Colm Meaney wasn’t into science fiction before starring in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’.
The 62-year-old actor became a household name appearing as Chief of Operations Miles O’Brien on the Emmy Award winning show, set in the 23rd century on the star ship named Enterprise, and revealed he had no prior interest in the genre before signing up but soon realised it had "great value".
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "I was never into science fiction before I did ‘Star Trek’ but I started to see. I mean on that show we did some terrific episodes, dealing with contemporary issues and certainly the writers were very clever in terms of using the future to make a point about today. That way I started to see there was a great value in science fiction."
Colm went on to appear in successful spin-off series ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ and a host of Hollywood blockbusters during the ’90s including ‘Die Hard 2’, ‘Under Siege’ and ‘Con Air’ opposite Nicholas Cage.
Nowadays Colm is put to task appearing in historical drama ‘Hell On Wheels’ as Thomas ‘Doc’ Durant who builds the railway after the American Civil War, but enjoys going back to the future for a catch up with his old pals Gul Dukat and Quark, played by Marc Alaimo and Armin Shimerman.
He explained: "That’s what’s good about the conventions from a lot of our points of view, is that there are so many people you haven’t seen and it’s a chance to catch up. We were very close for seven years, it’s a long time to spend together. We used to do 26 episodes a year on that show … We lived in each others pockets for a long time."
The complete fourth season of ‘Hell On Wheels’ is released on DVD on August 17 2015 from Entertainment One UK.
Colm Meaney: I was never into sci-fi
