(CNN) "I was astounded by the recognition of the barracks," said George Takei, recalling his time on the set of "The Terror: Infamy," the second instalment of AMC's now-ongoing horror anthology series. The new season is set against an historical backdrop that Takei, at 82, remembers all too vividly from his own personal history: the internment camps in which Japanese-Americans -- including the actor and his family -- were held during World War II for fear they might act as foreign agents.

"There were 6.5 acres covered with barracks, barbwire fence, sentry towers -- I recognize them," said Takei, who not only performed as an actor on the series but also served as a consultant. "I remembered a stray dog that we adopted who would crawl into the crawl space and peer out from under it. Or the mess hall and the noise and the laughter and so forth."

"The first day we shot in that mess hall, he said 'These dishes aren't chipped enough,'" recalled executive producer Alexander Woo, who co-conceived the new season and stepped into showrunner duties. "So we went and chipped a bunch of dishes so that we could have it completely authentic, but that's the luxury of having George Takei."

Takei has assumed many descriptive titles over six decades in entertainment -- actor, "Star Trek" cast member, LGBTQ activist and social media sensation among them -- but in recent years he's personally shared his identity as a 5-year-old internee alongside his family in the relocation camps in both his native California and Arkansas. He's told a version of his story in his autobiography, as well as metaphorically in the Broadway musical "Allegiance," and in greater detail in the recently published graphic novel "They Called Us Enemy." Now he continues to shed light on his experience through the lens of the horror genre, drawing on elements of kaidan, the Japanese ghost story tradition, and Japanese horror movies.

"The conceit of the show is using a genre vocabulary to tell a historical story," Woo told CNN, noting that the first season of "The Terror" had set down a template of setting the tale in an environment where human terror was just as palpable as supernatural terror. Writer-producer Max Borenstein, who developed the first season, had seen Takei give a lecture on his experiences years earlier, and Woo picked up on his recommendation.

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