Why Star Trek's Colm Meaney Doesn't Think He'll Play Miles O'Brien Again

The character of Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) first appeared in "Encounter at Farpoint," the pilot episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." For many episodes, he was basically a background character, usually present to deliver a line or two of techno-jargon and to beam the senior staff from the ship to a planet and back. With each appearance, though, audiences began to get more details about O'Brien's life. He used to build ships in bottles as a boy, for instance. O'Brien would marry and have a child. All told, O'Brien appeared in 52 episodes of the show, sometimes starring in his own stories. 

The character became popular enough to be carried over to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" in 1993, on which he was a regular character. On "Deep Space Nine," O'Brien became even more awesome, serving as the chief engineer on the station, having to familiarize himself with dated Cardassian technology, and make sure a whole-ass space station didn't shut down entirely. He also revealed himself to be a good drinking friend, a good husband, and a hero of the working class. "He was more than a hero," O'Brien once said of an ancestor, "he was a union man."

After 160 episodes of "Deep Space Nine," O'Brien took a job as a professor at Starfleet Academy, and that was the last we saw of him. 

Given that many "Trek" characters have been resurrected for some of the more recent "Star Trek" shows on Paramount+, questions have naturally arisen as to whether or not O'Brien would be one of them. ComicBookMovie recently spoke with Meaney about O'Brien, and the actor pretty clearly said no, O'Brien would not return. After 212 episodes, he felt he was pretty much done. No one wants to see elderly O'Brien.

Meaney, it should be noted, has always been a hugely prolific actor, and frequently left the set of "Star Trek" and flew directly to the set of a feature film he was working on. During his tenure on "Star Trek," he was also in two dozen movies, including large-scale Hollywood productions like "Con Air" and "Far and Away," as well as noted Irish indies like "The Commitments" and its sequels. "Star Trek" was a highly visible role for him, but it was also just another gig in a long, long career for Meaney. 

Meaney bears no ill thoughts toward O'Brien, but he's not so wistful that he wants to come back to the role for anything on Paramount+. Several of the new "Star Trek" shows exist as nostalgia, most notably "Star Trek: Picard," leading many, many actors to return to their old "Trek" roles, sometimes decades after the fact. Meaney doesn't want to be one of those actors, and feels overwhelmed by the volume of "Star Trek" in the world. He said:

"I think seven years in a space suit was enough, you know? I'm often asked that question and you never say never, of course, but first of all I wouldn't fit in it anymore. And I remember people saying at the time when 'Voyager' got going, 'How many times can you go to the well? How many times can you revamp this?' They successfully did it with 'Star Trek' and they're still doing it. Good luck to them. [...] Do you want to see an elderly Miles O'Brien? I don't know. It's certainly not at the top of my agenda of things I'd like to do at the moment."

Meaney was talking to ComicBookMovie to promote his newest film, Neil Marshall's "Duchess." He also recently appeared in the film "In the Land of Saints and Sinners" and the shark thriller "No Way Up." He played King Francis I in the TV series "The Serpent Queen," and, as of this writing, is just finishing a run in "Bedbound," a play that's a part of the Galway International Arts Festival. He also appeared in 51 episodes of the TV series "Hell on Wheels," and showed up in two episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." 

Meaney has occasionally appeared at "Star Trek" conventions, but was typically too busy working to spend too much time interacting with Trekkies. He has found, however, that Trekkies were a genial and open-minded lot, and he had only positive things to say about them: 

"I never subscribed to that thing that 'Star Trek' fans are nuts. A few of them are. There's the odd one, but now, I always found 'Star Trek' fans to be professional fans. They're very good; they want to say hello and what they think and then they leave you alone pretty much. That's really nice and not true of everybody. I've always found them incredibly knowledgeable and way more than I was when I was doing it."

So even if Meaney has put "Star Trek" behind him, he bears the franchise no ill will. It seems like it's all been very positive, but don't expect him to suit up again any time soon.