After moving into the public eye with Star Trek in 1966. celebrity / film collaborator William Shatner has gained a reputation for his "big" acting style. This reputation wasn't entirely earned, as Shatner rarely overdid the original Star Trek , usually playing Captain Kirk as buttoned-down, sane, and in control. More recent depictions of Kirk (specifically, as portrayed in the JJ Abrams Star Trek films) are inaccurate, portraying him as a reckless cowboy and a ruthless horndog. While Kirk did get in his share of punches on Star Trek and ripped off his share of beautiful female guest stars, he was never carefree or distractingly hot. Shatner's reputation for "overacting" is extrapolated from just a few carefully chosen moments throughout the series.

As such, when someone does a William Shatner impersonation, they. They tend. On. Say. Everyone. word. How. If. It is. Hers. Own. A sentence. Jim Carrey tricked Shatner this way on "In Living Color," and Seth MacFarlane, on his animated show "Family Guy," even added strange physical distortions to Shatner's performance. Kevin Pollack, a master impersonator, also made “Every. Single. Sentence". schtick. For Vanity Fair interviewShatner was asked to watch and rate impersonations of himself, and his overriding reaction was confusion. Shatner knows that he didn't speak that assertively or that haltingly, so why do so many comedians play him that way? For the record, Shatner rated MacFarlane, Pollack, and Carrey's impersonations quite low, though he allows these to be comic exaggerations.

However, in other interviews, Shatner has admitted that he does have a ... distinct ... acting style and one that can really be easily teased. Some of Shatner's signature pauses seem to be the result of the actor trying to infuse an element of naturalness into his character. Strangely, some saw Shatner's attempts at naturalness as a form of deliberate artificiality.

In 2003, William Shatner spoke with the AV Cluband the interviewer was tactful, asking Shatner if the pauses he sometimes inserted into Captain Kirk's dialogue on "Star Trek" were related to the character's thoughtfulness and sense of wonder. Shatner responded positively to the question, saying:

"Yes!" I would think so. It was actually Shatner's awe and wonder about what the next line was, but it came off as Kirk's, the character's hesitation to describe what he wanted to say or do because it was so exciting. It was so filled with the energy of what he was doing."

In the same interview, Shatner said that every actor has his own personal cadence — he called it "music" — that no impersonator can ever match. He also admitted that he was guilty of doing bad imitations himself. He once dined with Edward G. Robinson, an actor he once impersonated for comic effect. Robinson wondered why Shatner, and many others, said "mnyah mnyah, see?" in their imitations of him.

Shatner also explained a little more about his acting style the DVD commentary track for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where he essentially said that an actor needs to find a balance between nailing their lines and making them feel completely improvised. After all, real-life conversation isn't scripted. He admitted that taking multiple pauses throughout the scene was meant to make it look like Captain Kirk was thinking about what he wanted to say. The actor summed it up like this:

"There is a line between improvisation and having to say the words that are written. (The dialogue should go through) the progression of what needs to be done for the story. Moreover, there is an application of something else, some other reality."

Shatner more or less defines acting.

Shatner went on to define his craft in the "Journey Home" commentary, saying that lines should feel like running away outside of you. The dialogue, he said, should be as surprising to the characters as it is to the audience. Shatner's breaks and delivery are the means to accomplish that.

The actor developed his unique style while performing on stage as a young man, and an element of live stagecraft can be seen seeping into Shatner's on-screen performances. (He talked about developing the style in 2016 New York Post interview.)

But Shatner wants it known that much of the famous speech he gave on "Star Trek" was reserved for Captain Kirk. a role he hasn't played (canonically) in years. In real life, Shatner doesn't talk like that. He speaks naturally and expressively, just like all of us. A Shatner impersonation should, at best, capture the actor's natural overconfidence, his willingness to take over a room and, if we're being honest, the occasional tendency to ramble. Shatner, 93, recently spoke at a Star Trek convention and was full of energy and energy, happy to be on stage. He delightfully confronted the fans, asking them (playfully) to ask him interesting questions.

When someone asked Shatner what the next step in his career would be, the actor, without missing a beat, simply said, “To die!” He was 93 years old, he explained, and there was not one more act waiting for him in his career. It was not a depressing observation, but a comical matter of fact. If anyone wants to do an exact Shatner impersonation, go for it.