003 Sonorous Actor Transcript (Leonard Nimoy)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Michael: This person died in 2015 at the age of 83. It's a man. He died in stage obstructive pulmonary disease after years of smoking, which he'd given up 30 years earlier.

Miles: Okay. So we have a chronic smoker. That's really all I'm getting from that clue. That's not a lot to go on.

Michael: All right. His artistic pursuits included poetry, photography, and music. In addition to acting.

Miles: Uh, okay, so he's an actor. So we got kind of a Renaissance man thinking going on

Michael: very much. So, uh, do you want to take a wild stab and hood might be,

Miles: I got nothing right now.

Michael: Okay. He had a starring role in the dramatic television series, mission impossible and frequently performed onstage notably as Tevye.

Fiddler on the roof. He played Tevye in fiddler on the roof.

Miles: The only person I can think of would be the guy I can't pronounce his name. I think it's a tote from the movie Fiddler on the roof. That's all I've got. Right.

Michael: Okay. Not at this is a wildly misleading clue. In 1970, he released a country album, which featured among other songs, a cover of Johnny caches. I walk the line

Miles: and you said not how it flow.

Michael: The problem is any clue. That's a little bit helpful is a dead giveaway here.

Miles: Is it west Craven?

Michael: No, but actually not a bad guess. Given how unhelpful all these clues are. Okay, this is probably going to give it away. He wrote two autobiographies. The first published in 1975 was called. I am not Spock b one.

Miles: The only the all-time great Leonard.

Meanwhile,

Michael: today's dead guest is Leonard Nimoy. As long as.

welcome to famous and gravy a conversation about what really matters in life. One dead celebrity at a time, Michael Osborne.

Amit: And my name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: through a series of questions about a famous person's inner and outer life. We want to figure out the things that. That we actually desire. And ultimately we answered the big question.

Would you want their life

today? Leonard Nimoy died 2015 age 83. We're going to begin with the first line of Leonard name on his obituary.

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous gaunt faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human alien, first officer of the star ship enterprise and the television and movie juggler, not star Trek died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel air section of Los Angeles.

Amit your reaction did the first line of litter noise arbitrary. It's great. But what does sonorous song like? I would assume I never thought of him that way as saunas. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It does direct attention to his vocal qualities. I don't, he's got an excellent voice. I mean, this will come up in a later category, but he's got an excellent voice,

I guess.

And God's faced is that

it's a little uncertain. Gaunt faced. It's descriptive. It's not wrong. Is it enact?

Amit: It's extremely accurate, but it's just sort of negative. I

Michael: don't know. You can be gaunt and handsome can't you you're right. It has a negative connotation.

Amit: What it just means long and thin. That's

Michael: what I

Amit: think of when I hear the word gaunt.

Yeah, but I kind of picture the zombie. Of the cheeks. Yeah. Yeah. Which I guess he did kind of

Michael: have, I feel like it's pretty on the money. Like I would describe his face as gone, whether it's an insult or not, it's accurate. And I feel like that's what matters most in these

Amit: memories. And that was off the bat.

I mean, they came back with warship, bold juggernaut, those types of things. They did a good service scale of one to 10,

Michael: eight. Oh yeah. Okay. That feels about right. All right. Okay. Well, let's get to the cat. So the first question is

five things I love about you. Amit what are five things you love about?

Leonard Nimoy

Amit: Number one, I think by a long shot was that he directed three men and a baby. I just, I didn't know that prior to researching this show and I loved that movie and I loved that. He directed it. He also directed several of the star Trek movies and then directs three men and a baby.

Michael: So you. I love that movie.

Have you seen three men and a baby recently?

Amit: No. I mean, I loved it twenty-five years ago

when it came out.

I don't think I want to rewatch it

Michael: for that reason.

I do wonder about its shelf life. If it still holds up, I'd have a hard time imagining it hell of a cast though.

Amit: Yeah. Gutenberg, Danson

and

Tom Selleck.

Yeah.

Michael: And there is something really nice about picturing Leonard Nimoy hanging out with those three guys in 1987 whatever it was. Yeah. Yeah. All

right.

Amit: I put that he was in the army. He was in the army reserves in the early fifties did a year and a half. I always liked that piece of history in any way.

Can

Michael: I add to that number too? Cause I liked that, but I liked even more than that. Did you get into some of the odd jobs he had growing up? I saw some of them they're sort of extraordinary. He was a cab driver. He was. Pet shop. He sold the vacuum cleaners. This guy was saying yes to every want ad in the newspapers.

Then somewhere along the way was in the army. How about the three

Amit: that he created the Vulcan salute that is so well known on the star Trek that accompanies live long and prosper. I would assume something like that came from a writer's room, but it came from him and I learned it was inspired actually, by the way, Jewish priests hold their hands.

When they give up.

Michael: I didn't find that part. Wow. That's interesting because he was Jewish.

