My Top 10 Fantasy Star Trek Captains I Would Cast.

Kendall Rivers
4 min readAug 20, 2022

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There have been many legendary and badass Captains across the Star Trek universe. Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer etc. all have different strengths and weaknesses, making them all the more human and relatable as much as they’re all cool and badass. We’ve gotten some pretty amazing actors sitting in those Captain’s chairs, but here are some fantasy (or maybe reality some day?) that I’d cast as the captain of a Star Trek series.

10. Omar Epps.

Smooth, calm and collected, and that deep and cool voice to match? Omar Epps would make one cool ass captain. Plus, I got a feeling the brotha can rock a Starfleet uniform.

9. Lucy Liu.

Lucy Liu is a legend, and it would make total sense to get to see her at the helm of an Enterprise ship. She’s got the warmth, compassion, strength, smarts and just overall badass qualities to be a great Star Trek captain. And the best part is that she never ages so she could easily be a captain for nearly a thousand years.

8. Viola Davis.

She’s tough, she’s commanding, she’s sensitive and she’s just a badass. Viola Davis definitely has all the right qualities to kick some serious butt in outer space. With her confidence and natural intelligence who wouldn’t follow this woman’s lead to battle space aliens?

7. Jeffrey Donovan.

He used to be a spy, and I’d love to add “Starfleet Captain” to his resume. Jeffrey Donovan became iconic as Ex Spy Michael Westen, and I feel like he’d bring all of those cool Westen qualities, including that classic dry humor to the role of a Star Trek captain.

6. Kelsey Grammar.

We got a glimpse of a Grammar captain in the classic Star Trek: Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect”. But wouldn’t it be great to see Frasier Crane aka Sideshow Bob as a captain full fledged?

5. Russell Hornsby.

Russell Hornsby is as cool and as badass as they get. As Eddie Sutton in ABC Family’s Lincoln Heights we saw Hornsby be a brave, confident and devoted hero and family man, and in that role he perfectly displays how great a captain he’d be.

4. CCH Pounder.

The Shield fans know how commanding, powerful and freakin’ amazing CCH Pounder is; Just like Viola Davis, CCH is no joke and would definitely be the kind of person you’d want to follow into battle with.

3. Glenn Close.

We all know how amazing Glenn Close is as an actress, and I’m confident that as a Star Trek captain she’d pull off a tour de force performance every time. That toughness mixed in with her obvious compassion would make her a very human and relatable captain.

2. Robert Downey Jr.

I mean… come on. He rocked the roles of Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes, there’s no way he wouldn’t rock the role of a Star Trek captain. With his effortlessly snarky and charming sense of humor he’d very much be a perfect successor to William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk. Plus, as we’ve all seen in the MCU films, Downey is a hero you can root for and believe in. He is Iron Man.

  1. Denzel Washington.

I know, I know. Denzel’s a bit too long in the tooth to sit in the Captain’s chair. But, for the purposes of this article, let’s say that this would be the somewhere between late nineties\early 2000’s Denzel. Very few people today or in the past has the commanding presence onscreen that Denzel has. He’s so charismatic and absorbing that you can’t keep your eyes off him when he’s onscreen, which makes him a more than perfect candidate to lead a Starfleet crew.

So these are my picks. I’m sure you all got yours, and If you wanna share them with me, feel more than free to do so. Thanks for comin’ and tip your waitresses (and me on this article ;) ’Til next time, folks!

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Kendall Rivers

Kendall is a screenwriter who’s a huge fan of classic tv and movies. He enjoys creating good stories and characters. https://www.facebook.com/kendall.rivers.3