Hello, out there. I'm Mr Sulu of "Star Trek".
Millions of Trekkies around the world know him as Mr Sulu
but George Takei is enjoying a brand-new lease on life
as a proud gay icon and internet royalty,
with over nine million followers.
But life for George Takei began very differently.
Oh, my!
So I wanted to go back to the very beginning.
As a young man, your family was sent to an internment camp
for Japanese-Americans during the world war.
Do you remember when the soldiers came to take you guys away?
I do, I do.
I turned five years old
and just a few weeks after that
my parents got me up very early one morning
together with my siblings
and we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway.
I saw the glint of bayonets
They stopped at the front porch and they banged on the door.
Terrible, horrible, loud bang. I can still hear that sound.
My father answered it
and literally at gunpoint we were ordered out of our home.
We went out and stood in the driveway,
waiting for our mother to come out.
And when she came out, she had our baby sister in one arm
and tears were streaming down her cheek.
I'll never forget that horrible, terrible, traumatic morning.
Flash!
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!
Japan struck first and declared war afterwards.
I mean, hysteria swept through the United States.
We were innocent American citizens.
And yet, because we happened to look like
the people that bombed Pearl Harbor, that was normal.
I remember the barbed wire fence,
the sentry towers, the machine-guns pointed at us,
and the searchlight that followed me at night
when I made the night runs to the latrine.
But the five-year-old me,
I thought it was kind of nice that they lit the way for me to pee.
Right. I was very young.
Well, you know, everybody I knew lived the same way we did.
I started school
and the teacher taught us the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.
I could see the barbed wire fence and the sentry tower
right outside my schoolhouse window
as I recited the words, "with liberty and justice for all".
A normal person would react with a lot of hate towards your homeland.
Did it change your opinion of America,
what America means, what America stands for?
Our democracy is a people's democracy
and it can be as great as a people can be,
but it's also as fallible as people are.
Our democracy is vitally dependent
on people who cherish the ideals of our democracy,
"all men are created equal"
and without enough of that kind of people
that passionately believe in those ideals, we're in trouble.
Trouble aboard the Klingon ship.
Evidence of explosions.
Massive destruction
For decades, Takei hid his sexuality
for fear of losing a Hollywood career.
I went to parties with "beards", with women.
And yet the decision to come out publicly
was partly driven by Governor Schwarzenegger
and a decision he made, tell us a little bit about that.
Well, California passed the Marriage Equality Bill.
All it needed was the signature of our governor,
movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But when the bill landed on the governor's desk,
Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
We were livid.
You don't believe in gay marriage
and you just said now to me that you don't have a problem with it?
This veto really was nonsensical because he said...
I don't have a problem with it.
I'm against it but I have no problem with it.
Well, why did you veto it?
- So you are against it still? - I have no problem with it.
"I have no problem with gay marriage but I vetoed it."
He had no good explanation
and we decided I'd been silent on it much too long.
A "Star Trek" star's stunning secret!
I started noticing boys and they were more interesting to me than girls.
Sulu comes out of the closet!
Actor and gay rights activist George Takei.
Tennessee Republicans have proposed a "Don't say gay" law
for Tennessee schools.
I'm lending my name to the cause.
Any time you need to say the word "gay", you can simply say "Takei".
It's okay to be Takei.
I can finally say
what I've waited 40 years to say.
Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on!
What's the deal with Bill Shatner and the rest of you guys from the crew?
Is he somebody you love to hate or do you actually kind of hate him?
Well, you know, he's a difficult guy to work with.
He's a charming guy,
and when you first meet him, he will sweet-talk y'all.
KIRK CHUCKLES
But every one of us have had problems with him.
- Why is he so difficult? - Because he is...
- Say we're playing a scene. - Yes.
- And say you... - One of my lifelong dreams.
On the script, the dialogue is me talking
and the captain listening.
And of course the director is setting up the scene on me.
He comes on the set and he sees that
and then he takes the director off to the side
and they have a whispered conversation.
The director comes back and the camera's now on Bill.
All right.
His reaction to what I'm saying is the more important thing.
And you know, maybe he's right, once, or maybe even twice,
but it happens consistently.
I'm stimulating him.
He and Leonard had a lot of tension going between them.
TV Guide was doing a photo essay on Leonard Nimoy becoming Mr Spock.
The process of getting the make-up on.
And so he comes in early and he's getting his make-up put on
and the photographer from TV Guide is capturing each step of that.
And then half an hour later, Bill comes in
and sees what's going on.
He turns on his heel, gets to a phone on the set
and shortly a minion comes over and dismisses the photographer.
- What? - Apparently...
Bill had written into his contract...
"photographer approval on the sound stage".
He exercised it.
You've got to hear me!
You mentioned Leonard. Of course we lost Leonard not that long ago.
For people that don't necessarily know Leonard Nimoy, Spock,
personally,
what has the world lost, what was he like in person?
Well, the word "extraordinary" is too often misused
but in the case of Leonard Nimoy it's eminently appropriate.
He was an extraordinary person.
When animators bought "Star Trek" as a cartoon series,
an animated series, they hired only Bill Shatner,
Leonard Nimoy, Jimmy Doohan and Majel Barrett.
But when Leonard found out that the rest of us were not hired,
he said "I'm going to walk away
"if Nichelle and George are not included."
That's the kind of loyalty that Leonard has.
Had.
We all... you know, one of the gifts that we got in "Star Trek"
is the fact that our work colleagues became lifelong friends.
George, you are a gay icon, you're a popular culture icon,
you're a pioneer for Asian-American actors.
Ah, if you could go back
and say anything to that kid in the internment camp,
what would you say?
Be optimistic. Have hope.
You may be behind barbed wires,
but there will come a time.
You are going to be able to make a contribution.