#Star Trek: Picard: Why Next Generation Actors Turned Down Reprising Their Roles

Photo Cr: Aaron Epstein/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Star Trek: Picard brought back Patrick Stewart and several others from Star Trek: The Next Generation earlier this year, but two members of the cast initially declined to reprise their roles.

Per Trek Movie, TNG vets Brent Spiner and Marina Sirtis both said no to returning for Star Trek: Picard, but they both ended up changing their minds. Spiner appeared as two characters on the CBS All Access series, and Sirtis returned with TNG co-star Jonathan Frakes.

Spiner said the following about his return:

“I had no intention of being in the show, obviously. Patrick had said that the season will have to do with Data. So, I was trying to come up with stuff. I wanted to be on the show, but I didn’t want to play Data. I pitched an idea to Patrick about playing a different character. He took it back to the powers that be and they got back to him and said, “Well that is really interesting, but we don’t think we are going to go that way.” And I was like, “Okay, no big deal.” My manager got a phone call saying the guys who are putting the show together would like to meet. I said, “Fine,” and went down and had a meeting. They were hugely impressive guys to meet. Alex [Kurtzman] and Akiva [Goldsman] and Michael Chabon, these are incredible writers. It is an incredible pedigree. Michael Chabon has won a Pulitzer.”

Sirtis initially turned down the appearance because she was busy with a theater project. She said the following:

“When I did hear about it, I actually had to turn it down because I was doing a play in London. The dates clashed. But, the wonderful people over there at Picard basically fixed it so that we shot out of sequence. I shot my stuff with Jonathan [Frakes] in the middle of a different episode. Everything is streaming now, so they can do that kind of stuff. It’s not like when we were shooting on actual film and shot a month in advance before the show was on the air, it was a very different time. So, it worked out and I am very happy it worked out.”

What do you think? Were you happy to see Spiner and Sirtis again on Star Trek: Picard?