When Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country hit theaters in 1991, fans of George Takei and his character, the venerable Hikaru Sulu, thrilled to the sight of him with a captain’s rank and command of the USS Excelsior (although it was somewhat ironic, considering that Sulu assisted with the ship’s sabotage during the events of Star Trek II: The Search for Spock).
As events of the film unfold, Uhura and Chekov refuse to leave the imprisoned Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy on Rura Penthe and send a false report to Starfleet that Enterprise’s backup systems have failed. Starfleet sends a message to Captain Sulu (in the middle of the night, no less), and the appearance of the communications officer who delivers this message probably made more than one moviegoer blink in surprise! Was that...?
Yes! The unnamed officer was, in fact, Christian Slater!
How Slater got his cameo
Slater, of course, was no stranger to the big screen by the time he received his much-coveted Star Trek cameo. He’d starred in a variety of movies like Gleaming the Cube, Heathers, and Pump Up the Volume, and worked with screen legends such as F. Murray Abraham and Dean Stockwell. As a child, he worked with future Star Trek actor Brent Spiner on the television series Tales From the Darkside. His mother, Mary Jo Slater, was a casting director for Star Trek VI, giving her Star Trek-loving son the perfect chance to cameo in the film. (A little nepotism never hurt the industry, right?)
Slater’s other Star Trek connections
Slater is a self-professed Trekkie, and it is little wonder, considering all the other connections he has to the show. Besides his mother working in the film industry, his godfather, actor Michael Zaslow, appeared twice in Star Trek’s original series in the episodes “The Man Trap” (S01E01) as doomed crewmember Darnell, a victim of the salt-sucking creature, and in “I, Mudd,” (S02E08) as crewman Jordan, an auxiliary control ensign who suffers an attack by Norman the android.
With all these Star Trek connections, it is little wonder that Slater grew up to become such a fervent fan. He even confessed to talk show host Graham Norton that he appropriated the uniform he wore during his cameo because William Shatner donned it in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan! (And who among us wouldn’t have done the same?)
Christian Slater’s cameo is only one of hundreds of anecdotes we discuss over on our social media pages, including Facebook. Stop on by and spend some time with us—you never know what you’ll discover!