The Star Trek And Star Wars Surprising Acting Connections

The list of performers who have visited both the final frontier and a galaxy far, far away begins with everyone’s favorite professional nerd, Simon Pegg. Pegg has long been a very vocal fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, and yet, despite that, he showed up in rival franchise Star Trek first. Pegg was tapped by director J. J. Abrams to portray the Enterprise’s chief engineering officer, Scotty, in his 2007 Star Trek reboot.

Years later, Abrams would help his friend crossover to the dark side with a role as the dastardly Unkar Plutt, a Jakku junk trader and minor antagonist in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Ironically, Scotty’s mute sidekick in the Abrams Star Trek movies—Keenser—also has a Star Wars connection. Deep Roy, the actor who plays Keenser, was a stand-in for Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back as well as an Ewok in Return of the Jedi.

Hellboy himself also portrayed characters in both universes. Ron Perlman first played the alien Viceroy Vkruk in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) before making the jump to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where he voiced Gha Nachkt. The grotesque scrap metal peddler was easily the more evil of the two characters.

Sure, Vkruk is a jerk for helping the evil Picard clone Shinzon in Nemesis, but Gha Nachkt tried to sell R2D2 to General Grievous. Anybody that would harm a circuit on that sweet little droid‘s dome is worse than Satan as far as we’re concerned.

Olivia D’abo, best known as Kevin’s older sister on the original Wonder Years, guest starred in a memorable Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “True Q.” D’abo plays an Enterprise crewmember who falls victim to the omnipotent jerkwad Q and his pranks. D’abo later made the switch to Star Wars, voicing the Jedi Luminara Unduli in The Clone Wars.

This next one should come as no surprise as he’s J.J. Abrams’ unofficial good luck charm. Greg Grunberg, who has appeared in almost everything J.J. Abrams has ever made, voiced young Kirk’s stepfather in Star Trek before landing the slightly juicier role—at least his face is visible—of resistance pilot Snap Wexley in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Wexley basically served as the sequel’s version of Wedge Antilles, a character who survives through all three movies but remains largely in the background.

None other than George Takei himself made the switch from Trek to Wars. Takei famously played the role of Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek: The Original Series and its subsequent movie outings. Despite being a member of Star Trek’s core crew from the very beginning, Takei bravely jumped ship in 2009 to voice a Nemoidian by the name of Lok Durd in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Those are just a few of the actors that have set foot in both of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time, proving once and for all you can like both Star Trek and Star Wars. Not equally, of course; one is always going to be slightly better than the other. We’ll leave you, dear reader, to figure out which is which.