Amit: He was Jewish and he was, yeah, it was a big part of his life. I actually

Michael: had that one as well. Okay. Number four

Amit: was that he was a stage actor and specifically he played Randy McMurphy and one flew over the Cuckoo's nest a year before Jack

Michael: Nicholson did, I would have loved to have seen that performance Leonard Nimoy and one flew over the Cuckoo's nest.

It sounds kind of intense. Can I, I'm going to do another, take number five. Her know, I want to just add onto your number five. It wasn't just that he was also a stage actor. I really liked this guy had an artist's life. He did photography. He had like a big exhibit somewhere in Massachusetts. He was right.

He, you mentioned the directing and then his music career career is probably a generous term, but he hadn't several albums and even did a cover of, I walked the line, Johnny Cash because your mind, I walked the line, he's got a great voice, but this is somebody who's got creative energy. That's going into a lot of different places.

So I love that he was a stage actor, but even more than that, I love that he. All these creative endeavors. And it does seem like kind of an artsy kind of guy, you know, like hanging out with him. There's, there's sort of the vibe, the creativity, which is cool. All right. Number five. What do you got

Amit: like that?

He and William Shatner, his CoStar were seemingly actually best friends that they became best friends on the show and had this 50 year enduring friendship that they described, like a bird.

Michael: Yeah, it sounded like it had some ups and downs in places, but it does get referenced a lot, which I found surprising because my understanding of Shatner.

So this guy is not an easy personality. Like he's not somebody easy to hang out with. I

Amit: have no understanding of shatter. I

Michael: don't know where I picked that up, but I feel like I've heard. He's not an easy hang and maybe I'm wrong about that, but that, that he and Nimoy were actually friends. There's something really sweet about that as he still around shatter.

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Shatner is still with us. He had some very heartwarming tweets in 2015 when Linda Nimo died, I would imagine. Yeah. Well, that's a great list. The only one that's not sort of somewhere on there, he did mention at one point that he learned to be a supporting actor as a result of being a second.

That he was not the oldest in his family. And so at some point he discovered I'm not going to be a lead man and made peace with that in his acting career. His method for getting used to that idea was that he had an older brother. There's something about that sort of acceptance of, cause I think that's gotta be a hard thing for an actor.

If you come to a place where it's like, I thought I was a leading performer. Where my value is in the acting market is support. I dunno, it isn't that kind of a hard thing to make peace with the,

Amit: as it, like you said, it's an admirable thing because there's so much self-awareness behind it. Yeah.

Michael: There's a lot to love about this guy.

There's a lot to love about Leonard anymore. Okay. Let's go on to question two. Malcovich Malcovich. This is named for the movie being John Malcovich in which there's a secret portal. That'll take you to a front row seat of this person's experiences. If you are going to be Leonard Nimoy at some point, is there a moment that strikes your fancy, that has your curiosity?

Yeah.

Amit: What I'd like to see from behind his eyes is a very early star Trek convention. I think the first one I read was 1972. So let's call it like the second one, because we know a lot about his life afterwards, that there was a lot of identity confusion and things like that. But I just want to know what that feels like and what that looks like that.

You've created a character and you have people amassing and traveling and devoting many of them, their lives around a character that.

Michael: That's a really good one. So in other words, the star Trek convention, where you for the first time realize the, for want of a better term fanaticism around the show and around, and even around your character specifically that you might've heard about that.

There might've been fan mail. There might've been people on the street, but at a convention. They are all there for that

Amit: purpose and makes it much more real. Cause it's like, I'm not only an entertainer. I've got a little more of a responsibility. And was this intentional and do I want this

Michael: and how do I handle that?

And what do I do? Yeah. What an intense moment to like, sort of see, like, I don't know what other points of comparison there would have been. Beatlemania strikes me as sort of similar. Fans out of their mind screaming their heads off and going to star Trek. It's not quite that necessarily, but there is a, a level of devoted ism or, yeah, that's the word I was looking for was devotional.

Devotional. Yeah. It's incredible. Actually, this is a good point to pause and ask. What's your relationship to start. Almost

Amit: none. I watched the movies, I think, as a kid, the first run movies, I think occasionally I watched the series, the black and white series on reruns, the

Michael: original, the original. It's not even black and white.

That's how, that's how that's how

Amit: close I was doing. And it stopped at that. I think I was entertained somewhat by it, but don't know that much about it.

Michael: What about you almost no relationship to the original series? I do remember seeing, I think it was. Star Trek four. It might've been five in the theaters, but I didn't really understand the backstory or the universe.

However, I mean, if you judge it by other Trekkies, I'm pretty far down the list in terms of my fandom, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about next generation. TNG is the, he say I got into it in high school, by the way, star Trek next generation holds up remarkably. Well, it has some real true utopian elements.

