Actors who were in both Star Trek and Star Wars
Star Trek and Star Wars are often looked upon as two sides of the same sci-fi coin, the former revered for its philosophical approach to the genre, the latter for putting that genre on the mainstream map. In truth, both franchises probably owe their continued existence to the other: George Lucas admitted that Star Trek "softened up the entertainment arena so that Star Wars could come along and stand on its shoulders," whereas William Shatner conceded that Paramount only became interested in giving Star Trek a real shot after the first Star Wars picture took the movie world by storm in 1977. The two genre juggernauts jostled for supremacy in the decades that followed, and a healthy rivalry developed between the respective fandoms, giving birth to the idea that people ought to pledge allegiance to one franchise over the other, an idea that the following actors chose to ignore entirely.
Greg Grunberg
As a self-proclaimed geek, Greg Grunberg couldn't have asked for a better friend than the man who rebooted Star Trek and kick-started the new Star Wars trilogy. Grunberg has worked with J.J. Abrams almost exclusively since his appearance on the director's debut TV show Felicity. He followed Abrams onto cult favorite Alias and then Lost, in which he played the pilot that crashed the plane on the island and stranded the survivors. When Abrams began his cinematic reinvention of Star Trek in 2009, he called on his old friend and collaborator. Grunberg was originally cast as an engineer named Olson, though commitments to other projects meant he had to bow out.
It wasn't long until Abrams had another job for him, however, drafting his friend in to overdub the dialogue for James Kirk's uncle after Brad William Henke's scenes as the character were cut. He appeared in person as Commander Finnegan in 2016's Star Trek Beyond, though by that point he had already crossed the divide: Grunberg played Resistance pilot Snap Wexley in 2015's The Force Awakens, though he later told StarTrek.com that both he and Episode VII's director remain on the fence about which franchise is their favorite. "I got a sticker from J.J. that says, 'You have to Trek before you War.' Isn't that cool? I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I'm just so honored to be in both."
Brian George
Best-known for his recurring role as Indian restaurant owner Babu Bhatt in Seinfeld (a part that lead to all sorts of racial typecasting troubles later in his career), Brian George's first involvement with Star Trek came in 1997 when he was cast in the fifth season of Deep Space Nine. The Israeli-born actor appeared as Richard Bashir (the embarrassing father of Dr. Julian Bashir) who is invited to the station to take part in the creation of a hologram based on his genetically engineered son. He returned to the Star Trek universe three years later with a cameo role in Voyager, this time taking on the part of Ambassador O'Zaal, an Antarian charged with organizing the 2377 Antarian Trans-stellar Rally aboard the USS Voyager despite looming bomb threats from a terrorist pilot.
Neither of George's Star Trek characters went beyond a single episode, however, and in 2008 the actor was given the chance to make a more in-depth contribution to the rival franchise. He was chosen to play Jedi Council member Ki-Adi-Mundi in the animated series The Clone Wars, voicing the Force-sensitive Cerean until the show wound down in 2014. The part was a walk in the park for George, who has over 100 voice credits to his name, most recently lending his distinctive tones to Marvel's animated Guardians of the Galaxy series.
George Coe
The late George Coe was part of the first wave of Saturday Night Live stars, launching the long-running late-night show in 1975 alongside the likes of Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, and John Belushi. He flitted between movies and television in the years that followed, popping up as Dustin Hoffman's boss in Kramer vs Kramer and as a judge in Disney's The Mighty Ducks as well as serving stints on LA Law and Murder, She Wrote. It wasn't until 1991 that Coe set foot upon The Enterprise, cast as Chancellor Durken in "First Contact" (episode 15 of The Next Generation season four, not the feature film of the same name).
In the episode, Durken secretly meets with Captain Picard and his crew to discuss his planet's development of warp-speed technology, politely asking them to leave when he decides that his people were not ready for first contact. The character he ended up voicing in 2009 for Star Wars: The Clone Wars was similarly diplomatic. Tee Watt Kaa is a leader of a Lurman village on the Outer Rim planet Maridun who isn't receptive to the presence of troublesome Jedi visitors at first, but soon comes to see their peaceful intentions. Coe carried on his voice work in the last years of his life, playing Woodhouse in adult animated series Archer and Que/Wheeljack in Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon.
