Voyager Finally Found A Cameo Worthy Of Jason Alexander

In a 2013 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Tony-winner and eight-time Emmy-nominee Alexander explained that Shatner was primary inspiration for getting into showbiz in the first place. He has been approached frequently to appear on “Star Trek” — Alexander was, after all, on one of the most popular TV shows of all time — but the role was never quite right for Alexander: 

“I had put the word out that I wanted to be part of the Trek world. Each of the series would come to me and either the dates were not good for me or, more often than not, they wanted me to play a human — and kind of a “George”-like human. I told them the big departure for me would be to play an alien. I did so much histrionics as George, I was kind of hoping I’d wind up as a Vulcan so that I’d get to play some great intellect. It was finally Voyager that understood that and called with the perfect part.”

Alexander’s attitude is understandable; any average Trekkie would likely prefer to be a Klingon or a Vulcan over a boring old human lieutenant. The makers of “Voyager” not only thought of an alien for Alexander, but a brainy one, a character wholly unlike his character on “Seinfeld”: 

“… all the follow-up series had asked me to come on, but they had all wanted me to come on as a human. And I said, ‘I don’t want to be human, I want to be an alien, I want to be a creature,’ and no one ever found the slot until ‘Voyager’ called and said, ‘How would you like to be the smartest guy in the galaxy?’ And I went, ‘Now you’re talking!'”