One Star Trek actor has shared screen-time with the first four Trek captains

Only one Star Trek actor has shared screen time with four captains.

What do William Shatner (James Kirk), Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard), Avery Brooks (Ben Sisko), and Kate Mulgrew (Kathryne Janeway) all have in common? They were all able to say they shared a scene with Star Trek actor Tim Russ. In fact, he’s among the only actors to be able to say that. Russ, who most fans will know as Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager, wasn’t just the loyal, ex-Maquis Vulcan that Janeway relied on.

Oh no. He had many hats in the world of Star Trek.

Russ appeared four times in Trek as a different character, each time working directly with the captain of that respective property. His first was on The Next Generation, guest-starring on the season sixth episode, “Starship Mine”, where he was physically assaulted by Picard. In the Deep Space Nine episode, “Invasive Procedure”, Russ and Brooks had a fight scene in ops.

He was a bridge crewman in the film Star Trek Generations, where Kirk was returning to the Enterprise for one last mission. He and Shatner had a brief scene together.

And of course, he had a starring role on Voyager, where he and Mulgrew shared many scenes together.

Actors like Tim Russ are very common in Star Trek

While Russ holds the unique distinction of sharing screen time with four Starfleet captains, what isn’t all that uncommon are Trek actors being used and reused in the franchise. Many times a talent will appear in a variety of roles, across different shows. That’s kind of the Star Trek way.

So while Russ gets to have the unique honor of being in scenes with four leadingTrek captains, many actors have appeared in many roles for Trek over the years. Even guys like Clint Howard, who debuted with the franchise in the episode The Corbomite Maneuver, returned over 50 years later to do a small role in Star Trek: Discovery.

One actor playing many roles is a very-Trek thing to do and hopefully, we see more of that with the Nu Trek era of shows.

Has any other actor that you know of shared a scene with four different leading Trek characters?