PAUL WESLEY:
00:01:08
That's great.
NATE BURLESON:
00:01:09
It's great.
PAUL WESLEY:
00:01:09
It's great.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS:
00:01:10
Oh my gosh.
NATE BURLESON:
00:01:11
So good. Paul Wesley is here. Good morning. Good to see you. Good morning. Thank you so much for having us.
NATE BURLESON:
00:01:15
Of course. So I was just telling you that I love your performance as Lieutenant Kirk because the performance of William Shatner and even Chris Pine in the films has become sort of iconic, but you have your own way of portraying Lieutenant Kirk. But the one thing that I told you that you do exceedingly well is you move like the Starfleet captain that we've come to know and love. And so what were you thinking about when you developed your own take? Well, yeah. So, first of all, thank you. I rewatched every episode of TOS prior to getting on set. So I think a lot of it becomes subconscious. Sort of you watch so much of William Shatner.
NATE BURLESON:
00:01:54
Kind of downloaded a little bit. Exactly. But then at the same time, I sort of was-- I made a conscious decision. I thought about, should I imitate or try to emulate William Shatner in any way? And I thought, God, he did such an amazing job. He was so iconic. Why not do my own spin? And this is precaptain, so maybe he's still sort of figuring it out. But I'm glad that you caught on to some of the movements and some of the pauses in the speech and things like that. But with this character in this clip, Maxwell Saint, I got to sort of go big and do a satire and have fun with that 1960s, Shatneresque, Shakespearean sort of--
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS:
00:02:33
And Shatner gave you his blessing, did he not?
PAUL WESLEY:
00:02:36
He did. He did, and he didn't have to, and it was so classy of him. He tweeted me, take care of my crew and my ship, which was so-- it was like-- Oh, that's beautiful. It was such a beautiful moment for me. Now, you say that StarTrek is one of your favorite projects that you have ever worked on. Absolutely. Why? Well, because--
NATE BURLESON:
00:02:55
You've done some cool things. Thank you.
NATE BURLESON:
00:02:57
Great resume. Yeah, and not to say the other ones weren't great, but what I love about this show, first of all, it's incredibly optimistic, and it's an escapist playground, like in the sense that we get to watch this imaginative world filled with hope and positivity and inclusivity.
NATE BURLESON:
00:03:15
And it's action packed as well.
PAUL WESLEY:
00:03:16
And it's action packed. But on top of that, it's a serialized show, but every episode is its own movie. You get to play a different character in a weird way or experience a different world in every episode. So as an actor, it's thrilling.
ADRIANA DIAZ:
00:03:29
You Were also in VampireDiaries. Yes. You are no stranger to Comic-Con. What has it been like to be embraced by Trekkies? Like, what is the Trekkie cinematic universe like?
NATE BURLESON:
00:03:39
How is that different from sci-fi? It's definitely VampireDiaries and StarTrekare two very different demographics.
NATE BURLESON:
00:03:48
I can see that in my head. I'm envisioning it right now.
PAUL WESLEY:
00:03:51
Yeah, exactly. You have, obviously, a lot of much younger, sort of female-skewing fans on the VampireDiariesside, and you have sort of the older people who ask you very scientific questions. Very specific questions. As you know as a Trekkie, there's an entire encyclopedia, essentially--
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS:
00:04:08
Yes, that's right. --that is filled with-- because you know StarTrek debuted in the '60s. So you have 60 years of remakes and stories, and you're adding to the canon. So it's such a vast world. Whereas with Vampire Diaries,we sort of created our own sort of fantasy based on books but loosely. And so it's much less sort of daunting, in a way. I don't know if you guys ever saw-- maybe you've seen that spoof that William Shatner did on SNL-- I did. --where he went to a StarTrekconvention, and he points to Jon Lovitz. You there. Have you ever kissed a girl? And Lovitz-- [LAUGHTER]
PAUL WESLEY:
00:04:41
I've seen it all. I've seen it all. It's so great. But the fans, we say that we would love to see-- and I know the showrunners are thinking about this-- a Captain Kirk first year at the helm of the Enterprise. Would that be something that would interest you? Listen, I'm waiting for the call. If it were up to me, it would be something that I would do in a heartbeat. It would be an honor. I think there's an amazing amount of story to still tell prior to Kirk's first appearance in, TOS, which is "Where No Man Has Gone Before." That's right. So there's still a lot of story to tell.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS:
00:05:14
Love it. Paul Wesley, you're amazing. Season three of StarTrek-- Strange NewWorldsis streaming right now on Paramount+, folks.
NATE BURLESON:
00:05:20
That's right. That does it for us. Stick around for CBS MorningsPlus, and we will see you tomorrow on CBSMornings.
