With any franchise that’s been round so long as Star Trek has, there are at all times going to be a sure variety of tantalizing “what-ifs.” From narrative swerves (What if Christopher Pike was by no means injured and remained the Enterprise’s captain?) to casting selections (What if Mitchell Ryan performed Jean-Luc Picard as an alternative of Patrick Stewart?), the present configuration of the collection’ onscreen universe may have gone in a lot of various instructions, a few of which appear type of nuts when checked out from our modern-day perspective. However some are downright intriguing. Like the concept that Star Trek: Deep Area 9’s captain may have been performed by a former Ghostbuster.
Don’t get me fallacious, Avery Brooks is an iconic performer. The primary Black actor to guide a Star Trek collection, he reportedly beat out over 100 different actors for the function of Captain Benjamin Sisko. And with good motive; his efficiency all through DS9’s seven seasons was great, operating the gamut from calm depth to bombastic theatrics and every part in between. His tackle the character is so idiosyncratic and recognizable that it’s troublesome now to think about anybody else within the function. However had destiny taken one other path, the commander of DS9 might need been somebody very completely different.
Actor Ernie Hudson, greatest recognized for his portrayal of Winston Zeddemore within the Ghostbusters franchise, was apparently one of many many performers who threw their hat within the ring for the function of Sisko. Talking to Bleeding Cool about his function within the CBS procedural Boston Blue (by which he stars alongside former Star Trek: Discovery captain Sonequa Martin-Inexperienced), Hudson was frank concerning the course of, explicitly noting his preliminary assumption that the producers would by no means make the captain of the collection a Black man. (Sisko would go on to formally turn out to be a captain in DS9 season 3; practically 30 years later, Martin-Inexperienced would play the franchise’s first Black feminine captain.)
“They advised me they needed me to return in, so I went into the audition, and I learn. I believed I did studying, they usually appreciated me, then they needed me to return again the subsequent day,” Hudson mentioned. “They advised me to ‘make him sexier,” and now I don’t know the way to try this. I don’t know what meaning, so I went to the assembly, and I did an Elvis [Presley] factor, and it was ridiculous. Midway by my studying, they mentioned, “Thanks. That’s sufficient,” so I didn’t get the function. However I’ve at all times been a fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, and all these issues, however hadn’t been requested to be in them for no matter motive. I suppose there are nonetheless potentialities, however yeah”