Olivia D'Abo
Best known to Trekkies as beautiful blonde Starfleet Academy intern Amanda Rogers from the Next Generation episode "True Q," Olivia D'Abo's career was given a kickstart in 1984 when she won the role of Princess Jehnna in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Destroyer. She went on to play Kevin Arnold's sister Karen in the first four seasons of The Wonder Years, leaving the show in '91. Her Star Trek adventure was just around the corner, however. In 1992 she was cast as Rogers, a human born of two Qs, an omnipotent species versed in the ways of teleportation and time travel.
"I considered it a real honor to be working on the continuation of the Star Trek legacy I'd grown up with," D'Abo told the official Star Trek website. "It had a huge effect on my childhood and not unlike Star Wars it made me more curious about space, other life forms in our galaxy and the wonder of astronomy in general." The actress completed the sci-fi double in 2008 when she joined a number of her former Star Trek colleagues at Lucasfilm to record the voice of Luminara Unduli for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This wasn't her first time in the recording booth, having previously voiced Black Widow in Marvel's animated Ultimate Avengers movies as well as contributing to The Animatrix and the Justice League Unlimited series.
Simon Pegg
British actor Simon Pegg first came to the attention of international audiences working under one-time Ant-Man helmer Edgar Wright in the 2004 zom-com Shaun of the Dead, the first of the director's so-called Cornetto trilogy. Before long he was rubbing shoulders with some of Hollywood's biggest names, working alongside Tom Cruise (who called Pegg "smart, talented, funny, and fun to hang out with") in the Mission: Impossible franchise and going on to play Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the Star Trek reboot. He proved such as asset to J.J. Abrams that the director later admitted he had an ulterior motive when he cast him in the minor role of Unkar Plutt in Star Wars Episode VII.
"When we were shooting The Force Awakens in Abu Dhabi he was there as an actor," Abrams said. "But for me, he was there as a writer and film-maker, and as someone to go around the issues I was having at the time with the story and to get some great feedback." Pegg's input was also sought out by Paramount bosses when Abrams left Star Trek Beyond, bringing him on board as a co-writer for the third installment in the rebooted franchise. While the studio felt that the project was in a safe pair of hands, the hardcore fandom wasn't so sure, raising concerns after Pegg announced plans to make the film less "Star Trek-y."
Deep Roy
Another of Simon Pegg's former colleagues to publicly declare their love for him is Deep Roy, who played Scotty's oyster-faced alien sidekick Keenser in the rebooted trilogy. The Kenyan-born Brit was introduced to J.J. Abrams by producer Tommy Harper and the pair hit it off, with Roy (whose character was never meant to join Scotty on the franchise's most famous starship) being invited back to reprise his role. "They were debating whether to leave me or put me on the Enterprise," Roy told StarTrek.com. "J.J. created a special scene for me. I was finished with the movie, but I got a callback ... when I went on to the set, J.J. said, 'We're going to put you on the Enterprise.' I was delighted."
The diminutive actor went on to add 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and 2016's Star Trek Beyond to an impressive filmography stretching back some 40 years, a filmography that also includes two Star Wars installments. Roy played Droopy McCool in Return of the Jedi, a member of the Max Rebo Band, the 12-piece ensemble that performs in Jabba the Hutt's Tatooine palace. It wasn't his first taste of the Star Wars universe, however. The 4'3” actor actually appeared uncredited in The Empire Strikes Back, doubling as Yoda during a number of scenes on Dagobah.
Ian Abercrombie
Five years have passed since British character actor Ian Abercrombie died at the age of 77 due to kidney complications following a lymphoma diagnosis. While probably best remembered as Elaine's hardline boss Mr. Pitt in the sixth season of Seinfeld, Abercrombie had a long and varied career in which he often gravitated toward sci-fi. He popped up in the original Battlestar Galactica series in 1978 and later in Babylon 5 during the mid-'90s, eventually making the leap to the big leagues on the turn of the millennium when he appeared in two episodes of Star Trek Voyager - he played a Kadi minister named Abbot in the 1999 episode "Someone to Watch Over Me" and an Irish drunk named Milo in 2000's "Spirit Folk."
