A Star Trek: Voyager Actor Once 'Almost Killed' Harrison Ford
Voyager, the fourth live-action series in the Star Trek franchise's decades-long history, recently celebrated 25 years since its premiere episode, "Caretaker," bowed on January 16, 1995.
Thanks to the influence of the recently released Star Trek: Picard (which saw Jeri Ryan's return as Seven of Nine) and the novel coronavirus that's had us all cooped up in our houses for months, a lot of fans are revisiting Star Trek: Voyager for the first time in years.
It turns out it's not just fans hitting the streaming services to remember all the wildest and weirdest moments from Voyager's seven seasons. The actors who played Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) went so far with the rewatch that they made their own Star Trek: Voyager rewatch podcast, The Delta Flyers.
And when you get actors together, they remember some things! It's just that the things they remember are not what you might expect.
Star Trek: Voyager to Star Wars: Get off my car!
In the Delta Flyers episode discussing "Caretaker," Wang revealed a story that happened outside the direct realm of Star Trek and had the actor run, almost quite literally, into the property's biggest sci-fi rival, Star Wars.
Wang, like most actors auditioning for a huge role in a major franchise, was on pins and needles after trying out for the role of Harry Kim. When he finally found out that he'd nabbed the part, he was excited. In fact, Wang was still so excited when he went in for his fitting at Paramount Studios that disaster nearly, again quite literally, struck.
"I'm actually speeding around the parking lot, and I come around this one bend, and this guy in a suit walks between two cars right in front of my car," Wang revealed. "So I slam on my breaks, and you know when you almost have an accident, your heart is beating a thousand miles a minute?"
Who was the mystery man? According to Wang, "I lock eyes with this dude in the suit, and it's Harrison Ford! I look at him, and I go 'Oh my God! I almost killed Han Solo! Indiana Jones! I would have been hated by nerds everywhere! I would have been this pariah!'"
If the Star Trek: The Next Generation shoe fits
In addition to maybe preventing the existence of films like Air Force One, What Lies Beneath, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, Wang had at least one other weird brush with fame, albeit much more Trek-centered.
In the same Delta Flyers episode, Wang relates that, after fittings were complete for each actor's specific uniforms, he found himself in receipt of a pair of leather, Starfleet-issue boots. The boots, however, were used. Who were they used by? According to Wang, "There was a name tag inside the shoes that said B. Spine.r" It turns out these boots had previously belonged to Data (Brent Spiner) from Star Trek: The Next Generation!
The absolute best and wildest part of this story, however, is that Wang wasn't excited — he was annoyed! Used boots? Not on Wang's tootsies, man! "I made a big stink about it," Wang admitted, "and they brought in Kate's Italian shoemaker that made her shoes. So, this guy comes into my trailer and he looks at my feet and he says, 'Okay, i got it.'"
How did that work out? Three weeks later, Wang received, "This beautiful pair of craftsman boots." The problem? "I put them on," says Wang, "and they are way too tight!"
The coda to this story is that Wang wound up going to Nordstrom's to buy his own boots. All of which is to say that the most important lessons we've learned from the Delta Flyers podcast so far are, "Watch where you're driving," and "if you get a pair of used boots that belonged to Brent Spiner, just wear them, man."
What strange secrets from Star Trek: Voyager's past might we learn next? Only Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill know ... for now.