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William Shatner: ''I am Kirk.''
The actor wrote about the ethos of Star Trek.
There's something very appealing about a blurry line between actor and role. As viewers, we find it oddly satisfying to learn that a performer is a lot like the characters they portray. Audiences respond in a big way when it's clear that there's very little facade in a show's presentation. We like it when we watch a show or a movie and feel like we're not being deceived in any way.
An actor who sought to fully embody his most famous role was William Shatner, who lived his life in accordance with Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk.
"I am Kirk," Shatner wrote in his 1979 biography Shatner: Where No Man.
"I never said of Kirk, 'he' would do such and such, because it was me. I gave myself guidelines, as I would have wanted to be."
While the words that Captain Kirk spoke came primarily from writers, Shatner did his best to deliver those words truthfully. He took the freedom afforded to him by the show's producers and ran toward a sincere execution of what he thought Kirk should be.
"I acted Captain Kirk in the manner that I wished that I could behave — as the way that it really would be. That's the definition of Captain Kirk in my mind."
In a lot of ways, William Shatner never stopped being Kirk. He continued to represent the Star Trek franchise into his nineties. Beyond appearances at conventions and further roles in sci-fi media, Shatner has come to embody a lot of the ethos laid out by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Shatner has consistently used his platform to make science and discovery more exciting to young people. He's even the oldest person to visit space after his historic voyage aboard the Blue Origin's New Shepard.
"Man could master his fate aboard the Enterprise. That's the essence of Star Trek, I believe," he said.
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As simply as that