George Takei is best-known around the world as Hikaru Sulu, later Captain Sulu, on the fictional Starship Enterprise in the beloved sci-fi series, Star Trek.

The openly gay actor, author, activist, and social media influencer sat down during Pride month with HFPA member Brent Simon for an episode of our podcast series, Golden Globes Around the World to talk about his 2019 New York Times bestselling graphic memoir “They Called Us Enemy” – which recently returned in a deluxe edition with 16 pages of bonus material and has also been translated in additional languages to truly reach around the world

The fearless, funny 85-year-old star pulled no punches as he talked about his years behind barbed wire with his family in Japanese American internment camps and reveals how a guest role in the Archie Comics series Riverdale led to his decision to tell his own story in a graphic novel.

Since coming out as gay in 2005, Takei has been a prominent activist for the LGBQTI+ community and in 2008 he and long-time partner Brad Altman were the first same-sex couple to apply for a marriage license in West Hollywood, getting married a few months later. Through the continuing tours of his 2012 Broadway show Allegiance, inspired by his internment experience, Takei has also been a vocal advocate of the rights of immigrants.

With 3.3 million Twitter followers, he tells Simon in this episode of Golden Globes Around the World that he has mixed feelings about his influence on social media but is proud of the result.

“It is a connector and that’s what enamored me initially,” he adds. “We were developing the play Allegiance and we needed an audience and I discovered social media was a wonderful way to communicate with people, so it was self-serving. But, after educating people about that chapter of American history, we see the division in our country now and the power of social media is that it’s done away with the filters.”