And you may be, you know, this about the show, but there is a way in which the future that's portrayed in star track is such a. Logical extension of the hopeful future that emerges in the 1960s and seventies. And that's not just like sort of politically progressive, but it's like the things that matter to us and the way we should organize and the way we should demonstrate leadership and the way we should deal with conflicts and resolve them.

One of the reasons there is such devotion to the star Trek universe is because of the. The moral center created by gene Roddenberry and then extended on in the, in the other iterations that, and then I think both the original and next generation are extraordinarily well cast. I think that there's a richness of character and a fellowship and friendship and respect.

That's just great. It's great. I really encourage you to get into next

Amit: generation. I've heard that and people say it all the time and I believe that. Whose opinions I hold dear. There's a Saifai chasms that I, I have trouble crossing chiasm or chasm. It's a Saifai chasm. Okay. Hi-Fi chasm. It's

Michael: a, yeah, that wouldn't be, there's a scifi

Amit: cousin for you.

Yeah. There's this Hi-Fi chasm. So what is your Malcovich moment? Hi

Michael: to that. I really struggled. So one thing that there are some pretty good accounts of is that Linda anymore identifies as an alcoholic. And he, at some point goes to rehab. It sounds like in the late eighties, and I don't know if he ever went into a 12 step program, but if he ever went into the rooms of AA and said, I'm Leonard Moines, and I'm an alcoholic just to be in that room and think fucking Spock, he's an alcoholic I would have wanted to have been in the room for that.

Let me give you my other Malcovich moment when he was a cab driver. I don't know if you came across this story. I didn't find cab driver. He was a cab driver in Massachusetts and gave a ride to Senator John F. Kennedy before he was president and Kennedy stiff. You ran out on the fair on the whole

Amit: thing, not just the tech.

Michael: So my Malcovich moment would have been Kennedy's election. And what year was it? It was in the late fifties. Must've been because Kennedy is elected 1916. And assassinated in 63. So I think Kennedy's election, you know, for Linden neighborhood, just like the whole country is looking at this, you know, youthful Senator from Massachusetts.

And this is the beginning of the 1960s. And he he's thinking that son of a bitch stiff me on cab

Amit: three

Michael: dots. Exactly. I like the conflicting emotions. And the other thing is Naima is fairly active in democratic politics. So I have to assume he supported him despite that. Okay. Under the next question. Are there any divorces?

If so, how many? And is there anything else? What'd he got

Amit: two marriages first, 1 32 years. The second one, two years after that, that lasted until

Michael: his death. Yeah. The first marriage was the one that produced children. Yep. Second marriage. Did you catch that? But a trivia

Amit: Susan bay, the cousin of Michael

Michael: bay, cousin of Michael bay, Hollywood seems like a small place sometime.

Anything to draw from the one long ultimately failed marriage and then a second marriage sort of conclusion. I mean, what, this is always a tough category for us because the data is important. Do you come across somebody who's at four or five marriages, then it's pretty clear that they struggled in their love life.

Nemours divorce comes around the time of three men and a baby. And around the time that he goes into rehab and then he marries remarries two years later. So it does seem like there is a. Going on with him at that moment in time in the late eighties star Trek, the movies, I think begun to conclude you may have a directing career coming about, but a marriage was falling apart.

And yet he also has, I mean, three men in a baby apart from being a chuckle to remember was a box office smash, like it was incredibly successful and did afford him new opportunity. So with all of that, what are we to make of the divorce?

Amit: It seems like a lot of things could have been converging at his time, both sort of creatively, internally and abuse wise.

But I think he could have been becoming a different person than he thought he was, which I think is great in terms of growth, but it never sits well with me that a marriage ends after 32 years. Never sits well with

Michael: me. Yeah. I kind of know what you mean. If a marriage last multiple decades, my inclination is to say, it seems like these two people really probably must've known much earlier.

Then when they divorced that this was a marriage that they both needed to not be in, whether they both reached that conclusion or not. So is that kind of where you're going with a marriage the last 32 years and then instant divorce? That's

Amit: I think that's where my concern is. Is that, how long did you sit with it?

How long was there suppression? Was it not coming out that you were doing it for other people's sake and maybe that's not true, but that's. Concern lies. Just questions. Yeah. When I hear friends, you know, speculate about other friends or people we know and they talk about, oh, I bet you that couple doesn't last.

After the kids go to college, that scares the hell out of me about what you have to go through until.

Michael: Yeah, I agree. It creates some pause, but the fact that he also remarried and stayed, remarried up until death, I'm sort of like the first marriage gives me some pause and raises questions for me. The second.

I think warms my heart probably. Right. It feels like without any other information, my guess is that it was a good second decision, you know? Yeah. The

Amit: end of the story sounds great. I just don't know, but people should change. Everything changes everything's impermanent. So it should be totally okay. That you go through a transformation that leads to a different life, but there's so many other parties involved.

