George Takei talks to John Seigenthaler

He’s the man who brought a generation to warp speed. Although George Takei is perhaps best known for playing Lieutenant Sulu on "Star Trek," he has had a prolific, decades-long career in films, radio and theater. Takei recently wrote and starred in a musical about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II — something he lived through himself when, at the age of 5, he was sent with his family to a camp. He’s also a successful writer and outspoken activist for gay rights. After boldly going "where no man has gone before," Takei is now a leader in the digital revolution. His Facebook profile boasts millions of fans, and he has 800,000 Twitter followers — not to mention his own YouTube series. He spoke to Al Jazeera’s John Seigenthaler.

John Seigenthaler: I turned on my TV set not long ago, and I saw your face, and you're in Washington, D.C., talking to journalists and politicians. So Mr. Sulu clearly has more of a passion for — or as much of a passion for politics as you do for "Star Trek."  

George Takei: Well, I'm a passionate guy, and we live in a world that has so many things that you can be passionate about, either positively or sometimes enraged.     

Well, talk about your political activism. Where does that come from?     

I think my whole life has been shaped by my childhood incarceration in America's concentration camps.         

The Japanese concentration camps.       

Japanese-American.      

Japanese-American.     

When you say "Japanese," you think, you know, we were captured by the Japanese. We are American citizens, born and raised here. My mother was born in Sacramento. My father was a San Franciscan. We were American citizens, but simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor, right after the bombing, President Roosevelt, on Feb. 19, signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be grounded there and put in 10 barbed-wire prisons.

How old were you?       

I was 5 years old at the time.

Did you know, did you understand what was happening or not?

So going forward to Washington, D.C., you come to speak to the National Press Club, and you go to one of the monuments, and somebody asks you about the government shutdown. And you say that the politicians are wackos?

Well, you know, I visited those monuments many times, but there's one that I had not visited, the newest one, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. And so first thing in the morning, before I spoke to the National Press Club, we went to the Dr. King memorial, and I thought of his "I have a dream" speech, and that was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And so we went there and saw President Lincoln there. And then we looked across the mall to the far end, and I saw it as the national nuthouse. Just the day before, the government had been open.

The national nuthouse would be the Capitol — the House of Representatives and the Senate?

Yes. Yes.

Tell me about that.   

Well, you used the word "wacko."

No, I think you used the word "wacko."

I did use that word in that speech. Those Tea Party people are crazy. I mean, they're lunatics. They close down the government, throw people out of their jobs — hundreds of thousands of people — and they say that they're doing it ultimately in the interest of creating jobs. Madness.

You know, my life has been shaped by that kind of situation. Madness, craziness on one end of our democracy and the shining ideals of our democracy memorialized in those monuments at the other end of the National Mall. Because the incarceration of Japanese-Americans was absolutely crazy. They didn't incarcerate the Japanese-Americans in Hawaii. That's the place that was bombed. But the Japanese-American population was about 45 percent of the island of Hawaii. And if they extracted those Japanese-Americans, the economy would have collapsed. But on the mainland, we were thinly spread out up and down the West Coast.

So you experienced discrimination early in your life. But you also experienced discrimination later in life as well, correct?

I did. And that discrimination I was able to kind of avoid. My Asian face was a giveaway. But from the time I was about 9 or 10, I knew I was different in ways other than just my face. The other boys would say things like "Sally's cute" or "Monica's hot." I thought Sally and Monica were nice. But I thought Bobby was exciting. And none of the boys thought the way I did. So I knew I was different, and it wasn't the way I was supposed to be. So I was silent. And I pretended that I was like them. You know, because when you're young, you have a great need to be part of the gang, to belong. And so I dated girls, went to the senior prom, and I played a part. But then as you grow older, you learn that there are other men that feel the same way. But I'd been acting, pretending, and that leads into leading a double life — gay bars ... But all surreptitious, secret.    

You lived a hidden life because you couldn't live an open life? You were afraid of retaliation? You were afraid of what people would think, what they would say?

Well, I was also pursuing a career as an actor. So here I am, with this ever-present fear of getting exposed and at the same time pursuing a career in the most publicly exposed business I can go into. And so there was, you know, that constant fear and that aspiration at war with itself. And I was involved in the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement, the Vietnam War, and then the movement to get redress for the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese-Americans, all these other social and political issues. But I was silent on that.

And then Governor Schwarzenegger in California caused you to speak up. Is that right?   

That's correct.

What happened?

Well, by that time, Massachusetts had marriage equality. It came through the judicial route. In California, a precedent-setting thing happened. Our Legislature, both houses — the Senate and the Assembly — passed the marriage equality bill. And all that was needed was the governor's signature. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who campaigned by creating an illusion that he was a friend of the LGBT community. And I thought surely he would sign, because he's made statements like "I've worked with gays and lesbians. Some of my best friends are gays and lesbians." So I was confident that we were going to be the next state to have marriage equality.   

