William Shatner, ‘Star Trek’ director to meet about role

By Lauri Neff, Associated Press

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 | 10:06 a.m.

NEW YORK — "Star Trek" may be the next frontier for William Shatner — again.

Shatner, who played the original James T. Kirk, says he's meeting soon with Roberto Orci, who's directing "Star Trek 3," to discuss reprising his Kirk in the rebooted franchise.

"I had a talk with him the other day," says Shatner. "So there's talk — simply talk — about the next movie."

Shatner has said J.J. Abrams, who produced and directed the 2009 "Star Trek" film and 2013 sequel, recently called to say Orci had an idea about how Shatner might be in the next film of the new franchise, which stars Chris Pine as Capt. Kirk.

Shatner says he would do the movie if it's a meaningful part, "a role that had something to do with the turning of the plot." Still, the 83-year-old actor says he's not sure how they'd bring him back now — 20 years after his character was killed off in "Star Trek: Generations."

"That was so long ago. How do they bring me back physically like this? I don't know," he says.

Shatner isn't waiting around to find out. He stars in and produces the home renovation series "The Shatner Project," which premieres on the DIY Network on Thursday (10 p.m. EDT). The six-episode series follows Shatner and his wife, Elizabeth, as they revamp the Southern California home he bought 50 years ago.

He says allowing cameras into their home was a "terrible" experience, but he's happy with the result.

Shatner is also designing a motorcycle, a clothing line, a new kind of comic book, continuing his priceline.com ads and his "Brown Bag Wine Tasting" webisodes — and has three films due out.

Ask him about retirement and he says, "What does retiring mean? It means you want to step back from what you're doing and do something else that's more interesting." With a smile, Shatner adds, "I'm in the middle of such a fertile, febrile fantasy that anybody would wish for what I'm doing."