Spock tackles a new frontier

YOU don’t need to have cats called Computer and Data or a dedicated Klingon keyboard to fully appreciate the enduring influence of Star Trek.

Even for people who couldn’t pick out a Horta in a line-up, or discern between a holodeck and hypospray if their lives depended on it, the seminal sci-fi’s cultural footprint is indelible.

So when Spock himself — Star Trek’s legendary half-Vulcan/half-human/all icon — trots out that most famous of Trek tenets for my regrettably blunt ears only, this journalist’s face is set to stun (sorry).

“Live long and prosper,” he says, with all the melodrama that usually precedes credits. He is speaking via communicator (read: phone) from a far-flung realm (read: LA), and while there is no way to really tell, he was almost certainly making the split-finger Vulcan salute while he said it.

Leonard Nimoy — the man behind Spock’s pointy ears for the past five decades — was speaking to The AJN to discuss his photographic works, currently being exhibited in Massachusetts.

But it is testament to his great respect for Spock that he indulges my largely Star Trek-related line of questioning. Then again, I can’t be the first.

“If anything endures, it’s because it taps into ideas that are eternal,” Nimoy, 79, says of the role that made him a household name.

“Star Trek landed on fertile ground and it’s like dropping a pebble in a pond and the waves keep rippling out and if you’re really successful, the waves never stop.”

Nimoy officially hung up the bob-cut wig late last year and has since had a lot more time to dedicate to photography, something he has been passionate about for more than 60 years.

“Acting and directing are a lot more collaborative than photography,” he says. “The photography that I do is conceptual. It begins with my own idea and is my own way of manifesting that idea. It’s very personal and you don’t necessarily get that with film.”

The exhibition features works from earlier collections with titles such as The Secret Selves, The Full Body Project, Shekhina, The Black and White Series and Self Portraits.

The Secret Selves is Nimoy’s interpretation of Greek philosopher Aristophanes’ notion that humans were originally two people in one, before being cleft in twain by the Gods. Aristophanes mused that this was the reason for angst, the feeling that something is missing.

“The show consists of 25 full-length stand-up portraits and a 40-minute video of my interviews with the subjects, who posed as the depiction of their secret selves,” he says.

So who is Nimoy’s secret self?

“I have acted out so many secret selves in my 60-year career as an actor and played so many characters and personalities that I am totally comfortable with what I have arrived at,” he says.

“I consider myself retired from acting and directing, but I’m not retired from my life. I have a very active creative life and a very active personal life.”

Nimoy’s parents were immigrants from the Ukraine and he was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in Boston. He remains spiritual today and his Jewish upbringing has informed ¬≠everything from Spock — the Vulcan salute was borrowed from a ritual performed by Cohanim blessing a congregation — to his photography.

But this doesn’t mean Nimoy shies away from challenging accepted ideas about Judaism.

His Shekhina collection shows a naked woman, who represented God, wearing tefillin.

“Judaism has had a pretty strong influence on everything I’ve done in my career. I’m reminded of it constantly too. Wherever I go people offer the Vulcan salute as a gesture — kids on the street, bus drivers, policemen, waiters in restaurants … I get it all over the place. It’s a wonderful way of saying ‘hello, we enjoy something in common’.”

But it could have been a very different outcome had the NBC TV network had its way in 1966. Nimoy tells the story that the network responsible for bringing Star Trek to the world thought Spock would offend Christian Americans, because of his devilish appearance.

“When the first press releases went out, [NBC] actually insisted that the Spock character be kept in the ¬≠background and that any ¬≠photographs of Spock be re-touched and the pointy ears taken off,” he says.

“Shortly after the show aired they discovered that the Spock character was a success and they started insisting on seeing him more frequently on the show, but we got off to a shaky start.”

That show spawned 11 feature films, including the Nimoy-directed Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (he also directed Three Men and a Baby for the record) as well as five spin-off TV series. But no character has endured like Spock.

So much so that when Jewish director JJ Abrams breathed new life into the franchise with the 2009 prequel Star Trek, he called on Nimoy to don the ears once more.

“It was a very solid, positive feeling of closure, which I frankly had not had previously. When the Next Generation [the TV series that followed the original] people took over the franchise, they really did not give closure to the Spock character. He was left drifting out there. This film was helpful in really giving me and the fans some closure.”

Nimoy may have called time on his glittering career, but with yet another Star Trek sequel on the way, he stopped short of ruling out one more Trek tryst.”To tell you the truth, I hope [Abrams] doesn’t call, because I feel a connection to him and a loyalty to him that would make it difficult for me to say no,” he says.

“But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we accomplished together what we wanted to accomplish and now he can move on with his new people.”

One of the new people Nimoy is referring to is actor Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the recent ¬≠incarnation. “I think the cast are all excellent and that includes Zachary Quinto who is the new Spock. He needed my Spock to create the bridge between the old and the new, and that’s done. I think he can move on comfortably without me.”

At the end of our chat, I thank Nimoy for indulging me and apologise for the Trek-heavy interview. He says I did well (he’d know too) and then, totally unsolicited, the effusive and accommodating Nimoy makes my day with his signature sign-off.

At that moment I spared a thought for the legions of nerds — probably more deserving than myself — who would have willingly removed their mint-condition Wrath of Khan communicators from the packaging for just one chance to hear those words from the great man.

Leonard Nimoy’s retrospective exhibition is at the Michelson Galleries, Northampton, Massachusetts until October 31.

ADAM KAMIEN