William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson took the stage Wednesday night at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills for the second night of a two-night conversation titled “The Universe Is Absurd!” — a performance that mixed astrophysics, autobiography and a surprise heavy metal set. Shatner spoke about his 2021 Blue Origin space flight, performed a song called “Rage,” and told the audience his heavy metal album will be out in October.
Tyson moved between grand cosmic scales and pointed jokes, delivering one of the night’s clearest moments when he said, "The electron is so small, we do not know how small it is" and later, "Every measurement of the electron is smaller than our attempts to measure it. As far as we’re concerned, it’s infinitesimally small." The exchange underlined the evening’s tug-of-war: scientific precision on one side, theatrical instinct on the other.
That tug surfaced in sharper detail when Shatner turned the conversation to the flight that made him a household example of late-life adventure. Shatner said he flew on a Blue Origin rocket in 2021, that he had to climb 11 stories in the gantry to get to the opening of the ship, and that he saw gas coming off one of the vents and was told it was hydrogen — which made him think of the Hindenburg disaster. He also recounted that someone in ground control noted an anomaly during the countdown.
Shatner, who said he was born in 1931, insisted he wants applause for what he does next, not for how long he has lived. "I don’t like being applauded for my age. Applaud me for my heavy metal album," he said, then asked the room, "Why does everyone approach me with a smile when they hear ‘heavy metal album’?" He followed those remarks by performing “Rage,” a moment that turned the theatre from a talk into a show.
The context mattered: the appearance was the second night of a two-night event and came after the two first met during a 2024 trip to Antarctica. The pair’s chemistry — Tyson the scientist, Shatner the performer — has been the story since they first crossed paths, and an earlier account of their opening night appears here: Neil Degrasse Tyson Joins William Shatner onstage for 'The Universe Is Absurd!' in Beverly Hills —
Tension ran beneath the banter. Shatner said, plainly, "I’m trying to use the language that I understand. It’s not your language because you are a Ph.D.," and Tyson replied with a laugh and a self-effacing, "Yeah, that word [entrails] didn’t appear in my thesis at all." The evening made a point of the gap — not hostile, but real — between lived theatrical experience and the slow, exacting patience of scientific measurement. Tyson reinforced the historical arc by noting that the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick the year after Shatner was born, tying personal memoir to the march of physics.
The numbers and facts threaded through the night gave the performance weight: an event in Beverly Hills, two famous figures who first met in Antarctica in 2024, a recollection of a 2021 Blue Origin flight with a reported anomaly, and a promised heavy metal album arriving in October. For many in the room, the question was whether the spectacle of Shatner’s stagecraft or the authority of Tyson’s science would dominate; by the end, they did both.
Shatner left that question answered in practice rather than in theory. At an age he points to by saying he was born in 1931 — 95 years by the figures he invoked — he used the platform to pivot away from nostalgia and toward a new creative project. Whether audiences came for cosmic riffs or for a surprise rendition of “Rage,” they left with the same takeaway: Shatner wants to be judged by his next work, not by his years, and he has set October as the date when the judgment will begin.
