captain who routinely speaks in that ponderous, pause-laden manner that's attributed to Shatner: Scott Bakula. The guy... talks... incredibly slowly... with tons of pauses.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Archer sounds like Kirk after Kirk's been given an injection of Haldol and Ativan for sedation.

 

[MoonlightSinatra]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

I often find I speaking in that type of cadence, especially when speaking in front of a group. I don't think about it at the time, only after I say something. I think to myself, I'm sounding like Captain Kirk.

 

[payndz201]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Christopher said:
(Also in The Wrath of Khan, where Nicholas Meyer strove to tone down his excesses and get the most unaffected possible performance from him.)

I once interviewed Nick Meyer and asked him about working with Shatner, and he basically bored what's arguably Shatner's best performance as Kirk out of him by insisting on multiple takes, each one more muted than the last as Shatner tired of the repetition. Which I'm sure he wasn't happy about at the time, but it's the end result that counts.

 

[MGagen]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

I can echo that. Meyer told me the same thing about the multiple takes.

He also said that Ricardo Montalban was the opposite case. He was so well prepared that the first take was almost always on the money.

The fact that none of Kirk and Kahn's tense scenes together were actually filmed face to face (it was alway via "viewscreen") allowed him to intercut Shatner's umpteenth take with Montalban's first to very good effect.

I still say Shatner's performance in Spock's death scene is a work of subtle genius -- whichever take it was!

M.

 

[Balthier the Great]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Plum said:
And. I. Don't. Pronounce. Every. Single. Word. As. If. It's. It's. Own. Sentence. - William Shatner, Montreal Comedy Festival.

Shatner is a terrific actor! Don't tell me actors haven't been... spacing... their... lines... for dramatic effect because they didn't copy Shatner. They did! They do! Jason Alexander is the only actor with the guts to admit it though.

I always figured the pauses were some sort of speech impediment or something.

Of course I'm one to talk, I'm slightly dislexic and have a southern accent. I'd read a line like a country redneck.

"To boldly git a-goin' where no one's a-gone before"

So no complaints from me.

 

[Maurice]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

The weird thing is that early Shat doesn't Shatnerspeak anywhere near as much. The first half of the first season he's often remarkably subtle. Maybe Nimoy's popularity made his brain snap...

 

[Tallguy]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Samuel T. Cogley said:
He feels speaking like that is the "peak" of what an actor does. Interesting that he's the only actor on the planet that does it. If he's right, he must be the greatest actor of all time!

Go watch Marlon Brando. I never understood why Brando was lauded for what Shatner is parodied for.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Hell, there are plenty of actors who do that. There are plenty of real people who do that (watch Al Gore giving a speech, for instance). Why Shatner gets singled out for it is bewildering. It's just a pop-culture meme, something that stand-up comics latched onto and built up into a self-perpetuating joke that doesn't have much to do with reality.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Christopher said:
Hell, there are plenty of actors who do that. There are plenty of real people who do that (watch Al Gore giving a speech, for instance). Why Shatner gets singled out for it is bewildering. It's just a pop-culture meme, something that stand-up comics latched onto and built up into a self-perpetuating joke that doesn't have much to do with reality.

Either that, or you are just not picking up on what so many others are seeing (and hearing).

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Shatner explains Shatnerspeak (sort of) using Shatnerspe

Christopher said:
Why Shatner gets singled out for it is bewildering.

Because what he does is noticable, distinctive and different from what other actors do. That is why it is recognizable, and mocked.