But he didn't sign.      

He's a Republican, and he has a very conservative base. And playing to that, he vetoed. And I was enraged. I was together with Brad at that time.     

Brad is your partner?          

Brad was my partner. Yes.  

And you're married now.       

We got married a little bit after Schwarzenegger's veto. But we saw on the news young people pouring out onto Santa Monica Boulevard, venting their rage against Schwarzenegger. And here we were at home, and we discussed it, and I said, "I have to speak out on this." I mean, we are so close, and that hypocrite Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed. And for me to speak out, my voice needs to be authentic. And so I spoke to the press for the first time.

Then you became a real advocate for gay rights across the country.    

I did. 

And tell me about that. What was the reaction? I mean, Mr. Sulu is gay and ...   

Yes. There were a lot of those.          

... and he comes out. Was the reaction positive? Did you get some negative reaction?      

There was negative as well. But it was overwhelmingly positive. I went on a nationwide speaking tour in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign. I spoke at universities, at corporate meetings, at governmental agencies.

I'm told that your favorite episode of "Star Trek" is "The Naked Time," is that correct?  

That's my favorite one.

Why is that?      

Well, you know, you get tired of sitting at that console saying, "Aye-aye, sir. Warp 3." And occasionally you get to say, "Aye-aye, sir. Warp 9," and you're all tense, you know. Finally I got liberated from that console, whipped off my shirt, and demonstrated my swashbuckling prowess.

How many Facebook likes do you have?     

It's over 4.7 million.

And how many Twitter followers do you have?        

Over 800,000.

So at the tender age of 76 years old, you have become kind of the king of social media. How did that happen? 

It's taken a long time, hasn't it? Seventy-six years.

Well, but I mean clearly — when did you get involved in social media?

Actually, only about three years ago. And again, we're talking about combining the various interests. We developed this musical, "Allegiance," about a subject that too many people don't know too much about still. And we had invested a lot of money as well as talent and energy and time. And we needed to build an audience for it. So the best way to get the word out, so to speak, and educate people was, I thought, social media. So I began. But my base was sci-fi geeks and nerds. And I had to expand that. And so we tried a lot of different things, and it was humor that seemed to attract a lot of people and get them to share and engage. And so I started making funny comments about sci-fi and science, and it expanded, and then I found that pictures, called memes, also get more. And then I found a few kitties get a lot of likes and shares. And so it extended more. And then we had a large enough audience, so I started talking about LGBT equality. And there's a large overlap between sci-fi geeks and nerds and the LGBT community, and it exploded some more. And then I started introducing the story of the internment.

Well, you're not just on Facebook and Twitter, but you also have a program online called "Takei's Take," is that correct?

That's right.

And I believe I saw one of them. You were talking about Google Glass.

Yes.

But you have all sorts of things that you discuss on that program, right?

Well, I do that in partnership with AARP, and the membership of AARP is now made up of a lot of "Star Trek" fans. But we wanted to make sure that more —the demographics widen. "Star Trek" fans' children are now fast approaching AARP age. And they have grandchildren. So, you know, we play to that large audience. But the "Star Trek" generation, as visionary as they are, aren't quite into social media as their grandchildren are or their children are. And so my hosting the show called "Takei's Take," we can talk about Google Glass or, as we discovered, online dating is not something just the young people are into.

You're also known for a two-word phrase.  

I know which words.

Where did that come from?

Oh, my. Yes, it's a phrase I've been using all my life. You know, when you see a glorious sunrise, "Oh, my." Or someone makes a mistake and is embarrassed. "Oh, my!" You know. I've been using it all my life. But I was doing a play in New York, and when you're doing a play, you get an assignment to promote the play, get the word out. And this one particular morning, I had my assignment. It was a show called "The Howard Stern Show" on Madison Avenue. And so I went to the place at the appointed time. And they asked me to wait. I was sitting there, flipping through magazines. And they had this disgusting conversation on. And I said to the other guy, "Why can't they get some nice music?" I mean, that's a horrible thing to have on in the waiting room, you know. And he said, "That's the show we're waiting to go on." And they came to get me in. I was introduced to this lean, tall, wild-haired guy with glasses.

Howard Stern.

Howard Stern. And I said good morning. And he said, "Oh, you have a deep voice. Anyone with a voice that deep has to have a …” I said, "Are we on the air?" and he said, "Yep." I said, "Oh, my." And he had it on tape. And so from then on, whether I'm there or not, whenever someone says something outrageous, he presses a button, and I come on and say, "Oh, my." And now it's become my signature.

George Takei's interview has been condensed and edited.