SDAFF Report: George Takei Talks Star Trek, Heroes, and Growing Up Asian-American

Still, it was tough getting Sulu screen time. “There were seven regular actors, and two battling for supremacy,” namely, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. “Leonard Nimoy’s fan letters were multiples of everybody else’s, including Bill Shatner’s,” Takei said. “Bill got very insecure.” And with the battle lines drawn, “it was very difficult for us to get anything more than ‘Aye-aye captain, warp 3.’” Still, Takei’s lobbying finally paid off when he became captain of the Starship Excelsior in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Being part of such a revered cultural institution, it’s natural Takei’s Trek bonafides inform his other work – including Heroes. “Now I’m doing Heroes, but if you saw that episode where I first appeared, I’m in that great huge limo … (and) when the camera panned across the rear of the car, you saw very briefly the license plate: NCC1701,” the call letters of the Enterprise. “So yes, even on Heroes, Star Trek is there.”

Takei was asked to audition for his role as series star Hiro Nakamura’s father, Kaito Nakamura . While “not hung up” by the request, it was an odd process: his lines, to be spoken in Japanese, were sent to Takei in English. “They wanted to test my Japanese,” Takei said. He also praised his Heroes co-star and fellow SDAFF attendee James Kyson Lee – a Korean-American – for his adaptability. “He doesn’t speak Japanese, but he has a fantastic ear … he’s really a remarkable actor, and certainly a linguist.”

“We don’t get the script until about a week before filming begins,” Takei said, moving on to the Heroes writing process. “My first script, I thought I was playing a very powerful industry magnate; I thought I was a very concerned, stern father – a very traditional Japanese father. But then there is a subsequent script (where I’m) giving little baby Claire to (his company) HRG to raise. … That’s when I discover I’m involved in the intrigue of those with powers.” Ultimately, said Takei, the Heroes writers “keep us in ignorance” so actors don’t release spoilers “by accident, by mistake, or by ego. I really don’t know who I am; it’s a very unusual way of working.”

In that same cryptic vein, when asked to foretell his Heroes future, Takei reminded the audience, “you saw me thrown off that tall building. Well,” he said, turning up his velvety baritone, “on Heroes, nothing is as it seems on the surface. Stay tuned!”

But neither his recent successes – Heroes, and a recurring gig on The Howard Stern Show – or even involvement with one of television’s most influential series, were as formative as Takei’s childhood imprisonment in a World War II internment camp. “It is the most profound, life shaping experience I’ve had. … I’ll never forget that scary day when American soldiers with bayonetted rifles came to our home to take us out.” He recounted being trailed by searchlights when going to the latrine at night, the stench of waste and sickness pervading the camp. “Children are amazingly adaptable; what would be grotesquely abnormal in normal times became normal to me.”

That formative experience – and his father’s willingness to speak about it afterward, when it was still taboo with many Asian-Americans – engendered Takei’s outspoken activism: from calls for gay marriage, and ending the Army’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, to countering the warmongering hysteria and unprecedented secrecy of the Bush administration. “I believe in involvement. Passivity is the antithesis, the enemy of good democracy …[Passivity is] why people like George Bush can get in there and do what they’re doing.”

Report by Wells Dunbar

Related Links

• SDAFF: The Trek of George Takei: An Intimate Discussion
• Wikipedia: Star Trek: The Naked Time