A few months ago, George Takei was all over the internet. Admittedly, there’s nothing unusual about that. The online presence of the sparkly-eyed 79-year-old, formerly known as Mr Sulu from Star Trek, is genuinely ubiquitous; it can sometimes feel as though it’s his internet and the rest of us are merely squatters. His popularity could be measured purely in social media statistics (nearly 10m Facebook likes, 1.8 million followers on Twitter and 889,000 on Instagram) but that wouldn’t show how he uses those channels to encourage inclusivity and to speak out against bigotry and injustice with a wit that never loses its warmth. Takei is so charismatic, playful and intelligent that he has pulled off a feat none of his Star Trek co-stars ever managed: he is infinitely more famous and adored since he hung up his phaser, vacated the bridge of the Enterprise and came back down to Earth.
Part of the reason for this has been the range of his passions. He has been a campaigner and political activist since the early 1970s, first on Japanese-American relations (he spent part of his childhood in an internment camp during the second world war) and latterly on LGBT rights, without ever losing touch with his fans; he might just as easily be found at comic-book conventions as political ones. Then there is his absolute transparency since coming out as gay in 2005. His web series, It Takeis Two, shows him and his 62-year-old husband, Brad Takei (who took his name when they married in 2008 because, he said, “I feel Takei”), coping with daily problems. A feature-length documentary about the couple (To Be Takei) premiered at Sundance in 2014 and ratified their public image: George is serene and saucy (his catchphrase – “Oh my!” – is redolent of Leslie Phillips’s “Ding dong!”) while Brad is a worrywart who maintains the comic whingeing on Twitter, where he tweets a series of #dailygripes such as: “When you and your SO [significant other] accidentally dress like twins.”
That hasn’t happened today. George is looking sharp in a trim Persian-blue suit with a gold SS Enterprise badge glinting on the lapel, while Brad is wearing a grey suit and red tie. We are in a large conference room that is empty except for two chairs in the middle of the floor for Takei and me. By the window are two female publicists (“Pretend we’re not here”) while Brad is seated separately by the wall.
It is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, and the release of a bulky Blu-ray box set, which has occasioned our meeting. This thing is like the monolith from 2001 – it took me five minutes just to unpack it all – and includes all the original episodes, the first six movies and untold extras. Takei never tires of the show. “It has enhanced my life and amplified my voice in so many ways,” he says in his deep, bassy purr. “The idea was to use science fiction as a metaphor for the issues of the time – the civil rights movement, African-Americans’ struggle for equality, the peace movement during the Vietnam war, the cold war. That was an exciting, thrilling idea, because television wasn’t being used at all for that sort of thing.”
One issue overlooked was homosexuality, although Takei did suggest it as a subject to the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry. “I was closeted then, so I talked to him as a liberal, you know, and I said: ‘We’re dealing with all these other issues of our time. What do you think?’” Unfortunately, the show had recently run into trouble for showing an interracial kiss, and Roddenberry believed another controversy could force it off air.
Which brings us back to the reason Takei hit the headlines this summer. When Sulu (played in the rebooted Star Trek movies by John Cho) was fleetingly revealed to be gay in Star Trek Beyond, Takei spoke out unexpectedly as an opponent of the decision. He tells me he was objecting to a perceived lack of imagination. “Now that we have this opportunity to explore the sexual orientation of the characters, they should have been as creative as Gene Roddenberry. Invent a new character who has a whole history as a gay person! Don’t change a character that Gene intentionally created as straight.”
I confess this seems nonsensical. Why is he stuck on the idea of doing everything the way Roddenberry did it? Why not evolve? “Because this is the 50th anniversary! His vision is what made the show.” But why do we have to stick to his choices when they were imposed on him by the social climate? Especially as this is a reboot set in a parallel universe. “The reboot wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for Gene Roddenberry. He created the base of Star Trek. And so in the 50th anniversary, they need to focus in on the Star Trek heritage. They should respect and honour Gene.” But people are going to be watching Star Trek movies for ever. What does it matter to viewers in, say, 2025 if Star Trek Beyond came out in the anniversary year? It’s bigger than that. “I was with it from the beginning and I have ...” He stops. “These people didn’t know Gene at all. I knew Gene. They never met him.” I don’t think Takei could lose his cool if he tried. But an unmistakable air of indignation has crept into his voice. It would all sound worryingly like sour grapes on the lips of someone less sweet.
He might have been more receptive if his meeting back in 2008 with the Star Trek rebooter, JJ Abrams, had gone better. “I heard that Leonard [Nimoy] was going to be doing a cameo and then I got a phone call from JJ’s office asking me to have breakfast with him. I thought: ‘Hmm, maybe a cameo for Sulu ...?’” But there was no cameo offer: Abrams simply wanted the actor’s consent to cast Cho, who is Asian-American but has no Japanese heritage like Takei, as the new Sulu. “I thought that was an odd thing to say. Sulu was supposed to personify Asia, that’s all. So I knew right away that JJ didn’t understand Gene Roddenberry.” He insists he didn’t feel snubbed by not being cast in the new films. “If too many of us had cameos, it takes away from the whole idea of the reboot.” And yet Takei was excited initially when he thought a cameo might be in the offing. I think his response to the outing of Sulu is a complicated one, bound up in feelings of rejection, perhaps even resentment. The cruel irony is that Sulu is gay, at last, but Takei isn’t playing the part any more.
Who can blame him for being peeved? He had it tough as a closeted gay actor. “You live under the fear of being outed all the time. I played the game. I took a female friend to premieres and parties, and then I’d take her home and go to a gay bar. It was a double life. Interestingly, I recognised some faces in those bars and we’d say ‘Hi’, but we didn’t mention it the day after.”
At the height of the Aids crisis in the 1980s, he says, “I participated with my chequebook to support the movement. It was a terrible, horrible, torturous time. When friends die, we die with them.” But it wasn’t until 2004, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor of California, refused to sign the marriage equality bill, that Takei came out. “When he vetoed it, I was raging. Young people poured out on to Santa Monica Boulevard, venting their fury, and here Brad and I were, comfortable at home, watching the late-night news. I said: ‘All right, I’ve had a good career,’ and I was fully prepared for it to fade.” In fact, the opposite happened. And no one has made up for lost time quite as effectively or enthusiastically as Takei.
When I get home from the interview, an email is waiting for me from one of the publicists who was in the room with us. “A large proportion of your interview focused on George’s sexuality,” it reads. “Do you think this will be the main focus of your piece?” I wonder for a moment if she knows who George Takei is, or if she has read anything at all about him, or if she realises what it means to be shamed by society into hiding who you are – or if she was even listening when he spoke about being terrified of being outed or of watching his friends die of Aids. And it is at that moment that I decide that, yes, his sexuality will most definitely be the main focus of my piece. Some things are even bigger than Star Trek.
The Star Trek 50th Anniversary TV and Movie Collection Blu-ray Boxset is out now
