{"id":12795,"date":"2015-03-04T16:40:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T00:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/?post_type=features&p=12795"},"modified":"2018-06-18T16:36:13","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T16:36:13","slug":"leonard-nimoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/leonard-nimoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonard Nimoy Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The zombie on the right in blue is Leonard Nimoy.<\/p><\/div>\n

MARCH 4, 2015 \u2022 Editor’s Note: Last weekend actor and director Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83. Like anyone who loved Star Trek and his character Mr. Spock, his passing leaves me somewhat sad. But I also have my own personal remembrances of the man. Twenty-odd years ago I had the opportunity to interview him several times. I found him to be affable, engaging and generous regarding off-the-topic questions about his early career in a Republic Pictures serial (see accompanying image) that I adored as a kid before there was a Star Trek. So as our own homage, following is the last Leonard Nimoy interview I conducted.<\/em><\/p>\n

Three Men and A Baby starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson as three successful bachelors who unexpectedly become three bemused godfathers, was one of 1988’s top money makers at the box office.\u00a0 The movie possesses a fine mix of humor and warmth, and bears the undeniable mark of its director, Leonard Nimoy.<\/p>\n

Given the enormous success and longevity of Star Trek, Nimoy is best known for his characterization of Mr. Spock.\u00a0 However, there’s a great deal more to Nimoy’s career than Mr. Spock.\u00a0 Nimoy’s work as an actor is both extremely diverse and accomplished, his recent work as director of Star Trek III, Star Trek IV and Three Men and A Baby shows every sign of carrying on the same tradition.\u00a0 When you meet the man, it’s easy to see why.\u00a0 Fueled by enormous drive and energy, yet tempered with a decidedly humane view of people and his art, Nimoy loves what he does and also enjoys taking on new challenges.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 From what I’ve read, you didn’t have a lot of lead time before you signed on to direct Three Men and A Baby.\u00a0 When did you actually start working on the project?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0I don’t remember the exact date, but it was about five weeks before we started shooting \u2212 very fast.\u00a0 The three actors were already cast, the set was already under construction and there had already been a search for the babies.\u00a0 There were about twenty sets of twins on videotape.\u00a0 I looked at the twenty sets and chose the babies.<\/p>\n

We spent two weeks \u2013\u00a0the actors, the producer, myself and the writers\u00a0\u2013 everyday in Toronto just before we started shooting. \u00a0It was very hard and very tiring.\u00a0 That was the toughest part of the whole job, the work on the script\u00a0to make it what I thought it should be for our audience.\u00a0 Once we started shooting we had a good time.<\/p>\n

Never easy making a movie.\u00a0 Some movies are harder than others.\u00a0 This one was not the hardest I’ve done, but I think we had a good time doing it.\u00a0 The actors were very good, the babies were wonderful.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 Both Star Trek III and IV are science fiction, and based upon your close association with Star Trek, it makes sense that you would direct them.\u00a0 Why do you think you were approached to do this film, a comedy?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0The people at Disney who hired me for this film are the same people who hired me for Star Trek.\u00a0 They were at Paramount when I was making the Star Trek films.\u00a0 In Star Trek IV, they felt I had enough humor that I could do this film.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 What particular talents do you think are required to be a director?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0There are different kinds of directors.\u00a0 There are some directors who are extremely technically oriented who have a great sense of editing, camera, design, composition and really use actors as a piece that’s to be moved about here and there.\u00a0 I’m very actor-oriented because of my background.\u00a0 I believe very strongly that the actor is the person who has to give you the humanity of the film and I want to make films which are in touch with humanity.\u00a0 I think my greatest strength is my ability to appreciate what an actor does and how to help the actor do it.\u00a0 If an actor is having a problem, I think I know how to help.\u00a0 I think I understand the problem and I can make it easier for the actor to do the job properly.<\/p>\n

