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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. You
certainly know his dad, Leonard Nimoy.

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But Adam Nimoy is a writer and
director and actor in his own rights,

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from Star Trek five Fame, Babylon
five, Star Trek the Next Generation.

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But he's written a new book,
and it's a book about his relationship with

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his father, Leonard The Most Human. Reconciling with my father, Leonard Nimoy,

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Adam Nimoy, Great to have you
along. Thanks for having me on.

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Let's start with your childhood. You
went to what was called a lab

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school in Berkeley. I can only
imagine, Well, the lab school is

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at UCLA's It was a grade school, elementary school. It's run by the

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Graduate School of Education at UCLA.
It's still there, experimental school, very

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different than public schools, but incredible
education. I was really lucky to go

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there. They were taking kids from
all socio and economic backgrounds, and I

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happened to be the son of a
struggling actor without a whole lot of money,

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so they allowed me in. It
was a very fortunate decision for me.

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Okay, I thought maybe you were
putting it down as maybe that's where

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some of the disconnect you had with
your father began. Well, what I

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say in the book is that they
did a lot of psychological experimentation with us

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kids when we were at that school, and the experimentation continued when I matriculated

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onto UC Berkeley with chemical substances from
which I never quite fully recovered, and

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that's when the problems really started with
my dad. So you did have some

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addiction problems, as many people of
the day did. Well, Yeah,

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I mean, I'm just your run
of the mill pot smoker. But after

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thirty years of you know, being
high, it was time for me to

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make a change in my life.
And that's when I needed to think about

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working on my relationship with my dad, which had been very troubled. He

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was an admitted alcoholic and my pop
problem didn't help our problems at all,

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and he went into sobriety and recovery
and so did I, and using some

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of the tools of that program,
we were finally able to reconcile and had

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a very close relationship the last years
of his life. The most human reconciling

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with my father, Leonard Nimoy Adam
niemoy is with us. It must have

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been difficult because I remember seeing your
father not only on Star Trek, but

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on various episodes of Mission Impossible.
But when that show initially went away Star

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Trek, when it initially went away
that he was so typecast at that point,

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I imagine he had trouble getting work. Well. Yeah, I mean,

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he was heavily identified with Spock,
which is why he decided to write

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an a biography, a memoir of
his own entitled I Am Not Spock.

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Was a little bit mistitled because he
was simply making the point that people were

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often confusing him with the character.
You know, my dad, I think

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was very grateful for the role.
In the end, it really opened up

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a lot of opportunity for him.
I mean, he went writing in a

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Mission Impossible and then and then after
mission he was doing a lot of other

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things in search of During the seventies, he was on the convention circuit for

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Star Trek, he was he had
an incredible theater career beginning in the seventies,

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and all of that was opportunity that
was opened up to him because of

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Star Trek. I don't think he
had any misgivings about it. And the

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type cast thing is real. I
mean, I think he had to contend

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with that, but I don't think
he would have changed. The thing was

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his character, Spock. Was it
more well known then or did it become

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more well known as those who grew
up watching Star Trek were aging into the

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system. Well, I think Spock
became very popular immediately. Mean, the

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fan mail that we got at home
was phenomenal, and just the character was

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immediately by the fans who were happening
to be watching the show. But it

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was really in syndication in the seventies
when Star Trek exploded worldwide. That's when

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everybody started watching the reruns and getting
a sense of what was going on with

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this show, including myself. I
hadn't watched it since the sixties, and

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when I was at Berkeley, you
know, I would be studying and the

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dorm would end empty out because everybody
would cram into the TV room at five

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o'clock to watch Star Trek. So
it was really syndication, which I think

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broadened his appeal. Adam Niemoy,
son of Leonard Nimoy, and the book

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he has written is a touching account
of the most human reconciling with my father,

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Leonard Nimoy, And as were you
aware that this character and was he

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aware that this character would be as
iconic as it became. No, I

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mean not at all. We didn't. We had no. I don't think

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he had any idea. I think
this is the interesting thing about my dad.

