Interview with George Takei and Brad Altman

AE: Did you know he was like that before you went on the first time, or was that something you discovered after you did the first show?
GT: Well, Brad is a fan of Howard Stern’s. Initially I didn’t know who he was. I was doing a play in New York and when you’re doing a play, you are given your daily assignment to promote the play. And this one particular morning I had this one radio station on Madison Avenue to go to and I went there and they asked me to wait and I was sitting there leafing through some magazines and they had this radio program on that was the crudest, most obscene kind of conversation.

And I said to the person next to me, “This is really disgusting. Why can’t they get some nice music on?” And he said, “That’s the show we’re waiting to go on.” Then they came to get me and there’s this tall, skinny, wild-haired guy and that was my introduction to Howard. So, I didn’t know him from Adam at all, but Brad became a listener of his and he was the one that urged me to go on the show when they asked me to come on and be the official announcer.

AE: That’s a great story. What else is coming up for you? Anything else our readers can watch for you in?
BA: He’s in a cameo in the Zohan movie.

AE: What is the cameo?
BA: He does something with Bruce Vilanch, which is very gay-oriented, for your readership, Michael. And let’s see, I didn’t know if he was –

GT: American Summer and –

BA: - The Great Buck Howard in the fall, which is a Tom Hanks movie. George has a short part in that. And he may or may not be back in Heroes, but contractually we can’t tell you, but I would recommend everybody tune in NBC TV at 8pm on September 22, but I’m not saying anything.

Takei (right) with Masi Oka in a scene from Heroes

AE: All right. That’s good to know.
BA: What else, George? We just say go to George’s website, Georgetakei.com, since you are on the Internet anyway and we try to put up really breaking news there, whatever it is.

But we are going to be interested in the Hollywood casting fraternity and how they respond to the exciting moment in George’s career, where on one hand he’s a highly visible, a highly recognizable celebrity and on the other hand, he’s an openly gay human being and where the casting people will put George, only time will tell. But it’s going to be interesting because George, as an actor – he can also play non-gay parts. But people love to pigeonhole actors in Hollywood

AE: Thank you for your time George and Brad. I appreciate it.
BA: Wonderful hearing your questions, you know, that they were framed in such a good way that it made the best of us come out, I hope!