Why Star Trek’s Colm Meaney Would not Suppose He’ll Play Miles O’Brien Once more

The character of Transporter Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) first appeared in “Encounter at Farpoint,” the pilot episode of “Star Trek: The Subsequent Era.” For a lot of episodes, he was mainly a background character, normally current to ship a line or two of techno-jargon and to beam the senior employees from the ship to a planet and again. With every look, although, audiences started to get extra particulars about O’Brien’s life. He used to construct ships in bottles as a boy, as an illustration. O’Brien would marry and have a toddler. All informed, O’Brien appeared in 52 episodes of the present, typically starring in his personal tales. 

The character grew to become fashionable sufficient to be carried over to “Star Trek: Deep Area 9” in 1993, on which he was a daily character. On “Deep Area 9,” O’Brien grew to become much more superior, serving because the chief engineer on the station, having to familiarize himself with dated Cardassian expertise, and ensure a whole-ass house station did not shut down solely. He additionally revealed himself to be a great consuming pal, a great husband, and a hero of the working class. “He was greater than a hero,” O’Brien as soon as mentioned of an ancestor, “he was a union man.”

After 160 episodes of “Deep Area 9,” O’Brien took a job as a professor at Starfleet Academy, and that was the final we noticed of him. 

Provided that many “Trek” characters have been resurrected for a number of the newer “Star Trek” reveals on Paramount+, questions have naturally arisen as as to if or not O’Brien could be one in all them. ComicBookMovie not too long ago spoke with Meaney about O’Brien, and the actor fairly clearly mentioned no, O’Brien wouldn’t return. After 212 episodes, he felt he was just about achieved. Nobody needs to see aged O’Brien.

Meaney, it ought to be famous, has all the time been a vastly prolific actor, and continuously left the set of “Star Trek” and flew on to the set of a function movie he was engaged on. Throughout his tenure on “Star Trek,” he was additionally in two dozen films, together with large-scale Hollywood productions like “Con Air” and “Far and Away,” in addition to famous Irish indies like “The Commitments” and its sequels. “Star Trek” was a extremely seen position for him, nevertheless it was additionally simply one other gig in an extended, lengthy profession for Meaney. 

Meaney bears no ailing ideas towards O’Brien, however he is not so wistful that he needs to return again to the position for something on Paramount+. A number of of the brand new “Star Trek” reveals exist as nostalgia, most notably “Star Trek: Picard,” main many, many actors to return to their previous “Trek” roles, typically many years after the very fact. Meaney would not wish to be a type of actors, and feels overwhelmed by the quantity of “Star Trek” on this planet. He mentioned:

“I feel seven years in an area swimsuit was sufficient, you realize? I am usually requested that query and also you by no means say by no means, after all, however to start with I would not slot in it anymore. And I keep in mind individuals saying on the time when ‘Voyager’ acquired going, ‘What number of occasions are you able to go to the effectively? What number of occasions are you able to revamp this?’ They efficiently did it with ‘Star Trek’ they usually’re nonetheless doing it. Good luck to them. […] Do you wish to see an aged Miles O’Brien? I do not know. It is definitely not on the high of my agenda of issues I might love to do in the intervening time.”

Meaney was speaking to ComicBookMovie to advertise his latest movie, Neil Marshall’s “Duchess.” He additionally not too long ago appeared within the movie “Within the Land of Saints and Sinners” and the shark thriller “No Approach Up.” He performed King Francis I within the TV sequence “The Serpent Queen,” and, as of this writing, is simply ending a run in “Bedbound,” a play that is part of the Galway Worldwide Arts Pageant. He additionally appeared in 51 episodes of the TV sequence “Hell on Wheels,” and confirmed up in two episodes of “It is At all times Sunny in Philadelphia.” 

Meaney has often appeared at “Star Trek” conventions, however was usually too busy working to spend an excessive amount of time interacting with Trekkies. He has discovered, nonetheless, that Trekkies have been a genial and open-minded lot, and he had solely constructive issues to say about them: 

“I by no means subscribed to that factor that ‘Star Trek’ followers are nuts. A couple of of them are. There’s the odd one, however now, I all the time discovered ‘Star Trek’ followers to be skilled followers. They’re excellent; they wish to say howdy and what they suppose after which they depart you alone just about. That is very nice and never true of all people. I’ve all the time discovered them extremely educated and far more than I used to be once I was doing it.”

So even when Meaney has put “Star Trek” behind him, he bears the franchise no ailing will. It looks like it is all been very constructive, however do not anticipate him to swimsuit up once more any time quickly.