Leonard Nimoy Himself Invented Spock's Trademark Move in Star Trek

Despite the fact that so many years have passed from the time when Leonard Nimoy appeared on silver screens as Star Trek ’s Spock in 1966, he will forever be associated with the character, because it was him who turned it into legend.

Spock was the half-human and half-Vulcan creature with strange looks and a likewise behavior. And to have a character like that on TV – Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the original series, had to take science fiction very seriously, carefully crafting every little piece of the story to turn out the way it did.

However, it seems like not everything was handpicked by Roddenberry himself and one little part of Star Trek, which later actually became the trademark of the franchise’s most popular character, was created by the actor himself.

There’s no Reddit thread, fan website, science-fiction lovers club anywhere in the world where you can find literally anybody saying that someone else did a better job on Spock, except for Nimoy. All the discussions start with the phrase “who do you think comes after Nimoy?” and that’s just normal.

In fact, Nimoy was responsible for the iconic Vulcan neck pinch in Star Trek, not even Roddenberry. So why the pinch?

The thing is, Nimoy himself felt that some of the things the writers wanted his character to represent were not so natural for Spock. So when he had to pistol-whip someone with his phaser, with all the love for Roddenberry's vision of the scene, he said his character would never do that.

So he created the pinch, which became the alternate action. The producers were skeptical about changing the script, and Roddenberry himself wasn't on board, but William Shatner helped Nimoy demonstrate how perfect it would be, and everyone agreed to keep it.

“This is archaic” was the argument Nimoy used to persuade the director. And then the move eventually became Spock's signature in those types of situations.

Star Trek is available to stream on Netflix.