JMChladek
Sr Member
Vaughn Armstrong (Admiral Forest on Enterprise) is one of apparently only five actors who has played at least seven different characters. He's played a Klingon, Romulan, Vidiian, Borg, Hirogen and two Cardassians (not Kim or her sister) among others. I think part of the reason why the producers liked him is his distinctive booming voice that commanded fear and respect at the same time (the guy could play Ceasar if he wanted).
Back in the 1960s and 70s, things were a bit different as actors were under contract to different studios. So you often had the same actors popping up in different television shows (just watch any of the Universal studios shows, especially the Jack Webb produced ones like Dragnet, Adam-12 and Emergency! and you'll see MANY familiar faces pop up from season to season playing different characters). Granted I don't know if Desilu and Paramount had the same situation, but their talent pool was a little limited with some actors being gobbled up by the other studios. Still, they had plenty of veterans from the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits days to draw upon (and live TV from the 1950s) as needed. Things loosened up a bit I believe after some SAG negotiations.
Today, another factor in the casting is producers also tend to like going for somebody who they know can handle the hassle of wearing uncomfortable makeup and prosthetics for days on end. Believe me that can be trickier than it sounds as I heard in Babylon 5, the original actress they casted as an assistant for G'Kar had to bow out since the makeup drove her crazy after only one episode (so they wrote the character out and created the character N'toth with a different actor).
Don't forget about the Trek Animated series as in there, having a good voice could be enough as animators would create the visual character. James Doohan's penchant for accents had him lending his voice talents to several characters (he did the same in live Trek as well) and so did Nichelle Nichols on a couple occassions. Guys like Combs and Armstrong are still active today doing animated voice over work. Combs has lent his voice to "Question" from the Justice League and "Rachet" from the new Transformers show. I'm not sure what Armstrong has done recently, but I am sure he is out there as well. Listen to that lilty quality of Combs voice and it hits you subconsciously in several unusual ways.
Back in the 1960s and 70s, things were a bit different as actors were under contract to different studios. So you often had the same actors popping up in different television shows (just watch any of the Universal studios shows, especially the Jack Webb produced ones like Dragnet, Adam-12 and Emergency! and you'll see MANY familiar faces pop up from season to season playing different characters). Granted I don't know if Desilu and Paramount had the same situation, but their talent pool was a little limited with some actors being gobbled up by the other studios. Still, they had plenty of veterans from the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits days to draw upon (and live TV from the 1950s) as needed. Things loosened up a bit I believe after some SAG negotiations.
Today, another factor in the casting is producers also tend to like going for somebody who they know can handle the hassle of wearing uncomfortable makeup and prosthetics for days on end. Believe me that can be trickier than it sounds as I heard in Babylon 5, the original actress they casted as an assistant for G'Kar had to bow out since the makeup drove her crazy after only one episode (so they wrote the character out and created the character N'toth with a different actor).
Don't forget about the Trek Animated series as in there, having a good voice could be enough as animators would create the visual character. James Doohan's penchant for accents had him lending his voice talents to several characters (he did the same in live Trek as well) and so did Nichelle Nichols on a couple occassions. Guys like Combs and Armstrong are still active today doing animated voice over work. Combs has lent his voice to "Question" from the Justice League and "Rachet" from the new Transformers show. I'm not sure what Armstrong has done recently, but I am sure he is out there as well. Listen to that lilty quality of Combs voice and it hits you subconsciously in several unusual ways.
