Up Till Now: The Autobiography

Generation in space. If I wanted to appear in the movie it would be to play his death scene. But whether I agreed to appear in the movie or not, Kirk was going to die.
    They also asked Leonard to appear in the film, but after reading the script he felt that Spock was not being treated with sufficient respect; he declined and Spock’s few lines were given to Scotty. After agreeing to put on my Kirk one last time I wondered how I was going to die. What would be the appropriate death for James T. Kirk? He certainly wasn’t going to die of old age or get run over by a rocket. I knew it was going to be heroic. So I read the first draft with considerable expectation.
    In the early drafts of the script Kirk took control of the Enterprise from Picard and flew it into combat against the Klingons—and died fighting for mankind at his station. Wow. That was certainly a noble way to go. But probably not exactly what Patrick Stewart had in mind. The later version that they decided to film had the mad scientist Dr. Tolian Soran, played by Malcolm McDowell, shooting him in the back with a phaser. That coward. Shot in the back?
    So that’s how Kirk dies, shot in the back. But the challenge became making it meaningful. As an actor I had died a hundred deaths. At first I’d played the cliché, my head would snap back and my eyes would close. But eventually I began to realize that’s not the way people die. People die differently, for different reasons in different ways. They die calmly and they die in the midst of a panic. They die peacefully or fighting. And as I did not yet know, they die at the bottom of a swimming pool. As an actor, I had choices. So I began spending considerable time wondering how Jim Kirk should die.
    Eventually I started focusing on an event that had happened about a year earlier. I had been riding a three-year-old saddlebred in the World Championships in Lexington. As I was coming back to the stable a golf cart was driving toward me. The golf cart spooked the horse, who reared into the air. As I started to roll off I made the mistake of grabbing hold of the reins, which pulled the horse toward me. I hit the ground and this large horse fell on the inside of my right leg, then rolled over on top of me. The horse got up, it was fine. People came running to help and I wanted to reassure them I was okay. I’m fine, I’m fine, I said. I tried to get up, and I couldn’t. I’m fine. I tried to get up again. And failed again. And all the while continuing to insist I wasn’t hurt.
    I kept telling them I wasn’t hurt even as they put me in the ambulance and rushed me to the Emergency Room. I didn’t want to be hurt. I could move my arms and legs, so I wasn’t crushed. I was sore but I wasn’t in terrible pain. But sometimes a serious injury doesn’t hurt. I refused to admit that I was hurt. I was okay, but for some reason I couldn’t stand up. It turned out that my leg was bruised badly from the groin to the knee and I’d torn some ligaments. Nothing that wouldn’t heal over time. But I remember that feeling of trying to get up, of wanting to get up, and falling down. So I decided that was how Jim Kirk would die. I would try to get up and fall down. Try it again and fall down—and gradually lose my strength and die. I thought that would be an appropriate way to express the indomitable will of this man who refused to go willingly into the dark night.
    Executive producer Rick Berman agreed. “Okay, that sounds dramatic. Let’s do it that way.”
    The night before we actually did the scene I tried to imagine the feelings I would have. I began imagining my own death. This was the first time in my career I’d ever done anything like this. I tried to look at it technically rather than emotionally. I drew on my experiences; I remembered being knocked unconscious. I also remembered fainting from putting too much cold beer in an overheated body. As you lose consciousness there is a moment when everything slows down; that horse falling on top of me slowed down. You are completely aware of everything that’s happening around you: oh my God, that horse is falling on me. Oh my God, I’m tied into this kayak and I’m turning upside down and I can’t get free and I can’t breathe. Oh my God, I’m in a stunt plane and I’m supposed to land and I can’t line up the runway. As you lose consciousness you first lose your peripheral vision, you get tunnel vision. You’re aware of what’s happening until the