Including children, friends, but most importantly, your own internalization,

Michael: let's go on to the next question. Net worth. What did you find? This was a question

Amit: for, I saw 45 million. That's what I saw. Holy shit. Right? You've got to believe the amount of franchising and merchandising or whatever that he must have had some pizza of, plus the many iterations of the movie, all of which he was seemingly involved in in some

way.

Michael: But there's a world in which she doesn't capitalize on that. Like he gets that 45 million because he was wise enough to negotiate for

Amit: it. Yeah. And he seems smart. Am I giving him smart credit? Just because his spark or was he actually a smart. I have a

Michael: hard time imagining a performer that isn't smart, but that can perform smart.

Very good point. I feel like to bring the kind of hyper rationality and intellect that we come to associate with Spock. That's gotta be. So, yes, my inclination is he's bright.

Amit: So with that some smart business making decisions.

Michael: Well, and the articles I read about this in my research has said that he was actually somewhat ruthless in terms of negotiating for some of the profit sharing as the franchise comes into film and expands so much so that I think he had some real heated arguments with gene Roddenberry, the Korean.

The other thing is that my understanding of the star Trek history. So first there's a pilot and that pilot is rejected, but there was enough of a reception with the executives that they said do another pilot. So they come back and mostly recast the show for the second pilot of the original star Trek.

And he's one of the very few holdovers who was on both the first and the second pilot. The show gets the green light. It goes for three or four years, but it is not performed well at. It is not a success. Then it goes into syndication and it's on reruns while it's in reruns in the late sixties and early seventies.

That's when the devoted fan base begins to emerge and people are sort of nutso around this show. And so at that point, thought about bringing back the TV show and then they decided to do it as feature length films. I think somewhere in there is where Nimoy gets pretty ruthless about. Uh, negotiating for profit sharing and for franchise rights or whatever, with Spock, like I'm not going to participate in these movies unless I'm able to get a cut.

So I think the other thing though, and I don't know when this happens, I think it's in that early seventies period. But in that period, I think is when. And the fandom is beginning to emerge. It's also very clear that Spock is perhaps the most beloved character, like more so than captain Kirk. And I think there's got to be some recognition on Namely's part.

Obviously, if he dies with a net worth of 45 million, I think pretty good about it.

Amit: That's immense wealth, that's generational wealth. And I think kind of rare for somebody that came about in that.

Michael: Any other conclusions to draw from that number? I mean, that is generational wealth for me, that crosses a threshold of uncomfortable wealth, but I'm also like sort of happy for Leonard de Moines for Spock for.

Milked this baby for all it's worth. You know, if you're going to create one of the most iconic TV characters of all time, you know, you won't fucking pay out for that. Yeah. If I had seen 15 million or if I had seen even 10 million, I would have said great. I don't want to say it feels too high. It's just, it's more than I expected.

Yeah. But

Amit: what we said about the devotion, I think there should be additional compensate. Yeah, for the amount of extra analogies around that franchise and that character, it should be an excess. I think of other people that just played a character on TV that entertained people.

Michael: I agree with that, but I also think that this gets back to your chest.

I think the importance is that this is the kind of thing that can only happen in science fiction. Maybe not only in science fiction, but science fiction enables a kind of imagining of different, better, more extreme versions of humanity. And Spock is not human. Who's half Vulcan, but because of.

Imaginative exercise of a science fiction character. Like that's how he's able to be even more important and transcendent. Maybe it was a better word. Yeah.

Amit: And science fiction and religion have a whole lot of overlap. If you bring it back to money, that's, there's going to be a lot more money flowing into that when you get into beliefs rather than just liking that's a great

Michael: point.

All right. Question five Simpsons, SNL and or Hollywood walk of fame. For

Amit: some reason I knew what the question was, but I thought you were going to say Hollywood squares and that made me laugh. Um, I'll take these one. I know he has a Hollywood walk of fame. I saw that in the entry and it just fits

Michael: all the criteria for that.

I'll take the next one. I knew he was on the Simpsons and I had forgotten that he's in the monorail episode, which is one of the all time. This is one

Amit: of the best yeah. As himself,

Michael: actually that I don't remember. Cause he was on the Simpsons three times and one of the. I'm pretty sure was a Halloween special.

I know he does appear as himself. I think he's as himself in the monorail episode, I'm a little disappointed that I can't actually remember, but yeah, he's, he's all over the Simpsons. Well, my work is done here. Your work is done. Didn't I.

And then finally Saturday night live what'd you get? I didn't see it.

Amit: Certainly star Trek came up a lot on site, right live. I couldn't find whether he was actually on it or not.

Michael: What I found is that he does have a cameo and I think it's around the time that there's a reboot of the original star Trek. 20 teens with the JJ Abrams backed movies.

And there's a kind of like handing over that happens where Leonard Nimoy appears in the movie and has a conversation with a younger version of himself played by the younger actor. I think they did a segment on that. Turn alive. So he appears as a cameo and certainly there's references, but he never hosted Saturday night live.

