![]() John Lithgow played Shatner's role in the George Miller-directed "Nightmare" installment that appeared in 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie, and Adam Scott played a variation on the part in an episode of the 2019 Paramount+ series overseen by Jordan Peele.įor Shatner, the longevity of "Nightmare" can be chalked up to one very simple explanation: Flying still freaks many people out, even if the idea of sitting in a metal tube thousands of miles up in the air strikes others as banal. It's been referenced and parodied countless times in everything from Sharknado to The Simpsons, and so thoroughly defines The Twilight Zone that it's been remade twice in subsequent franchise continuations. Instead of tanking Shatner's career, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" ended up entering the pantheon of all-time great episodes of television. Shatner and Christine White in the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episode of The Twilight Zone. The stuntman got on, jumped the motorcycle and broke his back! It could have been me." "I had to jump the motorcycle, and I came to the lip and stopped. "I was on the West Coast one time, and we were shooting a motorcycle sequence," Shatner continues, recalling one particularly dangerous stunt. ![]() I don't know what I'm proving to myself or anybody else, but it never occurs to me that I'm going to get hurt." "Sometimes I've done foolish things, and I don't know why. "I've done a lot of stunts and taking terrible risks … putting myself through a window was nothing," he says modestly. While Shatner spends the majority of "Nightmare" frozen in his chair, the actor - whose fisticuffs as Captain Kirk are still unmatched in sci-fi TV history - did get physical in the climax, when Bob shatters his airplane window to take a shot at the gremlin. I think what was occurring to people was get the shot before the sun set!" "The directing was like, 'Why don't you say that louder or faster?' I don't think that occurred to anybody. (Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection)ĭonner, of course, would later go on to direct blockbusters like Superman: The Movie and The Omen, but Shatner says that the young director didn't exactly have the time on the "Nightmare" set to talk to him about his artistic approach. The Gremlin (Nick Cravat) bedevils Shanter in the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episode of The Twilight Zone. (Both episodes were penned by Richard Matheson, author of the hugely influential vampire novel, I Am Legend.) In fact, "Nightmare" was his second appearance on The Twilight Zone, having previously starred in the 1960 episode, "Nick of Time," as one-half of a honeymooning couple who run afoul of a devilish fortune-teller machine. At the time, the Montreal-born Shatner was a regular supporting player in American television, with a résumé that included such shows as Naked City and Alfred Hitchock Presents. Instead, he spent much of his time on set concerned that "Nightmare" would be a career-killer. That's not how Shatner felt when he originally filmed the episode, though. "They'd bring the hostess over and, and I'd be looking at that window and everybody would roar with laughter." (Watch our video interview above.) "I used to play that game with my kids," the actor tells Yahoo Entertainment with a laugh during a conversation about his new memoir, Boldly Go. And to this day, Shatner still finds himself gremlin-spotting when he gets on an airplane. ![]() ![]() 11, 1963, "Nightmare" is the first episode many think of when The Twilight Zone theme starts playing. What he's witnessing is a gremlin attack - and not of the "don't feed them after midnight" variety. But in the middle of the flight, he notices a strange figure on the wing of the plane that only he can see. Directed by Richard Donner, the episode features the Star Trek icon as Bob Wilson, who is flying home with his wife Julia (Christine White) after being discharged from the sanitarium, where he's been recovering from a nervous breakdown. It's been nearly 60 years since William Shatner flew the unfriendly skies in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" - one of the most famous installments of Rod Serling's seminal horror series, The Twilight Zone. ![]()
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