A Star Trek Actress Had To Stand Her Ground With William Shatner During The Voyage Home

William Shatner is a legitimately great actor. The problem is, he knows it.

The Montreal, Quebec native who honed his thespian chops at the prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario soon found himself making considerable headway in the film and television industries. He booked significant roles in Richard Brooks' "The Brothers Karamazov" opposite titans like Yul Brenner, Claire Bloom, and Lee J. Cobb, and joined an all-star cast for Stanley Kramer's "Judgment at Nuremberg." A year later, he gave his finest performance to date as a rabble-rousing racist in Roger Corman's "The Intruder."

By the time he got to NBC's "Star Trek" in 1966, he had reason to believe that he was the alpha acting dog on set. He lent the science-fiction series an air of respectability, and all the rest of the cast needed to do was follow his lead. This behavior often made Shatner unpopular with his colleagues. James Doohan, who played the chief engineer Scotty, put it bluntly when he said, "I wanted to thump him on more than one occasion."

Shatner did not learn to curtail his brattiness over the years. He was still his conceited self when they got around to making the movies. Most people were used to Shatner's antics by then and brushed them off, but his "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" co-star and love interest Catherine Hicks was caught off guard by the star's on-camera gamesmanship. Realizing she was in danger of being diminished in every scene, Hicks fought back.

In a 2012 interview with StarTrek.com, Hicks said, "I remember the fun, the kindness, just the kidding around, the joyfulness, and fighting for some close-ups, the tug of war with Bill for close-ups." When Hicks realized she was losing this battle, she took her grievance to director Leonard Nimoy. Per Hicks:

"I'd go to Leonard and say, 'This is my shot. I need a single. I'm not going to share the shot with Shatner.' He wanted to get in every shot, but you couldn't get mad at him because he was like a devilish brother."

Hicks was also at a disadvantage because she was a total "Star Trek" neophyte. She didn't know the lore or the lingo. Nimoy had to explain to her what "beam me up" meant. You could ding Hicks for not being prepared, but, in a Method acting sort of way, this was actually a good idea. She was pouring her personal confusion and frustration directly into her character. And we were predisposed to like her character because she was a marine biologist who cared deeply about the welfare of her humpback whales (which Kirk and company need to bring into the future to save humanity).

There's plenty of room for debate as to which "Star Trek" movie is the best (my vote is for "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"), but "The Voyage Home" is by far the most entertaining. And Hicks' persistent befuddlement, exacerbated by that rascal Shatner, is a big part of why it works so well.