At first I thought the picture above (tweeted by EpixHD) was too awesome to be real, but then Slashfilm tipped me off to a documentary premiering on EPIX on July 21st 2011. It’s called The Captains and follows William Shatner as he interviews other actors who have played the lesser Captain Kirks to his One True Kirk. He talks with Patrick Stewart (The Next Generation), Avery Brooks (Deep Space Nine), Kate Mulgrew (Voyager), Scott Bakula (Enterprise), and Chris Pine. So why did the interview with Pine involve an arm wrestling match? Because he’s Shatner, of course, but we’ll let him explain it himself:
“He’s shy,” Shatner says of the 30-year-old actor who took over the role of James T. Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek prequel/reboot. “So the way I started the interview, I put out a table and chairs outside the Paramount gates, and arm-wrestled with him. That was the beginning of my interview with him. I think it broke the ice, that’s for sure.” [Canoe via /film]
No word on who won the match (we didn’t get a chance to check Shatner’s mood by the color of his shat afterwards), but we can’t discount the possibility Shatner won despite the age difference. He’s not above stealing Nimoy’s bike or crafting a Gorn cannon on the fly. He’s dash cunning.