I saw. Yeah. And

Amit: the pop cultural overlaps of star Trek, RMS it's shown up in tons and tons of places and TV shows. So his validation in this category, He blows it out

Michael: of the water. Yeah. I would say he's also benefits from a unique name. Leonard Nimoy is a really like, it has a rolls off the tongue in a nice way.

And I would also say one other sort of mark for fame for me here is the fact that you know who he is and who the character is while having very little relation. To the source material. It's almost like Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Like you don't necessarily need to be watching the NBA to know that these are next level superstar, extraordinary athletes.

Amit: Yeah. Without being an action hero or a comedy superstar, which are those types of things that I think we associate with the superheroes of entertainment. Yes.

Michael: Okay. We've reached. Second half of our show where we aren't going to try and ask some questions that get more at the inner life what's going on inside as best we can.

Infer question number one, man, in the mirror, did he like his reflection? I said yes.

Amit: And the reason I say is his smile. It looks authentic, it looks satisfied. And it looks like he's had some good

Michael: times in front of a mirror. I basically had the same reaction. Pretty sure he likes his own reflection. It is worth saying that he does play with his appearance.

Some there's a mustache that comes and go. When he covers Johnny Cash, the album cover, he's got some pretty serious sideburns and looks to be wearing a kind of country pop button shirt. So I, you know, whenever I see an actor doing that, sort of experimenting with their appearance, I wonder a little bit, but actually I think that the more I think on that, that's a stupid thought because I think actors are always playing around with their appearance and plus this man is struggling with his relationship to Spock.

So I agree. I think he likes.

Amit: Yeah, you have to, because it's one of those looks that you can't change too much with hairstyle and close the frame and the diamond shape head. You either don't like yourself or you kind of really like it. And he seems to be in the really like it category seems

Michael: very comfortable in his skin.

I want

to

Amit: add to this. He also looks like his name. Hmm.

Michael: That's a good call.

Amit: I like that. I named a dog in the last two weeks and I've been wondering. Will the dog look like the name and Leonard Nimoy as parents, or if you want to go wherever up to the family tree, the first name and the last name.

Michael: Good call on that.

All right. This one's always pretty quick outgoing message. Did he record the message on his cell phone or his home answering machine? Your thoughts?

Amit: I just said, no. I think his voice was great and fine, but what we saw in his self identification problems with the separation between Spock and himself, to me that comes out when you hear your own voice a lot more than it does in the mirror.

And. My gut instinct is no, that he didn't like hearing his own voice. It's not that he didn't like his voice. He didn't like. I think

Michael: that's a really compelling argument. I mean, I wrote, yeah, he liked it. And part of it was that he did voiceover work things beyond star Trek here and there, but you're also very right about how word choice and inflection and kind of the beat of how he talked was so specific.

And you do have to wonder if when he hears that he is thinking. That's a really good

Amit: call on it. Yeah. When you're so singularly associated with playing a character for as long as he did as important of a character as it was that had this devotion and to a lot of people, there was trouble separating the man from the character and that character reads from a script all the time.

I just think you don't want to hear yourself. Outside of your own natural ears in conversation.

Michael: What a weird thought though. Cause you can't escape it either, but when you hear it, you do have a third person

Amit: experience. You can't escape it, but you can choose not to where you have choices to make, you know, just like a practice of meditation.

You can choose your thoughts. No different of you perfectly have an option of whether to allow the prerecorded message on your answering machine or to put your own. And that's what I think he would have done. At least if I were playing the character of Leonard Nimoy with everything, I know I wouldn't want to

Michael: good answer.

I mean, how he actually felt is a little bit beside the point how he might have felt and the argument for how he might've felt. Important about your answer there. Yeah. And that's, what's

Amit: going on. It's a provable fact. Somebody can say, oh yeah, I used to call Leonard anymore all the time. And he recorded his voice.

But the point is knowing what we know about him would that type of person or that type of soul, want to hear them?

Michael: So, this is a great segue into our next question. Regrets, public or private. This is I think pretty clearly where we're going to get into his relationship to Spock. Do you want to lead us off here?

I've got several thoughts, but you

Amit: brought up earlier. Do we want to talk about the autobiographies? And this is where I had it because he wrote two autobiographies. I think they were about tennis years apart,

Michael: 2020 apartments.

Amit: The first call to, I am not Spock the second call to I am

Michael: Spock. I am not Spock 1975.

I am Spock I think, around 1995. Okay.

Amit: Okay. If we just frame around the first one, there was a lot of identity crisis. We think behind it, playing this character for so often, and it being difficult to separate who you are from who you're playing.

Michael: I don't even think we think we know we're not even speculating.

I mean, he is fairly open about. So there's several things about that first autobiography. I am not Spock. Apparently the title is misleading. It is not a book about him saying I am not Spock necessarily, but it is certainly a book about his own identity assertion and the structure of the book. Apparently.

