William Shatner asked Facebook for an explanation after a fan noticed it was promoting a false article about his death. (AP)
At 86 years old, actor, singer, businessman and spokesman William Shatner shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, he’s using his star power to help bring technology to people’s everyday lives.
Many know Shatner from his role as Captain James T. Kirk on the original run of “Star Trek.” Others may remember his recent gigs as a spokesman for ventures like Priceline. Now, he’s very proud to lend his face to what he calls a “new idea” in LottoGopher — a site that lets people pick their game and lotto numbers from the comfort of their own home.
Speaking to Fox News, Shatner explained how he saw companies like Netflix and Uber revolutionizing things like movie rentals and taxis and wanted to help spread the word about a new idea for something as traditional as the lottery.
“The technology of today is changing. As we speak, we’re already in a different place. Young people, and older people, are inventing new things by standing on the shoulders of giants that have come before. It’s up to us as the public and as informative people to keep abreast of that,” he said. “Everything in the next five years will have changed due to the advances of technology. What firmly held, traditional ideas will be upended?”
Shatner’s propensity for following what’s new and exciting extends beyond just LottoGopher. In recent years, he’s become involved in solar energy projects, electric bike companies and much more. His desire to be on the cutting edge and experience new things made him the perfect candidate for the NBC reality series, “Better Late Than Never” in which he, Henry Winkler, George Foreman, Terry Bradshaw and comedian Jeff Dye travel the world together. He exclusively revealed to Fox News that Season 2 of the series will return in January 2018.
“We now knew what we were about,” he said of the show’s return. “That was both good and bad. We knew how to make the show and it vacillated between heart and farce. The guys were more familiar, and so it was less shocking to us — which meant that we had to get more shocking things to do.”
While Shatner is constantly exploring new ventures in technology and show business, he’s not shy about looking back on the role that made him famous, especially now that CBS has launched a new “Star Trek” series with the Sonequa Martin-Green-led “Discovery." Being the de facto godfather of the series, making it popular with his performance as Kirk in the 1960s, he shared his thoughts on what makes the show so potent to a modern audience.
“The themes are always the same. They’re human interest-based themes,” he told Fox News. “But the appeal of ‘Star Trek’ is, I think, the fact that human beings exist in that period of time. That we’re still around. We made it through these next hundred years, which are rife with potential disaster in terms of the environment. We’ve solved the problems of living with other beings and each other. So, the concept of ‘Star Trek’ that we’ve solved those problems is a large basis of its appeal. What are we doing 300 or 400 years from now, after we’ve survived?”
As for his opinion on “Discovery,” which takes place a decade before Kirk was at the helm of the Enterprise, he’s been vocal about his praise for the show. He believes that, as long as human beings are exploring the vast unknown, “Star Trek,” and science fiction as a whole, always will be able to captivate an audience regardless of the era.
“Four hundred years from now, what’s going to happen? What will it be like? These are really figments of all our imagination. Some write them down and call it 'science fiction,'” he mused. “But it’s all conjecture. But that conjecture is fascinating.”
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