Abercrombie didn't add Star Wars to his filmography until later in his life, though he managed to deliver a memorable voice performance as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious in The Clone Wars series despite his failing health toward the end. He worked on the show from its inception in 2008 until his death, when he was replaced by Tim Curry. Despite being a veteran voice actor in his own right, Curry found Abercrombie a hard act to follow, with fans of the series almost unanimously voting in favor of his predecessor when TheForce.net ran a poll asking who did the better job.
George Takei
Star Trek legend George Takei was part of the Enterprise furniture from the words blast off, first appearing as Lt. Sulu in the original series and going on to reprise the role in the first six Star Trek feature films. He returned to the character in 1996 as part of the franchise's 30-year anniversary, doing a cameo in an episode of Voyager, and has even voiced the Starship helmsman in a number of video games. Like many of his former Star Trek alumni, it was through voice work that the passionate LGBT activist made the transition between the two biggest universes in sci-fi.
Takei became the most high profile name to take the leap when he went for the part of Neimoidian General Lok Durd in the Clone Wars animated series, though when asked about appearing in Star Wars, the Japanese-American actor said that he didn't consider it to be jumping ship. "The Star Trek philosophy is to embrace the diversity of life, and Star Wars is a part of that diversity," he said in an interview with Comic Book Resources. "I think that Star Trek and Star Wars are related beyond just the word 'star.' I think Star Trek is science fiction and Star Wars is more science fantasy. But with the episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that I worked on, I think there is a merging there."
Ron Perlman
Best known for playing Mike Mignola's demonic anti-hero Hellboy as well as long stints on Sons of Anarchy and Beauty and the Beast (for which he won a Golden Globe for best actor in a drama series), Ron Perlman has been around the block more than once. The New Yorker has an astonishing 227 acting credits to his name, and among them you'll find a large number of genre films, an area of cinema Perlman has always supported. When the opportunity came along to join the cast of 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis as the Reman Viceroy, Perlman asked his manager for the time and place.
"I'd been watching the franchise in all of its many forms from a distance all those years," Perlman told Star Trek's official website, "and it was high time that I sort of became part of the family. That was it. It became a reality. And it was great in a number of ways." While he enjoyed working on the tenth movie in the Star Trek franchise, neither audiences nor critics seemed to share his enthusiasm. Fortunately, his foray into Star Wars received a much more positive reaction. Perlman voiced Gha Nachkt, a Trandoshan scavenger who meets his untimely end at the hands on General Grievous, in the highly acclaimed first season of The Clone Wars.
Felix Silla
A circus performer-turned-stuntman-turned-actor, Felix Silla took the road less traveled on his way to Hollywood. His first real gig was the one that he wound up being most famous for, performing under a giant wig as Cousin Itt in The Addams Family original series, though he went on to appear in a number of similarly costumed roles. He played a child gorilla in The Planet of the Apes (1968) and an emperor penguin in Batman Returns (1992), though the animal we are interested in here is not of this earth. Silla's circus background and his willingness to perform inside furry costumes made him an ideal candidate to play a particular Ewok in Return of the Jedi - the one that flies by on a hang glider dropping stones on the Stormtroopers below.
Silla revealed that his scene took an hour to set up and had to be accomplished in just one take, though it was a piece of cake compared to stunt-doubling for Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan) on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where he nearly drowned after getting trapped under a flipped raft. His time on the set of Star Trek was nowhere near as dangerous, however. The Italian-born actor was cast as a Talosian in the first Original Series pilot, though his contribution to the rejected episode went uncredited and the episode itself was chopped up and recycled into the later two-parter "The Menagerie."
Sam Witwer
Sam Witwer paid his dues in television for a number of years before he managed to land his first meaningful role, appearing in 11 different shows between his debut in 2001 and 2004 and only returning for a second episode on one occasion. Within that sea of cameos are two Star Trek credits, the first being a season three episode of Enterprise (in which Witwer is simply credited as Sloth #3) and the second a voice credit for his work as the Guardian of Forever in New Voyages, one of a series of fan-made films so well produced that George Takei and Chekov actor Walter Koenig both reprised their roles for them.
