Credit: LucasfilmThe number of actors who have appeared in both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises is pretty small, and when it comes to prominent starring roles, pretty much zero. However, according to Timothy Olyphant, that might not have been the case, except for one pretty silly reason.
Timothy Olyphant recently appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast for a conversation that ranged from his work as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in the Elmore Leonard adaptation series Justified to his role in the slasher sequel Scream 2 (1997) to his failed attempt to get cast in the lead role of Captain James T Kirk in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot (2009).
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The future Star Wars star said, “Here’s what I can tell you about Star Trek: I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with J.J. Abrams, and he’s just a lovely, lovely guy. And just a lovely, lovely audition process…Somewhere in there, I was auditioning for Doc, he’s like, ‘I already got a guy for Doc, so I don’t need you for that. But I don’t have a Kirk.’”
So far, so good. If you’re an actor coming in to audition for a supporting role, getting bumped up to a potential lead has to be pretty good. However, Timothy Olyphant says that “[I]t was one of those things where it’s like, they might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger, and [Abrams] was having a hard time finding somebody younger… And somewhere along the line, J.J. called and said, ‘I found a guy, younger, who’s really good.’”
That younger person turned out to be Chris Pine, who, at a full 13 years younger than Timothy Olyphant, has played Captain Kirk in three hit Star Trek movies. It seems that the Justified actor holds no ill will to either J.J. Abrams or Pine, saying of the latter that “since then [I] met Chris Pine and I am a huge fan of him both on and off-screen. I love that guy. He’s a good dude.”
Although Timothy Olyphant did not get cast as Captain Kirk due to being too old, he has done pretty well for himself since. In addition to starring in Justified and Santa Clarita Diet, Olyphant has appeared in two different Star Wars series to date, with rumors of his own spinoff in the works.
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Timothy Olyphant first appeared as slave-turned-lawman Cobb Vanth in the second season of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian and reprised the role in The Book of Boba Fett. His tough but virtuous character (who initially wore the Beskar armor of the presumed-dead Boba Fett) was an immediate fan with audiences and will likely keep appearing wherever Lucasfilm can fit him in.
We’ll likely never get to see Timothy Olyphant as Captain Kirk, but that’s okay. We’ll never get to see him as Iron Man, either.
Would Timothy Olyphant have been a better Kirk than Chris Pine? Beam up your opinions in the comments below!