Other roles
In 1975, Nimoy's renditions of Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" and "Usher II", both from The Martian Chronicles (1950), were released on Caedmon Records. During 1980, Nimoy hosted the Friday "Adventure Night" segment of the radio drama series Mutual Radio Theater, heard via the Mutual Broadcasting System. In 1986, Nimoy lent his voice to the character Galvatron in the animated film The Transformers: The Movie.
In Bradbury's 1993 animated TV film The Halloween Tree, Nimoy was the voice of Mr. Moundshroud, the children's guide. Nimoy lent his voice as narrator to the 1994 IMAX documentary film, Destiny in Space, showcasing film-footage of space from nine Space Shuttle missions over four years time. In 1999, he voiced the narration of the English version of the Sega Dreamcast game Seaman and promoted Y2K educational films.
Together with John de Lancie, who portrayed Q in the Star Trek franchise, Nimoy created Alien Voices, an audio-production venture that specializes in audio dramatizations. Among the works jointly narrated by the pair are The Time Machine, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lost World, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon, and several television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel. In an interview published on the official Star Trek website, Nimoy said that Alien Voices was discontinued because the series did not sell well enough to recoup costs.
In 2001, Nimoy voiced the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Nimoy provided a comprehensive series of voice-overs for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV. In the television series The Next Wave he interviewed people about technology. He hosts the documentary film The Once and Future Griffith Observatory. Nimoy and his wife, Susan Bay-Nimoy, were major supporters of the Griffith Observatory's historic 2002–2004 expansion.
In 2009, he voiced "The Zarn" in the television-based movie Land of the Lost. He voiced the Star Trek Online massive multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep as Xehanort, the series' leading villain. Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Birth by Sleep, said Nimoy was chosen for the role specifically because of his role as Spock, to play opposite Mark Hamill, famous for his role as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, as Nomura was a fan of both series and wanted to pit them against each other. Nimoy reprised this role for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance in 2012. After his death in 2015, Nimoy was replaced in the role of Xehanort by Rutger Hauer. Hauer died in 2019 and was succeeded by Christopher Lloyd, who also appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Nimoy voiced Sentinel Prime in the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon. He was a frequent and popular reader for Selected Shorts, an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City (that also tours around the country) which features actors, and sometimes authors, reading works of short fiction. The programs are broadcast on radio and available on websites through Public Radio International, National Public Radio and WNYC radio. Nimoy was honored by Symphony Space with the renaming of the Thalia Theater as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater.
From 1982 to 1987, Nimoy hosted the children's educational show Standby...Lights! Camera! Action! on Nickelodeon. He was an occasional voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie in 1986. He narrated the 1991 CBS paranormal series Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories. In 1994, he voiced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, a TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel.
From 1994 to 1997, he narrated the Ancient Mysteries series on A&E including "The Sacred Water of Lourdes" and "Secrets of the Romanovs". He appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. In 1997, he played the prophet Samuel, alongside Nathaniel Parker, in The Bible Collection movie David. He appeared in several popular television series, including Futurama and The Simpsons, both as himself and as Spock. In 2000, he provided on-camera hosting and introductions for 45 half-hour episodes of the anthology series Our 20th Century on the AEN TV Network. The series covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and other private archival sources.
In 2001, Nimoy appeared on the television show Becker, where he played Dr. Emmett Fowler, a professor who cannot recall his former student.
Nimoy played the recurring enigmatic character of Dr. William Bell on the television show Fringe. Nimoy opted for the role after previously working with Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on the 2009 Star Trek film and offered another opportunity to work with this production team again. Nimoy also was interested in the series, which he saw was an intelligent mixture of science and science fiction, and continued to guest star through the show's fourth season, even after his stated 2012 retirement from acting. Nimoy's first appearance as Bell was in the Season 1 finale, "There's More Than One of Everything", which explored the possible existence of a parallel universe. In the May 9, 2009, episode of Saturday Night Live, Nimoy appeared as a surprise guest in the Weekend Update segment with Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, who play the young Spock and Kirk in the Star Trek which had just premiered days earlier. In the sketch, the three actors attempt to appease long-time Trekkers by assuring them the new film would be true to the original Star Trek.
In 1991, Nimoy starred in Never Forget, which he co-produced with Robert B. Radnitz. The movie was about a pro bono publico lawsuit by an attorney on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, played by Nimoy as an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial. Nimoy said he experienced a strong "sense of fulfillment" from doing the film. In 2007, he produced the play, Shakespeare's Will by Canadian Playwright Vern Thiessen. The one-woman show starred Jeanmarie Simpson as Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway. The production was directed by Nimoy's wife, Susan Bay.