Is one where he is in dialogue with a character. So Leonard says a line Spock responds, Spock says the line Leonard responds, right? That was the format of this autobiography, the titles themselves. I mean, obviously he would have titled the second one. I am Spock more at night. The first book that's called, I am not Spock.

And his ability to discuss in a public forum, his conflicted relationship with the character certainly qualifies it as a kind of regret. But what exactly is the regret? Because one of the quotes I found I'll read this to, you says I definitely went through an identity crisis. The question was whether to embrace Mr.

Spock or to fight the onslaught of public interest. I realized now that I really had no choice in that. Spock in star Trek, we're very much alive. And there wasn't anything that I could do to change that. So he's powerless over this. So how has it a regret? Like what the fuck is he going to do? You know,

Amit: the regret is not maintaining a balance that led to that point or that crisis or that sort of self

Michael: torture.

Wouldn't inevitable though. I just don't know if you have that kind of experience where you create a character that is. So revered so important. So valorized, so talked about and discussed and where the public emotions around what this character represents are so, so much bigger than you. Aren't you going to have a conflict there?

I don't see how you go through life any other way. If that happens, I mean, it's a unique thing to happen to a character actor, and he's not the only one, but I do think he's maybe one of the shiniest examples in terms of being able to divorce the actor from the.

Amit: Yeah, you can do a walkaway. You can do a sabbatical, you can do a reclusion something like JD Salander, but I think what's very difficult about what we've been talking about, about the importance of Spock.

Cause it was, it was really personal to a lot of people. It's very different from JD Salinger, not writing another mass released novel. It's very different because you have almost this religious following. And so you can't do that. So maybe there's a regret in not having. Balance, but maybe later on, it's an acknowledgement of never having that choice in the

Michael: matter.

Yeah. That's what I think the court I read was sort of getting at.

Amit: You can only understand that with hindsight, if in 1975, you know, the show's only run once the movies haven't happened, but you are still had a couple of conventions and you've got this following. You don't really know how much you are doing this because.

Of the importance to other people. You just think that you didn't do a good job in maintaining a balanced and separating here.

Michael: I mean, but what's confusing about that though, too, is the devotion to the character is also a recognition of just how good you did performing the character, right. That you did.

Something to life that only existed on the page before. And so it is both something that you may feel conflicted about, but it's also in some ways, at least a partial recognition of your talent as an actor.

Amit: It's so it's hard though, to feel like shit when you are doing so good. And that's what makes it really hard, I think because it's like this extraordinary reception and acknowledgement of how good of an actor and how good you played this character yet you are conflicted and the whirlwind around that and how the tornado that confused inside of your head.

Regrets certainly come up. I mean, it certainly seems like he resolved them, but that doesn't make the ride any less painful or the regrets at the

Michael: time. Sure. No, I have no doubt that between 1970 and 1995, there were moments when Leonard named moisten himself, I wished I'd never played that fucking character where he feels.

Boxton or hamstrung or limited. I did listen to an interview that he gave when I am Spock came out. It was a very short 16 minute interview. And he clearly did the work of coming to have a lot of gratitude and a lot of recognition for. This was a good thing that happened to me. I'm honored by the fans.

If somebody throws me the Vulcan salute on the street, I'm going to throw it right back, live long and prosper. I will say that to my fans. I want to maintain my privacy and I have a way of achieving that, but this was a net positive in my life. I mean, he's saying that very publicly in 1995, and I think.

That's a pretty consistent thing that he continues to say until his death. So he finds the resolution and the titles of the autobiographies more or less convey that my heart goes out to him though. And to any character actor, there's no shortage of actors who do such a successful job, portraying a TV character.

That it's a hard thing for an audience to see them as anything else, or at least on the big screen. That seems like a fate that kind of sucks. It is a unique problem in our celebrity Hollywood society. Right? One of the questions I have for you is if you're going to go through. I would want to go through it the way Leonard Nimoy did.

I'm so glad he found sort of acceptance and gratitude on the other side of it, but is that a shitty fate for somebody who wants to act literally and explore a range of characters and demonstrate their dynamism and range and so forth, does that kind of suck to be forever remembered as a single.

Amit: I don't think that's the right question, because it's the, you're talking about the remembrance of a single character and we're talking about the regret at the time.

Yeah. So another regret that he was very public about was smoking. Yeah. Is that's ultimately what killed him. And he lived a long time. I mean, he was, yeah, but it was smoking and he smoked for 30 years and became a pretty big anti-smoking advocate. And he said he wished he never did it. Kids

Michael: if you're listening, don't smoke.

Yeah. You also have to wonder about them first now. You know, I mean, it's a private, I didn't find anything that was obviously him saying it was a shitty marriage and I should've gotten out of it 15 years earlier, but the way it ends and then the second marriage happens pretty quickly and all this stuff about rehab in there.

And you gotta wonder if that's also.