Witwer's connection to Star Wars is a little less tenuous. The actor has voiced Darth Maul in The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and the Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out TV movie in 2012, as well as working on several Star Wars video games. His loyalty to the franchise was rewarded when the main Star Wars story picked up again on the big screen with 2015's Episode VII. "They called up a whole bunch of us Clone Wars actors to fill out the voice work for The Force Awakens, and we were only happy to do that," Witwer revealed. "The wonderful thing about Lucasfilm is that they are very loyal. If they like something that you've done for them, they will continue to try to bring you into things. It's wonderful if you're a fan of this stuff."
Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner's run as Lieutenant Commander Data spanned 15 years and included seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as four full-length feature films, one of which (1996's Star Trek: First Contact) earned him a Saturn Award for best supporting actor. He was present in 177 of the 178 TNG episodes made and, despite it being billed as the last movie to feature the Next Generation crew, 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis actually left the door ajar for the android to make a possible return. It wasn't to be, however, as Spiner grew increasingly frustrated with the franchise over the years, criticizing its perceived message of peace.
"If you ask somebody, why has Star Trek lasted so long, they always say the same thing: because it has a positive vision of the future." Spiner said. "But to tell you the truth, I don't know what is so positive about it. We are still blowing people away. We carry guns. It's a joke. It's like that illusion that it is somehow all about peace. It's really not."
After provoking the wrath of Trekkie loyalists with his comments, Spiner's subsequent casting in Star Wars Rebels must have struck a nerve. The actor (who recently confirmed that he would never play Data again) voiced Senator Gall Trayvis in the CGI series, a character described as "the only member of the Imperial Senate with the courage to speak out publicly against the Empire."
Ed Begley Jr.
Veteran actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. is probably best known for his seven-year stint as Dr. Victor Ehrlich in '80s medical drama/black comedy series St. Elsewhere, though he actually has hundreds of TV and movie credits to his name. Among them are two appearances in Star Trek: Voyager, in which he took on the guest role of Henry Starling in "Future's End" and "Future's End, Part II" (1996). The double-episode arc follows the crew of the eponymous starship as they are flung back in time to 20th-century Earth, putting them on a collision course with Begley Jr.'s character, a human industrialist who gave his home planet's tech a level-up after stumbling across the wreckage of a technologically advanced timeship.
Begley Jr. has since said he "felt really blessed" to be a part of the Star Trek franchise because he was a "huge fan" of the show growing up, though that didn't stop him from taking a gig with the rival franchise the very same year. The imposing actor was hired to provide the voice of Boba Fett in the radio adaptation of Return of the Jedi, produced with the blessing and express permission of George Lucas.
David Birney
Irish actor David Birney has a few things in common with Ed Begley Jr., whom he worked alongside in St. Elsewhere. After leaving that show, both men went on to play live-action roles in Star Trek and provide voices for the radio dramatizations of Star Wars. For Birney, the latter came first when he was offered the opportunity to voice Anakin Skywalker in NPR's Return of the Jedi, hailed as the best of the three audio adaptations on radio podcast The Great Detectives: "They do a great job painting audio 'pictures' of scenes like the madness of Jabba's lair and Luke's post-victory vision. The sound design is simply marvelous as is the direction with narration used naturally most of the time."
Two years later he added his name to the small list of actors to have bridged the divide when he guest starred as Romulan Senator Letant in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 6 finale "Tears of the Prophets." Fans finally got into the thick of the Dominion Wars after early episodes had teased at them, and the result was "a conflict that will equal the struggle with the Borg on The Next Generation," according to Trek Today. Outside the world of film, Birney's reputation took a significant hit in 2011 when his ex Meredith Baxter (best known for playing Elyse Keaton in Family Ties) revealed details of the physical and emotional abuse she said he inflicted on her during their marriage.
Clancy Brown
Sci-fi fans shouldn't really need an introduction to Clancy Brown, a legend of the genre with some real classics under his belt. Outside his turn as Captain Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Brown is best known for playing immortal antagonist The Kurgan in Highlander (1986) and Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers (1997). It wasn't until 2002 that Brown popped his Star Trek cherry, taking on the role of Zobral in "Desert Crossing." The Enterprise episode follows Archer and Tucker as they accept an invitation to Zobral's homeworld and unwittingly find themselves caught up in a war between their hosts and their Torothan neighbors.
