It may not be news to all of you. I have the feeling I've heard it and forgotten it before...
William Shatner resisted producer Harve Bennett’s pleas that he let go of his leading-man image for the 1982 science fiction film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The fifty-one-year-old actor was full of ideas that Bennett found objectionable. In the scene involving the death of Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, Shatner proposed that the extraterrestrial first officer should not be seen on camera; They should just show Bill as Admiral Kirk reacting to the loss. And why did the story have to focus on the aging former starship captain having a grown-up son? Bennett pointed out that some great film actors got older on screen. Who? “Well, uh, Spencer Tracy. You remind me of him.” Shatner smiled, backed off his demands and gave a mostly fine, understated performance. Later, Bennett found out that he lucked out with his answer; Shatner had worked alongside the aging Spencer Tracy in the 1961 ensemble courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg, and totally idolized him.
Extra: Thirty-seven-year-old director Nicholas Mayer used different methods to guide both his hero and villain through the 1982 movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Ricardo Montalbán (1920-2009), who played the genetically engineered super-bad guy Khan Noonien Singh, had initially been over the top when he delivered his dialogue. The nervous Mayer suggested to the twenty-five-years-older Ricardo that he’d tone it down; Khan was a madman, but many crazy people were soft-spoken and that made them even more dangerous. To his relief, Montalbán, who at the time was a huge TV star on Fantasy Island (1978-1984), was grateful for the input. The veteran actor displayed no ego and did exactly what his younger instructor asked of him. With William Shatner in the role of Khan’s sworn enemy Admiral James Kirk, Mayer’s approach was to let his leading man do several bombastic takes until he got tired and bored. Then finally Shatner would give the low key line reading that ended up in the finished film.