One former Star Trek cast member recalls William Shatner making the set fun to be on

Star Trek: The Original Series is the show that started it all. It featured a cast of characters so timeliness and so iconic, that we’re still seeing stories made with them. Whether it’s Strange New Worlds of the Kelvin Timeline of films, we can’t get enough of these iconic characters. Yet, while we’ve seen many of them be played by different people throughout the years, one of the reasons why the show and its legacy is still as profound as it is because of William Shatner. 

Shatner played James Kirk on the show and his reputation on set is almost as impressive as the show’s legacy. Many actors from the show, namely George Takei have commented on Shatner’s behavior over the years. They point out that he was difficult, and hard to work with and was often worried about how he came across on television. 

Not everyone, however, seems to think Shatner was a problem. Beverly Washburn had a small role on the show as Lieutenant Galway and had the distinction of being one of the youngest characters to die on the show at the time. It was one of her favorite roles she’d ever done, but in an interview with Star Trek.com, she would reveal one of the reasons she loved working on the show; Shatner and his acting antics. 

Speaking to the website she would go on to say;

""William Shatner was a very funny guy and he was just cracking up the whole time because they had him with his grey hair, starting to age. So he was doing all this funny shtick on the stage. It was a really lighthearted, fun set to be on and then we'd try to get right into the moment when we had to shoot it. People remember the scene, so I guess we did a good job of it.""

It’s rare that we hear about Shatner being a joy to work with from those early days, as most often we hear stories that don’t exactly paint the Canadian icon in a very positive light. It would be fantastic if we could hear more stories about Shatner being awesome from this time period but as most of the people who were on the show are now pushing their 80s and 90s, if they’re even still with us, it’s unlikely we’ll hear a lot of new stories come out about his time on the set. It’s one of the reasons why we’re highlighting this older story (first crossing our desk via SlashFilm), as we’d like to help show a full picture of what Shatner was like on set, good bad, or otherwise.