The legendary Star Trek actor George Takei recently did an interview with Scott Huver for Hollywood.com.
When it comes to TV adventure, George Takei is O.H.–Original Hero. As part of the legendary crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise on the groundbreaking sci-fi series Star Trek, the once-ratings-impaired program that went on to become a pop cultural phenomenon, Takei played the intrepid helmsman Sulu, one of the first Asian characters depicted on American television in a leadership position and without stereotypical ethnic characteristics.
And now Takei has joined a new generation of champions, becoming a member the cast of the hit NBC drama “Heroes” as the enigmatic Hito Nakamura, the wealthy and powerful father of the show’s fan favorite, the time-bending Hiro (Masi Oka). But as Takei tells Hollywood.com, this time around his character might not be as heroic as the show’s title suggests.
Here is just a snippet of Scott’s conversation with George. To catch the entire interview go to this Hollywood.com LINK.
Hollywood.com (HW): When were you approached about joining the cast of Heroes?
George Takei (GT): It was in November of last year. They wanted to know whether or not I could speak Japanese, and I told my agent, “Of course I do.” I’ve made speeches in Japan. I’ve received a decoration of Japan at the Imperial Palace from the Emperor himself — The Order of the Rising Sun, with gold rays and rosette. So I speak Japanese, but they didn’t believe that I really could and so they had me come in to audition, but the audition scene came in English and so I had to translate it myself [Laughs]. I walked in and I did it and it blew them away. As a matter of fact, my nephew’s son name is Marcus, but his middle name is Hito, which is the name of the character that I’m playing in Heroes. So the stars are aligning.
HW: Were you aware of the show? Were you already watching it?
GT: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was first alerted when I was told by a fan over email that there was a character, a Japanese character, who was a fan of ‘Star Trek.’ I thought, “Well, Japanese? Star Trek fan? I have to check this out.” The thing with Heroes is that it’s full of surprises for me. First of all, a Japanese playing a character who is a Star Trek fan? I checked it out and he was speaking in Japanese and there are English subtitles. That’s a tremendous commentary about American popular television on prime time network TV – whole scenes played in Japanese with English subtitles.
HW: Do you think that Trek had something to do with that openness to the kind of multicultural ensembles that we’re seeing on shows like Lost and Heroes?
GT: I think so, and I think that Star Trek paved way linguistically, too, because we had the Klingon language. This is another amazing thing about Gene Roddenberry. He didn’t want just gibberish. He hired a linguist to create the Klingon language and Paramount being the good marketers that they are, they developed an English-to-Klingon dictionary, which sold like hotcakes. Then they sold an audio cassette on the correct pronunciation of Klingon words, and now you know that there are conventions exclusively held in the Klingon language. I can’t go to that convention because I don’t speak that. So Star Trek blazed a trail for that kind of linguistic diversity as well ethnic and cultural and racial diversity.
HW: How many episodes are you going to be doing?
GT: That’s another thing about this show: Everything is a surprise. I mean, I was surprised that I was cast. My character is a surprise. We don’t know quite who he is. We know that he’s Hiro’s father and we know that he’s a powerful industrialist, but is he a good guy or is he a bad guy? Why is he doing the thing that he’s doing? Where is he going with it? There are all these questions and they won’t tell you. They reveal it to you in little bits and pieces, and you start putting the puzzle pieces together.
HW: What’s something intriguing that you’ve done for the show?
GT: Yesterday I did a scene with poor Jack Coleman. I told you that all of my scenes are in Japanese. I did a scene with Jack Coleman in Japanese. When he showed up on set he goes, “I’m the deer. There’s the headlight.” But he did a great job. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He just memorized it phonetically and he has a very strong American accent with his Japanese.
HW: Does the show deal with the fact that Hiro worships Sulu and that you’re playing his father? Is there any nod at all?
GT: I think that there should be a line somewhere down the road where Hiro says in Japanese, ‘Papa, you sort of look like Sulu.’ [Laughs]
HW: Can you talk about your first meeting with Masi? He’s actually a huge Star Trek fan.
GT: Yes, he is. It was in the dark of the night, my first episode. It was a night scene and we were there at Sunset Gower and I knew what he looked like and he knew what I looked like, and so immediately got together and we started chatting and he told me how excited he was and I told him how excited I was, and I said, ‘They expect me to be doing all these scenes in Japanese.’ Somehow we revealed to each other — my minor in college was Latin American studies and I speak Spanish, and he said to me, “I speak Spanish too.” So about two or three minutes into our conversation we started speaking to each other in Spanish and we had a delightful conversation in Spanish. So we could do a scene or two in Spanish in some upcoming episodes. With Heroes you never know.
George will be seen later this spring in an exciting Star Trek episode of the New Voyages production entitled “World Enough And Time.” We hope to bring you New Voyages Senior Exec. Producer/Creator James Cawley and the iconic actor George Takei on a future Slice of SciFi show.
