Appearing on the most recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, “Deadwood” and “Justified” actor Timothy Olyphant spoke about the time he almost played Captain Kirk.
The actor spoke about his failed audition for J.J. Abrams’ 2009 revival of the “Star Trek” film franchise, saying he went in initially to audition for the role of Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy.
At that point, Abrams got him to go for Kirk instead. Unfortunately, the actor’s age was a problem – he would’ve been around 40 at the time, and Abrams was after a younger cast (late 20s/early 30s) which led to a then 28-year-old Chris Pine being cast as Kirk and Karl Urban as McCoy.
Olyphant has no regrets about the time spent though, saying:
“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.’
I believe it 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.’
I have since then 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. This sounds very show business-y, but I had the honor, we’re going to say honor, to go to the Golden Globes one year…and I spent most of the evening at the bar with Chris Pine. Just really adored him. What a good guy. I really like his work. He’s one of those guys who makes it look simple and easy.
Auditioning sucks, and the fact that I remember the audition process fondly says a lot about J.J. Abrams and what a wonderful man that guy is.”
Pine scored raves for his work which began a new film trilogy, though talk of a fourth film in the series has stalled in recent years. Meanwhile, the franchise has blossomed again on TV where Paul Wesley is playing the new pre-original series Captain Kirk.
Olyphant can currently be seen on FX’s “Justified: City Primeval” which will wrap its eight-episode run at the end of the month.