Brown's booming voice has also made him a hot property in the world of animation, where vocal chords such as his are in high demand. His unmistakably deep tones have popped up in everything from children's TV (he voices Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants) to video games (he voiced no fewer than 12 different characters in 1998's Spyro The Dragon), and it was through voice-over work that he got into Star Wars. Brown played Darth Maul's brother Savage Opress in the Clone Wars series as well as Governor of Lothal Ryder Azadi in Rebels, admitting that he initially thought the animated spinoffs would just be "a childish take on Star Wars for kids." But he ended up "really astonished by how sophisticated" they were.
Clive Revill
Renowned stage actor Clive Revill portrayed a tweaked version of classic English character Sir Guy of Gisbourne in 1991's "Qpid," a Season 4 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that took the crew to the 12th-century world of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, who (in this instance) is the object of Guy's unrequited affections. While it wasn't the most memorable performance the New Zealand native has given over the course of a long and distinguished career, at least it wasn't replaced in later edits like his work on the original Star Wars trilogy was.
Revill supplied the voice of Emperor Palpatine in the first cut of The Empire Strikes Back, but his work was dubbed over for the 2004 DVD release, replaced with the voice Ian McDiarmid (who took over as the Emperor in the later films). A minute-long scene in which the Emperor meets with Darth Vader was rewritten with dialogue that didn't dance around Vader's offspring, seeing as the whole world knew who Luke's father was at this point. Revill was humble about the change, however, conceding that continuity was important and saying that the filmmakers "made a good choice with McDiarmid."
Jason Wingreen
Yet another victim of the dreaded DVD editions, Jason Wingreen saw his part in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back chopped and replaced with dialogue from another voice-over artist. The bit-part actor (who died in 2015 at the age of 95) voiced everyone's favorite bounty hunter clone Boba Fett in the original release, though when it came to the 2004 edit, the decision was taken to replace his voice with that of Temuera Morrison, the man behind Fett's so-called father in Lucas' much-maligned prequels. To add insult to injury, Wingreen was never actually credited for his original voice-over work and his contribution to the Star Wars universe only became common knowledge four years before the great remastering of '04.
While he is best remembered as Harry Snowden from All in the Family and its spinoff Archie Bunker's Place, for Star Trek fans he will always be Doctor Linke, the Federation scientist who gets sent to uninhabited planet Minara II to conduct studies in Original Series episode "The Empath." Unfortunately for trekkies, Wingreen barely remembered his time on the show by the time StarTrek.com caught up with him the year before his passing. "Star Trek has never been in my life the way Star Wars was," the late actor admitted. "Star Wars really changed things for me. But Star Trek, I remember, was not an audition. My agent submitted my name and I was given the job. I have no real memory of shooting the episode. I'm sorry about that."
Greg Ellis
English actor Greg Ellis completed a sci-fi double in 2009, and we aren't talking about ticking off both Star Trek and Star Wars. Ellis (best known to those outside sci-fi circles as Lieutenant Commander Theodore Groves from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) won the role of Chief Engineer Olson in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, marking his debut in the franchise's films. But this wasn't his first trek. Before he portrayed a Starfleet officer on the big screen, Ellis took on a role in the Deep Space Nine finale "What You Leave Behind," playing a Cardassian named Ekoor who joins the deadly assault on Dominion HQ and ends up being one of only three who survive it.
In the time between his Star Trek television and movie appearances Ellis got his Star Wars credit, hired to bring Mical to life in the Knights of the Old Republic II–The Sith Lords video game. His character, who also goes by the much cooler name The Disciple, is a Jedi Master who had served as a diplomat for the Galactic Republic in the aftermath of the Jedi Civil War. The sequel to the critically acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic was equally well received, with some critics going as far as claiming that it surpassed the insanely popular original.
Cully Fredricksen
Cully Fredricksen has a trio of Star Trek appearances to boast about, even if one of them amounted to a brief use of stock footage. The American actor made his bow in 1995's "Phage," a nightmarish episode of Star Trek: Voyager that follows the crew to a planet whose inhabitants actively seek to harvest the organs of other species in order to deal with the illness crippling their own. Fredricksen played Dereth, the Vidiian who removes Neelix's lungs and later feels so bad about it that he uses his planet's technology to give him one back. The following year Fredricksen played the Vulcan captain in critically acclaimed feature film Star Trek: First Contact, and the scenes he shot for the film were later reused in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, making his third appearance something of a technicality but an appearance nonetheless.
