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William Shatner, 95, and George Takei, 89, Look Back at 60 Years of ‘Star Trek’
The actors reflect on the sci-fi show’s groundbreaking cast and human-centered stories
VIDEO: George Takei Reflects on 'Star Trek's Enduring Fandom
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Key takeaways
- Star Trek broke television barriers by featuring a diverse spaceship crew that worked together as equals.
- Fans revived the canceled series and helped turn it into a multigenerational franchise.
- Work, caregiving and aging gave William Shatner and George Takei new perspectives on success, gratitude and the show’s message.
Few television shows have lived as long, or traveled as far, as Star Trek.
When it premiered in 1966, the bridge of the USS Enterprise showed viewers something rare: an Asian man at the helm, a Black woman as its Swahili communications officer and a half-alien working beside them as a science officer. They were not visitors or outsiders. They belonged there.
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That vision helped Star Trek change television. The original series treated science fiction as a place for grownup stories about loyalty, courage, grief and the difficult choices people make. It gave actors who had often been confined to stereotypes the chance to play skilled professionals. It built a world broad enough to keep expanding for six decades.
William Shatner poses for a portrait in Los Angeles in 1984; he played Capt. James T. Kirk.
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William Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk, believes the show endured because the future was never its true subject.
“Although the background was futuristic, the foreground was what happens because you’re a human being,” Shatner, 95, tells AARP during an interview at GalaxyCon Richmond (Virginia) in March 2026. “And I think that was the key to Star Trek’s success.”
The original Star Trek premiered on Sept. 8, 1966. Sixty years later, the franchise includes films, animated series, streaming shows, novels, podcasts and conventions that draw fans who were not alive when the USS Enterprise first appeared on television.
A different kind of television cast
George Takei, who played helmsman Hikaru Sulu, saw something just as important when he first read for the role.
“It was the first time that I was being asked to portray a character that was fully developed,” Takei, 89, says. “It was a human being, not a cartoon or a stereotype.”
American television offered few substantial roles for Asian actors when Takei auditioned for Star Trek. The parts available to him were often narrow and familiar. Sulu was neither.
“This was an identifiable, sharp, intelligent member of a Starfleet team,” Takei says. “I desperately wanted to be a part of that show.”
Sulu sat at the helm of the Enterprise and helped carry out its missions. He had interests and ambition.
“I was proud to be cast as Sulu,” Takei says.
In a description accompanying a studio model of the Enterprise, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum characterizes the crew as an on-screen image of racial and gender integration, with men and women from different backgrounds working together as equals. The show did not stop to explain why those characters belonged there. They simply did.
A role that refused to disappear
Takei did not know that Sulu would remain a part of his life for six decades.
He remembers watching the first episode with his brother’s family in Milwaukee after promoting the show in Chicago. His newborn nephew slept through it on his lap. His sister-in-law said she did not follow science fiction. His brother offered a more practical review: “They paid you for that, huh? Well, that’s good.”
“It wasn’t an overwhelming smash debut,” Takei says.
The series ended after three seasons.
However, viewers kept finding the series after its original run. The characters returned in an animated show, then in feature films. Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced a new Enterprise crew in 1987. More series followed, each extending show creator Gene Roddenberry’s universe and introducing another generation of viewers to it.
“The fans who discovered it gave us this totally unexpected, undreamed-of longevity,” Takei says.
(From left) DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, James Doohan and George Takei in 1984’s “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” The original “Enterprise” crew helped turn a short-lived television series into one of entertainment’s most enduring franchises.
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A show handed down through generations
The audience aged with the actors and introduced Star Trek to younger viewers. The franchise expanded through a long run of spin-offs, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery.
“Star Trek is a family show,” Takei says. “Our most steady audience members are grandpas and grandmas.”
He calls the spin-offs of the original series “children and grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.”
“So it appeals to all the generations of our audience group,” he says. “Star Trek itself is living long and prospering.”
Shatner’s memories of the show have changed with time. The sets and costumes matter less than the people who shared them.
“My memory of Star Trek is filled with the lovely people in it,” he says. “Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, to name two. They were beautiful people that were good friends of mine, all dead now.”
Live long with gratitude
Shatner and Takei have both continued working well beyond an age when actors once expected opportunities to disappear.
Shatner has acted, recorded music, written books and traveled to space aboard a Blue Origin flight at age 90. His definition of success, he says, is fluid.
“The definition of success varies from moment to moment. Whatever it was, I was trying to be good at what I did. I don’t recall, like, I’ve got to be successful, but I’ve got to be good at what I’m doing,” he says.
Takei has built new chapters as an author — he wrote a graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy — stage performer and social media personality. He says longevity requires an ability to develop beyond the role that first made people know your name.
George Takei as Sulu in 1991’s “Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.” Takei’s portrayal of Sulu helped redefine Asian American representation on television.
Paramount Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo
“You have to be creative not just as an actor but as a person that’s developing your talents and passions,” he says.
Age has also changed his understanding of Star Trek’s most famous words: Live long and prosper.
Takei cared for his mother as her health declined. He remembers pushing her wheelchair around the block and playing a memory game recommended by her doctor. He would point out three things they passed, then ask her to recall them later.
At first, she remembered each one. Over time, she began to forget.
“Now I use a wheelchair,” Takei says. “That’s the cycle of life. She showed me how to live that portion of our lives.”
The experience gave him a new element to the Vulcan greeting he has repeated for most of his career.
“‘Live long and prosper’ should include gratitude,” Takei says. “Gratitude for the blessings we have.”
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