William Shatner willing to return as Kirk in new ‘Star Trek’ film

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After years of saying he was done playing Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek universe, William Shatner says he’s opening to returning as the character and suggested he even has an idea of how it could happen.

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In an interview with the Canadian Press, Shatner, 93, proposes that he could return as a younger version of Kirk using de-aging technology similar to how 80-year-old Harrison Ford appeared during the opening sequence of last year’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Telling the newswire service that he’s now a spokesperson for Otoy, a company specializing in technology that “takes years off of your face,” a boyish Kirk could reappear and “look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger.”

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He also says it’s possible Kirk could come back from the dead after he’s resurrected.

“‘We’ve got Captain Kirk’s brain frozen here,’” he said, imagining a scene in which his character is revived. “There’s a scenario. ‘Let’s see if we can bring back a little bit of this, a little salt, a little pepper (in his hair). Oh, look at that. Here comes Captain Kirk!’”

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Acknowledging that it is “almost impossible” he’ll be back on the Starship Enterprise, Shatner concedes that returning to the venerable sci-fi franchise is still an “intriguing idea.”

“It was a great role and so well-written and if there were a reason to be there not just to make a cameo appearance, but if there were a genuine reason for the character appearing, I might consider it,” he says.

Shatner, whose decades-long career includes Miss Congeniality, T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, $#*! My Dad Says, Better Late Than Never and The Unexplained, along with the original 1960s Star Trek TV series and films, was speaking to the CP to celebrate the release of his new documentary You Can Call Me Bill.

As Star Trek has enjoyed renewed popularity on the small screen, we have asked Shatner many times about possibly returning as Kirk, who was killed off in 1994’s Star Trek Generations.

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In 2018, Shatner told Postmedia that reprising the role “wasn’t for (him).” Just a few years before that, he told us he didn’t want stop playing Kirk and that the character died “protesting.”

When we suggested that Kirk could still be alive because the timeline had been altered by the release of the 2009 Star Trek film, which rebooted the series on the big screen, Shatner was nonplussed.

“Mark, I’m giving you this job right now. I’m assigning you a job – and you’ll be highly paid. I want you to solve the mystery of bringing me, 50 years later, back as Captain Kirk. I want you to solve that mystery,” he said at the time,

But during our last conversation in 2022, Shatner spoke about Kirk’s final lines in Generations when he uttered the words, “Oh my.”

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“As you get older, as I’m sure you can imagine, you think of death — it becomes more and more present … So when this character was dying, I thought, ‘How do you die?’ I’ve heard of people weeping, my father was incapacitated, he had had a stroke and he had tears in his eyes and I wonder quite often what he was crying about. Was he crying about leaving? I loved him very much and he loved me. Was he weeping because of me and leaving this world?” Shatner said.

“So I thought, ‘How would Captain Kirk die?’ Captain Kirk, who has faced death so often. I thought he would look at death approaching with the same awe and wonder that he looked at these strange beings that he faced in the years I played him. I wanted him to look at death as something filled with the awe and wonder that he looked at the universe. So the, ‘Oh my,’ was supposed to be a ‘wow.’ What came out had an element of dread, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t play it exactly the way I wanted to, which was, ‘Oh my, the gorgeousness of death. What’s going to happen?’ That’s the way I feel about it.”

He then let out a little laugh. “That’s the way I want to feel about it. I don’t want to feel fear, but I’m afraid I feel fear.”

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