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My dad was very specific about the
work. He lived one day at

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time. You know, he was
very much in the moment. He just

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he just gave the best that he
could to Spock and uh, and he

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was just concerned about, you know, playing doing justice to the character,

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which he did. He had no
idea what the impact would be. We

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had We had none whatsoever. It
was just another TV show. It was

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his first guest starring role that was
significant, and it was the first time

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he had work that lasted longer than
two weeks. He was in that show

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for three seasons. But no one
had any idea the impact Spuck would have

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on the planet. I mean,
it's all over the World's fuck is identifiable.

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Adam Niemoy, son of Leonard Nimoy, and his new book about reconciling

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with his father, The Most Human
Reconciling with my father, Leonard Nimoy.

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When did things start you mentioned it
was about the time when you were you

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were in college. Was that about
the time that your relationship began to sour.

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Yeah, I mean I had a
very awkward relationship with my dad when

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I was younger. We had trouble
connecting with one another, and my dad

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was very much, very busy with
his career and not around all that much

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when Mission Impossible ended, in fact, and he had more time. When

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I was in my teens about to
go to college is when the trouble kind

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of started between us. And then
when I was away at school, it

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periodically got worse, you know,
and then and then through for the next

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twenty years. Really we occasionally bumped
heads. Listen, it's it's just it's

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an up and down relationship. I
mean, we had a lot of great

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times together, mostly celebrating my dad's
many successes. I'm a big fan of

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Lenar Nemoy. I've always been a
fan of Lenardnemoy. But I'm also the

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son of Lendar Nemoy, and sometimes
it just gets complicated whether or not your

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parent is a celebrity. It doesn't
really matter. Fathers and sons sometimes have

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difficult relationships, and that's the point
of the book. I'm hoping that people

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will, you know, to resonate
with people it has so far and inspire

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people to try to repair dysfunctional family
relationships. You talk a lot about that

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too, and about the universal lesson
of recovery. Well, yeah, I

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am a twelve stepper. I've been
in recovery now for twenty years. It

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was the tools of recovery that helped
me and my dad reconcile with one another,

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and I don't think I could have
done it without them and the help

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of people that I knew who were
in recovery who gave me the direction I

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needed to try to figure out a
way to finally put the pass behind us

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and enjoy a close relationship with my
dad, which is exactly what we did,

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and basically the last seven years of
his life, from twenty eight to

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twenty fifteen, I was very close
with my dad, spent a lot of

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time with him. We made a
documentary about his life in Boston together.

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We were working on the Spot documentary
together before he passed away. And at

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one point you had aspirations of being
a lawyer, but then you changed your

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mind and got into show business.
Was there something that made you decide that

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this is where you wanted to go. Well, yeah, I practiced law

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for seven years and that made me
decide pretty quick wa that it was not

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the career for me. I'm glad
I went to law school uh and and

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got that education. I'm glad I
practiced entertainment, law, music mostly.

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I'm happy I did it. But
it was very clear, very you know,

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at that point that I wanted to
do something more creative. I wanted

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to do I wanted to get involved
with storytelling, which was the business that

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my dad was in, uh and
so, and he helped me at that

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point. We were at that stage, our relationship was pretty good, and

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and he helped me segue into TV
directing and gave me a lot of,

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you know, a lot of advice
about the craft of directing. And it

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was I was really indebted to him
at that point for helping me make a

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transition that was not easy for many
people. But I'm really grateful for that.

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If you're a Leonard Nimoy fan,
you will love the account that his

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son, Adam Nimoy, has provided
in his new book, The Most Human

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Reconciling with My Father Leonard Nimoy.
Adam nemoy We thank you for bringing us

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the story and joining us today.
Thank you for having me on and your

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time. Thank you so much,
Livelong and Proper. Thanks for listening to

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Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to

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The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation