William Shatner Recalls His Reaction Michael Myers Halloween Mask

William Shatner recalls the moment he discovered the Michael Myers Halloween mask was being used as an old, repurposed mask for his face. The Halloween franchise dates way back to 1978 and has continued to endure to this year.

Their latest entry was with Halloween Kills as it opened to number 1 at the domestic box office. The venture garnered $49 million in its opening weekend. The next entry is Halloween Ends which is set to premiere on October 14, 2022.

While Halloween Kills has been a box office success, Shatner has recently been in the news. Shatner, best known for his role as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series and the first six Star Trek films, just travelled to space on the New Shepard Rocket on October 13, 2021.

Blue Origin, a suborbital space flight company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, was in charge of the ship. Shatner’s orbital voyage occurred just days before the release of Halloween Kills, which is appropriate given how closely the two are linked.

Many people know that Michael Myers‘ original mask was an old William Shatner mask that Tommy Lee Wallace, the Halloween production designer and editor, altered by painting it white, widening the eye holes, removing the eyebrows, and dying the hair.

Shatner revealed that when he first realised the mask was his face, he thought it was a joke, according to THR, in an interview with the YouTube channel Jakes Takes. Shatner reveals that he first saw the mask in a photograph because he had never seen the 1978 original film.

Classic Michael Myers Mask Still Remains Popular

“I thought, ‘Is that a joke? Are they kidding?’…I recognized it as the death mask they had made for me. They made a mask of my face on Star Trek out of clay so I would not have to be available for the prosthetics they would have to put on my face to look old or evil or whatever it was they were making me look like. So somewhere along the line, someone got that mask and made a mask of it for [the holiday] Halloween.”

The mask of Michael Myers has undergone several changes over the years but the classic 1978 Halloween mask still remains the most popular. It is also intimately associated with Shatner. Malek Akkad, the producer of the long-running Halloween series; has expressed his wish for William Shatner to star in a Halloween film.

Halloween Kills brought back a number of characters from the 1978 picture; and Halloween Ends is expected to have a cameo from current Halloween trilogy writer and producer Danny McBride; so a cameo by William Shatner would be a great meta-reference for fans of the film.

The original Halloween film is a testament to making do on a shoestring budget; as the mask’s production demonstrates the filmmakers’ resourcefulness in turning a plain store Halloween mask into a horror icon; and a piece of cinema history. It’s fitting that Shatner is the franchise’s unintended face; considering Star Trek is another show that had to make do with a limited budget. Despite the economic constraints, both Star Trek and Halloween became important pop culture icons that have lasted until this day.