Casting Leonard Nimoy In Star Trek Was A Piece Of Cake
If I were a working actor, I wonder how I would feel about bringing to life a character that would come to be iconic. On the one hand, you will enjoy notoriety and success afforded to so few actors that you have to be grateful. On the other, you can become linked to the character so fully that nobody will ever be able to see you as anything other than that character for the rest of your career, and in a business where the goal is to play many different types of people, an iconic character can put a stop to all that. I know it seems silly to be wary of success at such a major level, and there are plenty of actors out there content with nailing that one part. I just know that if I were in that situation that I would always be a little perturbed about my career possibilities after I finished playing that character.
Few have dealt with this double-edged sword more acutely than Leonard Nimoy with his portrayal of the Vulcan Starfleet officer Spock in "Star Trek." During his life, he published two memoirs. One was called "I Am Not Spock," and the second was "I Am Spock." He was fully aware of the shadow that character cast over him, and nearly 60 years after the show's premiere, Nimoy and Spock are still one and the same.
Often when we think about characters like this, we think, "Nobody else could've played that part." Well, for creator Gene Roddenberry, he felt the same way, and when he was first bringing "Star Trek" to life, there was only one person he thought could play Spock. And although multiple actors have even taken up the role to great acclaim over the years, Roddenberry was right.
'He would make a great alien'
Leonard Nimoy and Gene Roddenberry's paths crossed a couple of times prior to "Star Trek." Both men spent over a decade jumping around from television show to television show of all kinds. Nimoy was a TV guest star specialist, and Roddenberry was the same on the writing side. The two first collided on the anthology series "West Point," which Roddenberry wrote a number of episodes of and Nimoy appeared in two.
They would come together again on "The Lieutenant," the first series created by Roddenberry three years before "Star Trek." It only lasted one season, but that was enough time for Nimoy to come in for the episode "In the Highest Tradition." When it looked like Roddenberry was going to get "Star Trek" off the ground, Nimoy was the first and only name that came to mind, telling Smithsonian Magazine:
"I was struck at the time with his high Slavic cheekbones and interesting face, and I said to myself, 'If I ever do this science fiction thing, he would make a great alien. And with those cheekbones some sort of pointed ear might go well.' To cast Mr. Spock I made a phone call to Leonard and he came in. That was it."
And that one phone call changed Nimoy's life forever. Famously, "Star Trek" had two pilots, and Nimoy as Spock was the only character carry over to the second one. That's how certain Gene Roddenberry was that he struck gold. "Star Trek" is still going today, and I don't think it does without that performance.
The other cast member from the original pilot to continue on was Majel Barrett, though she played a different character than Nurse Chapel originally. She also appeared in that episode of "The Lieutenant." Must've been a magical set.