I Am Not Spock

Development history

Nimoy stated that the title originated from an incident in an airport where a mother introduced him to her daughter as Spock. The child was not convinced, and "I am not Spock" subsequently became the title for a chapter in the autobiography that discussed how he went about building the character. In the book he compared Spock's life to his own, in order to explain the differences between the personas of the two. He did state that if he were to portray any fictional character, then he would choose Spock.

The chapter title became the book title, which Nimoy later called "a big mistake" as he felt that people assumed that it was an attack on the character and Star Trek in general, but did not read the book to find out what was really meant. During a discussion with the publishers, they decided that the book needed to have Spock in the title, and they felt that I Am Not Spock would attract attention. Nimoy called the reaction a "firestorm".

Nimoy later followed up with a second autobiography in 1995, this time entitled I Am Spock, although he also considered the title Maybe I Am Spock. He discussed the response to I Am Not Spock in a feature called "Reflections on Spock", which was included in the Star Trek: The Original Series season one HD DVD set, released in 2007.