Joshua Jackson Almost Played Captain Kirk In Star Trek
Among other things, Joshua Jackson has five seasons running around on Fox’s Fringe, solving outlandish mysteries, battling invaders from the future, and occasionally being blinked out of existence. However, Jackson almost appeared in another J.J. Abrams project and could have continued to be one of the apples of the sci-fans’ eyes. That’s because it looks like he had a shot at Star Trek.
According to an interview with TV Guide, Jackson auditioned not only for the role of Captain James Tiberius Kirk, but also for Leonard “Bones” McCoy when J.J. Abrams was rebooting Star Trek in 2009. Obviously, he didn’t get either of those roles—they went to Chris Pine and Karl Urban, respectively—but the try-out was enough to get Abrams’ attention.
As it turns out, Abrams was also in the process of casting the role of Peter Bishop in Fringe. So while Joshua Jackson didn’t get to explore the galaxy in the Enterprise, he landed a sweet television gig instead.
Joshua Jackson said at the time, “I had gone out for Star Trek. I had gone and auditioned for both Kirk and Bones and maybe that was the thing that put me into their mind. Knowing J.J. peripherally long before that.
I am really close friends with a guy named Scott Foley, who was in Felicity—so I just happened to be there right around the beginning of J.J.’s TV career. I’d known him off and on through all those years so I think maybe he already had a pretty good idea of who I was.”
Not only was Joshua Jackson great as the reformed con man, but extra points for the Felicity reference. How often we forget that before Lost, before Trek, J.J. Abrams brought that into the world.
Can you imagine Joshua Jackson in either one of those iconic Star Trek roles? Didn’t think so. But at the same time, can you imagine anyone else playing Peter Bishop for five Fringe seasons? Neither can we. In the end, these casting tend to work out in a way that seems like it all makes sense. If Joshua Jackson had gotten the Chris Pine role, it does seem like he would have been what the Star Trek fans wanted at the time. There may have been a few too many Beverley Hills 90210 goes to space jokes.
Joshua Jackson took that Fringe part instead and owned it completely. Things turned out pretty okay in this situation.
