Actors Who Were Almost Cast As Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard Before Patrick Stewart

In An interview in 2020 with The Hollywood ReporterThe actor Patrick Stewart recalled the frustrations he met while working with Gene Roddenberry, the creator of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Roddenberry did not want Stewart to play Captain Jen-Luc Picard, hates the fact that he was bald and not so passionate about the fact that he is English. When Roddenberry visited the “Star Trek” set, Stewart remembers having been treated coldly, and he received little real direction from man. Stewart sought to discuss Captain Picard with Roddenberry during a lunch, but it was not a very useful meeting; Roddenberry simply advised Stewart to read the Horatio Hornblower novels by CS Forster. As the creator of the series said, “everything is there.” Not very useful.

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Roddenberry’s disgust towards Stewart, however, was not shared by the general public. Captain Picard has become a favorite character of fans fairly quickly, with trekks responding to the dominant performance of Stewart and innate intelligence and the propensity for diplomacy of Picard. It didn’t take long before Trekkies said that Picard was perhaps a better captain than Captain Kirk (William Shatner) of the original “Star Trek”.

But if Roddenberry and other casting directors had their way, someone else would have been thrown like Jean-Luc Picard. Indeed, on April 13, 1987, the producer of Paramount, John Ferraro, was the author of a service note of the president of Paramount TV John Pike listing his list of wishes of the finalists for all the major roles of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. The memo (Generated by Slice of Sci-Fi in 2006) had some fun surprises. For example, it seems that Wesley Snipes was under the study of Geordi La Forge.

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While Patrick Stewart was Ferraro’s first choice for Picard, Mitch Ryan, Roy Thinnes, Patrick Bauchau, and, above all, Yaphet Kotto.

In 1987, Roy Thinnes could have been best known for science fiction fans for having played in the Larry Cohen series “The Invaders” as David Vincent who discovered an extraterrestrial plot on earth. The general probably knew him for his prolific turn in 45 episodes of “General Hospital”. He was also congratulated for his role in “The Long Hot Summer” and appeared in films like “Airport 1975” and “The Hindenburg”. He played a small role in “A Beautiful Mind” by Ron Howard and even presented himself on three episodes of “The X-Files” (seen above). Thinnes was a fairly reliable television presence, and he was authoritarian and professional, so we can understand by Paramount would like it.

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Mitchell Ryan, the recognizable character actor who played Greg’s father, Edward, was also considered for Picard, the recognizable actor who played Greg’s father, Edward, in the successful sitcom “Dharma & Greg”. He was also in 107 episodes of “Dark Shadows”, playing Burke Devlin in the 1960s. Ryan was one of the televisions and the pre -eminent of the film “Hey, it’s this guy!” The actors, accumulating dozens and dozens of cinematographic and televised credits in his career, including “Liar Liar” with Jim Carrey. Ryan, compared to Stewart, was stronger and more masculine, bringing a windy energy … Finally, like Kirk to his roles. Ryan was however too prolific to pass, and he would finally be pulled in the lap “Star Trek”, playing Will Riker’s father (Jonathan Frakes) in the episode “Next Generation” “The Icarus Factor” (April 24, 1989).

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Ryan and Thinnes are American actors, while Jean-Luc Picard is French. No French actor was being studied for the role, although the memo mentions the Belgian actor Patrick Bauchau. Bauchau was an actor of the new French wave and even participated in films from the New German wave, both throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He worked with Éric Rohmer and Wim Wenders. In America, he is perhaps best known for his role in James Bond’s film “at View to a Kill”. He would have brought an element of European sophistication to this role.

Also on the Picard list was Yaphet Kotto, star of “Alien”, “in the 110th street”, “The Running Man”, the James Bond film “Live and Let Die” (seen above), and many others. Kotto has also played one of the main roles in the longtime “homicidal cops: Life on the Street”. At the start of his career, Kotto appeared on 10 episodes of “Bonanza”, 15 episodes of “Death Valley Days” and 16 episodes of “Gunsmoke”. His career was vast and wide. The world lost a huge talent at his death in 2021.

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Kotto, as we can see from his film credits, was no stranger to science fiction. In “Alien”, he lived on a space ship and fought with a space creature, while “The Running Man” gave him the chance to work in a futuristic dystopia.

In 2015, Kotto spoke with the Bigg problemAnd asked him for her brush with “Star Trek”. Kotto remembers his refusal and expresses a little regret on this subject. He explained:

“I think I made bad decisions in my life, guy. I should have done that, but I left. When you make films, you would tend to say no on television. It’s like when you are at university and someone asks you for the dance of the school. You say no.”

For many decades, television was considered a “lesser” medium that television, and the cinema actors tended to stay away from television shows. It was true as late as 1987, and Kotto did not want to abandon the potential roles of the film to engage in a season of 26 episodes of “Star Trek”. Kotto is also very, very American, it is therefore not clear if he would have assigned a French accent to play Jean-Luc Picard. At the very least, he would have had the appropriate authority.

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But in the end, I think we can all agree that the public of Captain Picard was given the best.