A decade passed before Fredricksen got the chance to add Star Wars to his resume, able to do so after he provided to the voice of Rahm Kota in 2008 video game The Force Unleashed and its 2010 sequel. Despite recording his part from a sound booth, playing the Jedi Master was no easy payday, as voice director Darragh O'Farrell explained to The Guardian. "[Sam Witwer] and Cully Fredricksen had it the worst. Those two had to do a lot of intense screaming. There was a scene that we shot that took about 24 takes–we called it The Widowmaker."
Ethan Phillips
Despite now being in the twilight of his career, Ethan Phillips is still very much active in the movie industry, often popping up where you would least expect. He has notched up some respectable credits in recent years with appearances in Coen Brothers folk music homage Inside Llewyn Davis and Blumhouse horror The Purge: Election Year, though his most memorable role remains Neelix, USS Voyager's chef/navigator/ambassador. Phillips portrayed the Talaxian hybrid (he was actually one-eighth Mylean, but hey, nobody's perfect) in Star Trek: Voyager for the show's entire seven-season run, but he also made three minor appearances as different characters.
His time as Neelix was sandwiched in between two guest stints in The Next Generation and Enterprise, playing a Ferengi (a species known for being "greedy, misogynistic, untrustworthy little trolls") in both instances. He also made a cameo appearance in Star Trek: First Contact, appearing as a holographic maitre d' in the critically acclaimed feature film. Phillips has since become something of a regular in the world of Star Wars video games, providing the voice of transport pilot Hamman Flatt in Force Commander, an Empire medical droid, Krantian governor and Royal grenade trooper in 2002's Galactic Battlegrounds, as well as several additional characters in 2003's Knights of the Old Republic.
Fionnula Flanagan
Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan made three guest appearances in three different Star Trek series in her younger years, beginning with her role as unfaithful Klaestron wife Enina Tandro in the all-new Deep Space Nine series. She was next seen as Data's mother Juliana Tainer in 1993 The Next Generation episode "Inheritance," acting opposite the "very talented" Brent Spiner. Almost a decade passed before she returned to the franchise in 2002 Enterprise episode "Fallen Hero," this time as prominent Vulcan diplomat Ambassador V'Lar, a no-nonsense character that marked a change of pace for the actress. "That was the challenge, because it was so different," she said of her last Trek role. "Usually I play roles that have a lot of emotion attached to them. Also, this character was tough, very tough."
All of this came after Flanagan had made her bow in the Star Wars universe, although, unfortunately for her, the film she appeared in was cut from canon by Disney when it took over the reins from George Lucas. 1984's Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (originally released as The Ewok Adventure) is one of three made-for-TV Star Wars movies that stunk up the small screen in the late '70s to mid-'80s, lambasted by critics as a shameless cash grab that was light-years away from its big screen counterparts. It was described as being "short on action by Lucasfilm standards" by Time Out, who also criticized it for being "stuffed with toothy teddies which lack the charm of Phase One Gremlins, or the wit of any muppet." Long story short, nobody asked for an Ewok movie.
Patty Maloney
Another performer whose time in a galaxy far away was sponged from Star Wars canon by the Mouse House, Patty Maloney played a part in the very first Star Wars made-for-TV flick, the infamous and totally bizarre Star Wars Holiday Special. The 3'11” actress was hired to play Chewbacca's son Lumpawaroo (aka Lumpy), a shy and timid young Wookiee who dreams of following in his father's footsteps but lacks the required bravery. That all changes when daddy brings Han Solo home for a visit, unwittingly leading the Galactic Empire to his house and forcing little Lumpy to man up. "We were all very pleased with the outcome of it," Maloney said of the movie before quickly correcting herself: "Actually ... I was. I was very pleased with it."
The special aired in 1978 and (unsurprisingly) was never seen on TV again, with some commentators going as far as calling it "the worst professionally made piece of motion picture entertainment in the history of either film or television." Maloney's role in Star Trek was another one catered for a short actor—she played "little woman" in 1996 Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Thaw," one of the many creations of The Clown (a manifestation of fear born of a linked neural network). She was the first of the villain's torturous minions to speak to members of the Voyager crew after they land on her planet to investigate a glacial freeze.