Leonard Nimoy Admits "I AM Spock" In This Exclusive Interview Excerpt
Star Trek Magazine has given us an exclusive preview of their inteview with legendary actor Leonard Nimoy -- one in which he admits the title of his 1975 autobiography "I Am Not Spock" was a mistake:
“When I was 17,” Nimoy intones in his extraordinarily warm voice, “I made the decision that I wanted to be an actor, not only to entertain people but to offer some kind of enlightenment to help people understand their lives and the world we live in. Being involved with Star Trek has accomplished that with an exchange of ideas and enlightenment that I’m very proud of.”
Now 46 years into his close involvement with Gene Roddenberry’s seminal science fiction franchise, Nimoy has never had the love/hate relationship with the series that some of his fellow castmates have struggled with over the decades, regardless of what some may have heard or come to understand.
Nimoy explains, “I made a big mistake in the early ‘70s when I wrote my first book about my Star Trek experiences. I wrote a chapter in that book about how I was identified in an airport by a lady who introduced me to her child as Mr. Spock. This child looked at me and did not see Mr. Spock,” he chuckles. “So I wrote a chapter about the difference between myself and the character in an effort to give the readers some insight into how an actor goes about building a character. It’s partially from him or herself and it’s partially from using elements of other people we may know. I called that chapter, ‘I Am Not Spock,’ meaning simply that I’m an actor who portrays Spock and this is how I go about doing it.
“In the same book,” Nimoy continues, “I said if I was given a chance to identify with any character on television, I would choose Spock. I admire him, I like him and I respect him. I would rather be identified with Spock than any other character on television. But the mistake I made was in using that title, ‘I Am Not Spock,’ as the title of the book. People assumed I was rejecting Spock and Star Trek but they didn’t read the book. If you read the book, you’ll find quite the opposite.”
To read more of this exclusive Leonard Nimoy interview, check out the new issue of the official Star Trek Magazine issue #40, on-sale tomorrow!
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