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Shatner: Conan 'Holds Me Close'

Actor dishes on relationship with O'Brien, still hasn't seen Star Trek

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 10, 2009 6:01 PM CDT

(Newser) – William Shatner’s beat-poetry homages to Sarah Palin on Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show have become viral-video hits. Time magazine caught up with the actor and Priceline pitchman to find out about his off-camera relationship with O’Brien, Star Trek, and more:

“It's great,” Shatner reports. Conan “folds me into his arms and I come up to his belly button. So I suckle on his belly button and he holds me close. That can lead to any kind of relationship, right?”

Shatner reports he still hasn't seen JJ Abrams' Star Trek relaunch: Abrams "emailed me saying he heard that I hadn't seen the movie and he'd set up a private screening, and I declined the private screening and told him I'd buy him dinner."
The original Captain Kirk also declined an invitation from Richard Branson to go into space: "He asked how I would like to pay for it. And I said, How would you like to pay me to do it? And we didn't talk any more about that. That shut him up."

[Images (3)]

[Videos (2)]

FILE- This undated file photo shows actors in the TV series "Star Trek," from left, Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock, William Shatner as Captain Kirk, DeForest Kelley as Doctor McCoy and James Doohan... (AP Photo/Paramount Television ,File)

This Sept. 13, 2004 file photo shows actor William Shatner as he poses on the set of ABC's "Boston Legal" television drama in Manhattan Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, FILE)

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Shatner: Conan 'Holds Me Close'