"Am I in the next movie? Tell me!"

Will William Shatner suit up as Kirk for Star Trek Beyond?

Star Trek fans believe Shatner could turn up in the third installment of the J.J. Abrams rebooted franchise, with reports from last year stating he'd share a scene with young Kirk (Chris Pine).

At Comic-Con, an audience member asked Shatner whether those rumors were true, particularly as the film has undergone script rewrites.

Shatner responded by telling a story about being approached by Abrams to appear in the 2009 Star Trek film, with the director swearing Shatner to secrecy. Shatner was on vacation when he received the Abrams call, and when he returned to Los Angeles, he was accosted at the airport by a reporter who claimed to have details of the scene Shatner would appear in. Abrams, unhappy, called Shatner thinking he'd leaked the information.

"This reporter knew more about it than I did," Shatner told the audience member. "So back to you my friend! What do you know? Am I in the next movie? Tell me!"

Earlier in the panel, Shatner spruced up a reading from an upcoming autobiography of the Star Trek captain by pretending the family-friendly book was full of euphemisms for sex.

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk was written by David Goodman, with the work telling the story of the famed Starfleet captain's life (2233–2371). It includes everything from his birth on the USS Kelvin, his time in Starfleet Academy and his tenure on the Enterprise — but (apparently) doesn't actually cover Kirk's sexual exploits in detail.

Reading from a scene talking about meeting his love interest Carol Marcus after a number of years, Kirk described her as small and blonde, "which I guess was my type" (Shatner added to laughs, "Actually, what wasn't my type?"). A segment about Kirk and Marcus moving in together got more laughs when Kirk said they spent every waking moment "rock climbing and horseback riding" — but Shatner read the line as though it were a euphemism for sex.

At the point when Carol tells Kirk she's pregnant, Shatner ad-libbed again, saying with confusion, "I was rock climbing and riding a horse."

Later, Shatner read another passage about Kirk's command of the Enterprise for the first time and meeting Spock and Scotty. With Shatner's delivery, this line took on a new meaning: "Show me your tool kit, Mr. Scott."

Shatner noted that he played Kirk from young adulthood to death in Star Trek: Generations (1994) and said that Kirk dealing with aging became autobiographical for him in a way as he became older. Shatner clearly has a strong affection for the character, going as far as dressing up as Kirk for the Oscars opening monologue in 2013.

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk comes out Sept. 8.