He may not be back for the next Star Trek movie Beyond, but erstwhile Captain Kirk William Shatner says he’s still keen to return to the USS Enterprise, perhaps in a similar capacity to his late co-star Leonard Nimoy (who played an older version of Spock in the first two films).

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"I would play an old Captain Kirk, absolutely," he told the Hollywood Reporter.

"You would have [to have] an interesting character, not a cameo, like, 'Here I am, aren't I interesting?' It's the ongoing world; it's the world within science-fiction. Yes, you age within the universe. Time goes on — but time bends, as well. There's so many things you could do."

He added: "When we finished our movies — the six movies I made — we were putting Kirk into glasses, graying hair, a little old. I wrote a series of novels [in which] they allowed me to tell my story of Captain Kirk. So in a series of Star Trek novels, half a dozen of them, I — taking from my own life, of life and death and love and loss — I created this whole world of Star Trek for Captain Kirk.”

"I would have loved to have done them [as movies]."

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Shatner also described how close he’d come to already making a return to Star Trek, having discussed making a cameo for 2009’s reboot with director JJ Abrams.

"How would they handle it, in science-fiction terms? I'm older, I'm heavier, I'm — all the problems of age,” he said.

“So what did Captain Kirk do? Die and age? Doesn't sound science-fiction-y enough. Or maybe you make him really old. I don't know. It seems to have beggared Abrams' imagination."

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Star Trek Beyond will be released this summer

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