The Star Trek legend William Shatner revealed at MEFCC that he would love to film in the UAE to celebrate the creation of a new motorbike he designed.
The actor is nothing if not eclectic. The original Captain Kirk (not to mention the star of 1980s police drama TJ Hooker) has a career that encompasses actor, musician and novelist – so the addition of bike designer to his CV should perhaps not be much of a surprise.
He plans to film a Chicago-to-Los Angeles road trip on his motorbike creation this summer – but there may be a more exotic adventure in the offing.
“I was reading a book about an explorer of the Empty Quarter here and it would make an interesting motorcycle ride,” says the 83 year old. “I’m taking a ride from Chicago to Los Angeles in the summer on the new bike I helped design, so it would be interesting to take that to these interesting stretches of road here.
“What I’m doing is lots of areas that I’d like to film and it could work in a desert country with its long stretches of roads.
“For example, I heard that until recently if you got caught on the road from here to Abu Dhabi, I heard you couldn’t get off. You had to go from here to Abu Dhabi, an hour and a half drive, before you could turn round. That’s my kind of road. I’d love to film that.”
Interesting as all this sounds, the reason most of the fans at the convention turned up to see Shatner was to hear him talk about Star Trek.
And he delighted them by confirming that he had been approached by J J Abrams about reprising his most role by making a cameo appearance as Captain Kirk in the latest, in production, Star Trek movie.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