There are directors who don’t like actors, there really are.\u00a0 Actors ask questions and some directors don’t want to be asked questions.\u00a0 They just want to tell people what to do and they don’t want an actor saying, “why can’t I do it this way.” \u00a0I worked for Otto Preminger \u2013\u00a0he didn’t like actors very much.\u00a0 He really wanted people to simply do what they were told.\u00a0 And sometimes you need that but very often actors can make a contribution if you let ’em.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 How about your actors in Three Men and A Baby?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0These are very disciplined, experienced guys… very helpful guys. \u00a0They come to work prepared every day, serious about their work… very serious about their work.\u00a0 Comedy yes, but serious about doing it right, and funny and imaginative… I had no problem with them.\u00a0 I enjoyed them a lot.\u00a0 I felt my job mostly was helping them to make choices.\u00a0 They’d bring in ideas and they’d say, “how about if I do this, or how about if I do that?” \u00a0I’d say okay, I don’t think that works, but this over here works.\u00a0 Many of the ideas in the film came from the actors and it was very helpful.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 How much emphasis do you place on rehearsals to develop these ideas?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0As much as is necessary and not a bit more.\u00a0 I believe that there is certain amount of spontaneity that can get lost with too much rehearsal.\u00a0 You start out to put a scene together and it may be immediately ready and you say fine, roll the camera, we’re going for a take now.\u00a0 If it’s there on the first take, that’s it, I’ve got it.\u00a0 I don’t 20, 30 takes ever.\u00a0 If I haven’t got it by the the 10th take, we have a technical problem somewhere.\u00a0 And I print very little \u2013\u00a0one or two takes.\u00a0 Especially working with the babies.\u00a0 You bring in this human being that’s going to do whatever she wants to do, and you roll the camera and you’re looking for opportunity \u2013\u00a0looking for successful accidents in a way.\u00a0 When you’ve got it, you print it.\u00a0 I like to get momentum going, I hate lethargy on the set.<\/p>\n

GTC: \u00a0How would you compare your new career as a director with all your years as an actor?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Nimoy: \u00a0It’s very exciting, very rewarding and very unexpected.\u00a0 I have been doing some directing, off and on, for a long time.\u00a0 I started directing in the theater in the ’50s, some television in the ’70s.\u00a0 I didn’t really focus on directing because I was having a good time as an actor.\u00a0 It’s kind of accidental.\u00a0 When we finished with Star Trek II, when Spock died, I thought I was finished with Star Trek.\u00a0 They called me and asked me if I wanted to be involved with Star Trek III, and I thought, well, maybe it’s time I started directing.\u00a0 So I said I’d direct the movie.\u00a0 Before Star Trek III even opened, they called me and asked me to make Star Trek IV.\u00a0 By the time that was finished I was getting offers from other companies.\u00a0 And suddenly, I got a couple of hits.<\/p>\n

In the early ’60s I was teaching acting classes and I was intending to be a director.\u00a0 I was in a directing training program at MGM in ’63-’64, and suddenly the Star Trek series sold and that was gone \u2013\u00a0acting… busy acting.\u00a0 I’m just really coming back to what I was doing 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 If you always yearned to direct, how did you get started as an actor?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0I started when I was eight years old, accidentally, really.\u00a0 I was hanging out at a community settlement house in Boston, the place where I used to spend afternoons after school.\u00a0 They had classes in crafts and stuff like that.\u00a0 They would teach you how to make a kite or they would teach you how to play basketball.\u00a0 One day somebody said go in that room and sing a song and I was in Hansel & Gretel.\u00a0 I kept on doing children’s theatre until I was perhaps 17 or 18, then I started doing adult theater.\u00a0 By the time I was 18 I decided this is what I wanted to do and I left home for California.\u00a0 It was very hard.\u00a0 I bummed around for a long time.\u00a0 I was in a movie about a year after I arrived and I did a lead in a movie about a year that.\u00a0 That happened pretty fast, then I went away into the army for a couple of years, came back and had a couple of kids and I was driving a taxi in 1956 to support a family.<\/p>\n

GTC: \u00a0With all of your years of experience, did you expect Three Men and A Baby would be such a huge success?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0While we were making this picture, I did feel that this had the potential of being a greatly satisfying film for an audience \u2013\u00a0that an audience could really enjoy this movie.\u00a0 It’s charming, it’s adorable, it’s funny, it’s touching and I thought this could be a very successful commercial crowd-pleasing movie.<\/p>\n

GTC:\u00a0 Do you think you’ll ever go back to acting?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Nimoy: \u00a0Oh yeah.\u00a0 Got a job for me?<\/p>\n

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MARCH 4, 2015 \u2022 Editor’s Note: Last weekend actor and director Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83. Like anyone who loved Star Trek and his character Mr. Spock, his passing leaves me somewhat sad. But I also have my own personal remembrances of the man. Twenty-odd years ago I had the opportunity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[94],"tags":[95,451],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12795"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15983,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12795\/revisions\/15983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dfcint.com\/dossier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}