Introduction
"This is a beautiful setting, reflecting the beauty that is in you and your wife, mostly your wife," Bill Shatner begins the conversation in Leonard's garden behind the house.
Leonard laughs. "Give a compliment, take it away," Leonard laughs on.
They mention the neighborhood where Leonard used to drive a taxi, there had not been actors living here and payment for actors was very little. Later on Leonard made 4 to 5,000 Dollars a year and was aiming at 10,000 year, he only could hope for.
And Leonard remembers that he had been angry at the studios which had a certain kind of structure for actors that were put in a contract. Blond, blue eyed... "I wanted to be taken seriously and to maintain a certain kind of dignity."
"My hope and dream was to make a living as an actor and to play character roles. And what really attracted me and made the Spock character worthwhile pursuing was the idea that his character had a very interesting internal life. Something was constantly brewing in this character. I feel we all have that internal struggle. How to balance the right brain with the left."
"You brought your art to this part," Bill adds and Leonard agrees: "This is a nice way of putting it... it was a constant struggle to keep the dignity to the work."

They remember how Leonard was comforting Bill when his father had died during shooting of "Devil in the Dark", the aspirin-story and Bill notices that this is the first time Leonard could laugh about it. Spock's niche of developing his character opposite to J. Hunter and Bill is investigated. They discovered that they differ in handling the characters they play. Spock character had to be explored and developed, and Leonard took the challenge home. Talking about fandom, Leonard feels in general that there is a great sense of warmth and positive support from most people. In general Leonard feels good about it (except for those situations when he feels stocked, when people are organized to wait at an airport with Star Trek photos etc...) and above all he's very grateful.

Boldly going
"How did you try to suppress your anger?"
Leonard first recalls that he always had work since Star Trek, he had felt it was like a family and he had a permanent place in the set, which was not the case when he had had short roles in other films.
So it was very disappointing to find out that it was a mere working situation and little favors were not granted. Leonard learned to wait until they phoned him to ask for something and then negotiate.
"Did you learn to negotiate in your personal life?" Bill asks and Leonard laughs.
"... That took a lot longer," he then admits. And Leonard tells Bill how he admired Bill that he had stopped smoking and succeeded in fighting that demon and shares that he was looking forward to a drink after work and that he is an addictive person. It then became serious though it never affected his work. "I leaned on you yet once again when my wife had this alcohol problem." Bill says and talks about Nerine's alcohol problem. Leonard knew: "I have to stop now" and he went to a program which worked.

Warp Speed Ahead
Battles with management or producers?
Bill begins with introduction of the IDIC and Leonard noticed that Bill was angry, too. Leonard always has admired Bill’s tremendous amount of energy. Leonard gives credit to Gene Coone who invented the Klingons and tells about his experience when he tried to alter a part of the script to suit the character of Spock. The production machinery did not need actors coming in saying: "This does not work."
Bill tries to remember differences on the set and Leonard speaks about the press articles reporting about troubles between them. Both summarize situations on the set which shows the complexity of the work, the people involved. The whole project of the first movie was very difficult.

Phenomenon
In Leonard's home: They enter and Leonard asks while pointing to a drawing: "Do you have a copy of this?"
"Wait a minute; I don't have a copy of that" Bill answers. When Leonard offers: "Take it!" Bill does as told. After Leonard showed some memorabilia (The first TV guide cover, a videotape of The Zombies of the Stratosphere a. o.), Bill raises the question of merchandising. Both enjoy looking at special items which brings back memories to them.

Original Crew
"Do you feel affection for them?" Leonard wants to know after Bill introduced the topic and Bill shares an experience with Nichelle who helped him with an interview for his book: "Wait a minute," Nichelle has asked after the work was finished: "Don't you want to know how much we hate you?"
Leonard gives a laugh, asks Bill a question about the relationship and then shares an incident he remembers where s. o. did not respond to his greeting. [At this moment Leonard still did not know that an actor had taken a joke Leonard had made on the set personally. The actor had not shared his personal grief about the loss of a family member with the others, so, no one knew at the time in which personal state of mind he was].
Both feel there had been resentments and Bill tries to find an explanation in suspecting that the cast members felt as leads of the film. Both feel affection for their co-workers, Leonard likes them, but his private life goes in other directions.

Personal Impact
About doing a series: It is life consuming. Both family lives have suffered, both lost their wives. Bill remembers his divorce and tells that he took affection wherever he could find it. Now both feel good and complete. But Leonard recalls that it was an obsession to work, to make a living and to put money aside for he had no chance to know whether he would be able to find work after Star Trek. After that they have built up a new relationship as the people they were then. "My marriage broke up in the late eighties, mid to late eighties and with hardly any laps of time I began to see the Lady who is now my wife, whom I dearly love and I have a great relationship with. .. I still mourn the loss of the idea of the great first marriage..."
"Success," is Bill's next theme. He points out the material success, a happy marriage... "Peace, ... serenity..." Leonard repeats reflecting and summarizing. "I sometimes think: I finally got my reward for the tough times... I feel greatly blessed."
Concerning photography: "I love to make images! I dream about images. I first want to do fine art photography. .. Eros, love spirituality – hopefully it all comes together. I do my own developing and my own printing."

Final Frontier
"You and I have spent more than half of our lives together. I think of you as one of my dearest friends." Bill tells Leonard who does not hesitate to say: "The same."
Sharing that he clearly sees his own death, Bill shares that he is very conscious of death. "I think of it as a loss of consciousness," Leonard answers and suspects that he still will have (genetically) some pretty good time, but he does think about it, about loss of relationships and creative opportunities... The loss of De Kelly meant a lot to Leonard, who thought of him as kind of an uncle. "In the meantime I feel good about the fact that I feel both of us, you in your own way and me in my own way, have found the energy and the lust for life each day to do interesting and exciting and creative and productive and fun things to do. In a wonderful relationship. That's the blessing."
"True," Bill agrees. "You are my best friend," Leonard says in the end of the film.

The film is done in memory of De Kelly