Amit: I don't think there's any way the marriage was a regret. It could just be the length. Yeah.

Michael: I'll give you one other, did you know that he was on an episode of the original Twilight zone now? So it's an interesting episode, happens to start also Dean Stockwell of quantum leap fame.

The concept is sort of interesting. The setting is in the Philippines. During world war II and there's all these Japanese soldiers held up in a cave and the Americans are deciding whether or not the bomb amount or something. And something happens to the Dean Stockwell character where suddenly he's transformed into a Japanese soldier.

And the insensitivities the reasons it doesn't hold up well, is the, the makeup work as, as you might imagine, a little insensitive, but the idea was sort of, it was trying to show. We're both soldiers on both sides of this. And I think Dean Stockwell as the Japanese soldier, like has a hard conversation about why they should not bomb the Americans while he's stuck at having this sort of out of body experience.

Anyway, Leonard Nimoy happens to be in that area. Interestingly,

Amit: I'd like to tell a story about Japanese soldiers in a cave, which I am not sure it has anything to do with this episode, but we're talking about it. This is our pocket. So I was, I spent a month in Guam, actually on Guam you say on Guam

Michael: Is this when you were

driving the Wienermobile

Amit: Yeah. Our listeners don't need to know why that, but it's far too

Michael: much information with this.

This is a exactly what it sounds like it is a hot dog shaped car.

Correct. And I

Amit: took it on a tour of Guam in 2001. Anyway, you can tour these falls on the island of Guam and in one of these falls, which is sort of national Parky, it's not quite a national park.

Yeah

They have a cave there that's marked, and it is, I forget the guy's name, but it was a Japanese guy's cave And when world war II sort of broke out, he went into hiding into this cave and did not come out for 27

Michael: years

oh, so this

is one of those stories of, he didn't realize the war had ended cause he'd assumed the Japanese would never surrender.

Yeah

So he didn't know about the atomic bombs and all

Amit: that.

Correct. But you also just, you lose all concept of Time and self or whatever,

Michael: but you

Apparently 27 years, Jesus

Amit: Christ.

But you still have survival instinct in you, I guess.

Yeah

But those like of all the things that occur in human life, those things are consistently really, really shock me That people are able to do that, That the human mind and body can endure

Michael: that,

that isolation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Uh, we're nearing the end. We got one more question for the grand finale. Let's move on. Cocktail, coffee or cannabis. Which one would you have wanted to partake with with Leonard anymore? I'd say

Amit: cocktail.

I say this knowing that he was an alcoholic. So I don't say that lightly, but given the sort of emotional suppression and all that he talked about and the concern about self identity in these characters, I think you'd just have a lot to talk about it over a real. Nice long session of drinks. And I like to just have that sort of flowing conversation that comes with uninhibited speech of having drinks together

Michael: to hear him talk about his relationship to Spock over those drinks.

Yeah. I, about his understanding of him. As reflected through Spock. Yeah. I

Amit: want to hear about the understanding of self versus a character you play or what you see or what you hear or what you do. Just the understanding of self. But I think it's one of those really long dinner or drink type of conversations.

Michael: I have to say. I'm curious to read the autobiography. Not that I am not Spock one. I think the 19 95 1 though, that might be a nice little read.

Amit: What is your choice? Cocktail, coffee

Michael: or cannabis? I went coffee and I tend to go with coffee when I, since an intellect and a creative force that brought this up earlier.

If. Spark is brilliant. Right. And I don't think you can portray brilliant unless you are kind of brilliant and his creative expressions in his art. I think Leonard Nimoy was probably smart as hell and whenever anybody's that bright, I kind of just want to hear them go. I kind of want to get them jacked up in coffee and hear them just spout ideas and have a really energetic conversation.

Where we're exploring life, the universe and everything like how important Saifai was. And I would love to hear why he thinks people responded to Spock the way they did. I mean, we all have our assumptions, but I think he would understand what that character represents to an audience in a way, or he'd have a unique take on it.

I'd love to just like pound coffee and hear him go. I

Amit: kind of want him to show up to your coffee meeting and just want to talk about football. You're sitting down for

Michael: a lesson in life. Exactly. It turns out he's a, he's a big fan of the Ohio state Buckeyes. Alright. So we've reached the Vander big named after James VanDerBeek, who and varsity blues famously said, I don't want your life to the listeners know I'm at.

And I have an agreement not to have a decision about this until after we've had the conversation. I have a little bit of a lane, but Amit, here's the question for you? Do you want lender name was.

Amit: Without giving you the full answer. Initially, let me first say, I think it was pretty good that cycle, the reckoning, the friendships, all of it all looked pretty good and wrapped up really nicely.

I think it's really good and beyond decent life, however, no, I do not want it. And the reasons are. So the singular character association, I like variety. I need variety the way I think my inner self works, the singular character association, despite what it did for so many people, just the reckoning that he had to go through and specifically the emotional turmoil.

