William Shatner: 'I'm in a ferment of creativity'

I live with my wife in Los Angeles overlooking the San Fernando Valley. I can see the sunrise one way, sunset the other. My wife is talented in many ways, and she’s also a great and healthy cook. I’m not eating bread and I’ve lost weight.

I’m able to get out to my horses. I’m working on a discipline called reining and rehearsing for when the horse shows open up again. I’m working with my two show dogs. I’m in better shape than I’ve been in years.

I’m in a ferment of creativity. I’m making music and dreaming up new shows – I’m trying to sell two or three series to the networks right now. I’m finishing up a blues album that I started before coronavirus hit. At the same time, I’ve been working with a poet and a musician in New York. I perform the words on an iPhone and once I email it he writes the accompaniment, so I’ve got another album all ready.

Patrick Stewart is a great friend of mine, but I haven’t seen Star Trek: Picard. I haven’t watched any Star Trek. I just don’t like watching myself on television.

I don’t know why, but I just don’t binge TV. Last night, I looked at an old black-and-white June Allyson movie because I was thinking, “Why was June Allyson so popular?” I looked at a documentary on bears because I was curious about how bears hibernate and what they do in the summer. I take on a polyglot of subjects. I listen to lectures on my phone. I just heard one on Alexander the Great, who I talk about in my one-man shows. Not only was I pronouncing “Bucephalus” [Alexander’s horse] incorrectly, they have also somehow solved the mystery of his death.

• The UnXplained, hosted by William Shatner, starts on Sky History on 9 June.