William Shatner's Star Trek IV Behavior Forced Catherine Hicks To Stand Up For Herself
Thanks to William Shatner's camera-loving behavior, it didn't take phasers to stun actor Catherine Hicks on the set of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
In the 1986 sci-fi movie hit — directed by Spock actor Leonard Nimoy — Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise return home to San Francisco to find a humpback whale to transport to their current timeline. The mission is crucial since the humpback whale — a species that is extinct in the Enterprise crew's future — is the only creature capable of communicating with an alien race to avoid Earth's decimation. Hicks was a pivotal player in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home's" whale storyline since Kirk needed her character, marine mammal scientist Dr. Gillian Taylor, to achieve the difficult task of retrieving the humpback whale.
No matter how important Taylor was to the storyline, Hicks playfully recalled how Shatner tried to hog the spotlight during their scenes together. "I remember the fun, the kindness, just the kidding around, the joyfulness, and fighting for some close-ups, the tug of war with Bill (Shatner) for close-ups," Hicks recalled in a 2012 interview with StarTrek.com. "It taught me to stand up for myself."
The actor recalled being adamant with Nimoy about the way the movie was being lensed during her big on-camera moments. "I'd go to Leonard (Nimoy) and say, "This is MY shot. I need a single. I'm not going share the shot with Shatner," Hicks said. "He wanted to get in every shot, but you couldn't get mad at him because he was like a devilish brother."
Nimoy tutored Hicks on set about the history of Star Trek
Catherine Hicks' starring role opposite William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and their fellow co-stars on "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" was unique in that she knew nothing about the franchise before she auditioned to play Dr. Gillian Taylor. Luckily, Hicks' director also happened to be one of the major faces in the "Star Trek" movies and TV series, and she said he was more than game to tutor the actor on-set to bring her into the know.
"At my audition, Nimoy would keep stopping me and explain things," Hicks recalled for Star Trek.com. "I didn't rent all the episodes or movies before we started shooting. I just used my natural ignorance of 'Star Trek' [during filming], and it worked. I was in Disneyland. I didn't know what they were talking about. I didn't know the ear jokes. I didn't know what 'beaming up' meant. And I kept that."
Hicks also noted that Nimoy helped her become aware that special effects would be rendered in postproduction and told her not to stop shooting her scenes if she didn't feel the scene was playing out in her mind.
The film was a memorable experience for Hicks, as well as an accidental actor who mistakenly found her way onto the set. As such, "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" spawned an infamous extra story for fans about a one-time background artist, Layla Sarakalo, who ad-libbed a line during a brief scene with Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) and Walter Koenig (Chekov) on the streets of San Francisco.