Even if it resolved, I wouldn't want. I would prefer resolution of emotional turmoil through a lot more opportunity of

Michael: trials. And so is that to say that he didn't experience freedom, that there is something about being trapped in the perception of this character and the relationship to this iconic transcendent, fictional character that limits him and confines him in terms of possibility.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amit: And I think eventually what you have to tell yourself is the character chose you in some way, and that's how you recommend it. But there is a lack of freedom. And the singular association with one thing that means so much to some people, but you didn't set out with that intention and you struggled with it, but, but really specifically just the singular focus of a character of just your life being so singular associated with a character is what I don't like.

I don't think we're even talking about acting here. I just think the singular association. With something that you are not. And the other part of it that I struggle with is that a stranger, we shouldn't care what strangers think, but the fact that a stranger would mostly only know you as that thing is something that I wouldn't want.

I don't like that. It took me until last week to know that he directed three men in a. I wish that it was

Michael: part, is that as an insult? Yeah. I wish it was part of a larger body of work.

Amit: Yeah. That I knew. So, so many parts of it sound great. And I think the cycle was pretty incredible and impressive and admirable, but no, I don't want it.

Michael, do you want Leonard anymore? His life?

Michael: I think a pretty impacted. Yes, I recognize and am sympathetic to a lot of your reluctance and hesitation around that. When you said a second ago, I'm not sure we're even talking about acting. You know, I always come back to that Shakespeare quote, all the world is, but a stage we're all at.

Whatever you see here as a performance and I can work and whatever anybody sees in the world, I'm putting on a face. I try to live an authentic existence and I try to keep my inner self pretty close to the surface so that I don't feel like I'm in a constant state of performance in terms of playing the role of Michael Osborne in the world.

But I do feel like that's part of the human condition. It is a weird thing to have many parts of the general public, not be able to divorce their understanding of your character from who you are. But in another sense, I feel like. Part of the human experience. And I also think the character is just so good.

I don't know Spock that well, but what I do know is that there is a devotion to reason. And part of the reason the star Trek universe is successful is because it valorizes the scientific pursuit and the scientific tradition and enlightenment principles. And that is embodied in this. Character and as synonymous with this character, you know, when economists talk about like the rational actor, right?

Like they're thinking about fracking Spock. And so it's such a point of contrast with what, how we sometimes think of humanity and who we really are. Right. All our emotional complexity underneath. And to see somebody take that extreme. Example of those character rational traits and put it on display and say, this is what it looks like.

How much do you like that or not? You know, and like the way the audiences wrestle with that character, both in terms of loving them, but also. Also not being able to access the inner underneath life. What an accomplishment. I think I'm good. Maybe. I don't know, but I think I'm good with like one great success, you know, I think I would rather be an actor who knocks it out of the park with one character then.

Oh, But somebody who's in a lot of different roles and shows up a lot of different places and we all kind of like, and admire his talent. He demonstrates the range. I think too, like really knock it out of the park with one character is a great life accomplishment. And then I love journey. I like that. We saw him publicly wrestled.

With his relationship to the character between two autobiographies. And then, you know, when I hear him talk about it in that interview, I mentioned, I listened to, I heard grace, I heard humility. I heard peace of mind. I heard generosity. I heard gratitude what he accomplished and everything he went through.

Yeah. I'll take it. That's pretty good. If there's maybe more I want in places, but I think I take it.

Amit: I'm not changing my answer, but I liked your argument.

Michael: We've arrived. The end of the show, Amit, you are Leonard Nimoy. You've gone to the part of the gates you're before St. Peter, you have an opportunity to make your pitch, the stages.

Here I am.

Amit: You probably know me as the public and the world did as Spock. That's not the argument I'm going to make. The argument I'm going to make is really about humanity, about arts and about friendship. Through my acting, I was able to create a character that was part of a larger narrative. That allowed a lot of people to come up with an explanation and hope for life and a future.

It wasn't easy for me always. And there was some selflessness to it. I understand saying the word selfless. Erasing selflessness. But what I'm saying is I started as an actor, but what eventually became a bit was a way for people to relate to the rest of life. And I gave a lot of my time, a lot of my identity towards that.

A lot of people can do that in a lot of ways. That was just my art form. So that's what I did as a public service, certainly made me very successful through it all. I'm also somebody who had really close friends. And a lot of my fans without ever knowing me, even if they met me for a second or only saw me on screen, also saw me as a friend.

So giving the world a way to define, relate and be a friend too, was my contribution to this earth. Let me in,

Michael: thank you for listening to this episode of famous. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review. You can sign up for our mailing list@famousandgravy.com and you can follow us on Twitter at famous and gravy.

Our show was co-created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne, mixing mastering and sound design by Morgan hunter. Graphic design by Brandon Burke and original music by Kevin Strang. Thank you again for listening and hope to see you. Next time. .