blowing smoke too much...
-Blow away.
That's exactly how
our show became successful.
Because that's how
he approached Picard,
and the rest of us were sort of...
It's like playing tennis with somebody
who's a better tennis player.
"That's how it's gonna be."
And he approached the work
that way on the TV show,
with eight pages
as opposed to five acts.
And, Jonathan, you're directing?
-I do.
-All over the place.
Is that something
you always wanted to do?
-Did you always want to do that?
-It grew on me as I saw...
I always thought that was
the best job on the set.
Actually, I now think it's probably
the best job in the world,
is to direct movies.
And, Leonard, your photography, we
were talking about it just a moment ago.
But you just did a book
on these gigantic
-zaftig women.
-Large women, yes.
These gigantic, large,
gorgeous, but big. Huge.
But he also has a wonderful
philosophy behind it, behind the book.
Tell me, please.
The book really deals with the issue
of body image in our culture,
what is beautiful.
We're being told by the fashion industry
that a certain kind of body image
is required to be considered beautiful.
And the fact is that most people,
particularly women,
don't live in that kind of a body
and never will.
But they're being told,
"If you buy these pills or buy this diet
"or buy this exercise programme
or try this surgery,
"you might get closer to the ideal."
And it's just that carrot
that's held out there
for the sake of commerce,
for the sake of money.
-And this book addresses that issue.
-It's a wonderful book.
We talk about it quite a bit on our show.
For a moment,
I just want to talk to you for a second.
From Twilight Zone to Boston Legal.
-Do you ever stop?
-No.
If I stopped, I might not start.
I understand that.
-No, I just... You keep going.
-Yeah.
And sometimes it works,
and sometimes it doesn't.
-Boy, it's working for you now.
-Yeah.
He's done a great job
of changing careers.
Seriously, from a leading man
to a great character actor.
-It's just evolved. Evolution.
-And a very successful one.
-We've all done that.
-You've done it very, very well.
You did a great job.
But now you've all directed Star Trek.
-Some form of...
-Well, these guys have directed movies.
-Right, you've not done them...
-I only directed the series.
That's more than I've done.
-You directed me. Yes.
-I directed you.
Which is kind of the balance.
When Patrick directed our series,
he said to me, "Jonathan..."
-"You suck."
-No. He was...
"Is there any way that
you could motivate,
"if you could kneel down.
See that big open space over there?
"It would be great for me, while
you're saying the line, if you can just..."
I said, "Sure, I'll try it for you, Patrick.
-"Whatever you like."
-I couldn't get the shot right.
"Jonathan, would you kneel,
could you kneel..."
He did. He did it.
He knelt on the floor of the ship.
On the deck of the ship.
'Cause that's where the camera was.
-Oh, man!
-How did you motivate...
I did it for him,
'cause he did stuff for me.
Yeah, I know. But
what could you possibly be thinking?
If your character,
the captain of the ship, kneeled?
I was thinking
what a wonderful actor he is.
And knelt before him?
-Someday he may be a sir?
-My liege. Oh, my liege.
-In Engineering, that was it?
-It was in Engineering, yeah, yeah.
Wait a minute, he directed you
by saying, "Could you motivate?"
No, no. He didn't ask me to motivate.
He asked me to kneel.
-I said, "Sure."
-I just wanted his head down there,
-low down.
-I said I'd be happy to.
Groucho? We taught you
how to do the Groucho, didn't we?
You did.
You know, there a lot of good
American acting things you've learned.
-And that I use today.
-That you're using today.
Yelling, for instance.
-I do a lot of yelling.
-Acting is yelling.
That's one of the first things
I learned when I...
But you never yelled
as the captain, right?
Rarely.
-