Initially, the casting administrators floated a few of their dream actors for Cochrane, together with Tom Hanks. Hanks had simply gained Oscars for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump,” so he would have been an costly identify to land for a “Star Trek” film, however producer Ron D. Moore appreciated the dream. Sadly, he admitted:
“It by no means bought that far. […] At that time within the course of, there are many names on a wishlist for a lot of, many causes. I am certain his identify was floated in some capability, however it was by no means actually on the desk.”
Hanks would seemingly have performed the half properly, however Cromwell made it his personal. And whereas Hanks might have been too “large” on the time, the filmmakers bumped into an identical manufacturing snag with Cromwell. In response to a 1996 episode of “HBO First Look,” Cromwell was the popular actor from the beginning, as he had already appeared in a number of episodes of “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” (notably “The Hunted” and the two-part episode “Birthright”). When Cromwell all of a sudden netted an Oscar nomination for the 1995 movie “Babe,” producer Rick Berman grew to become fearful that their now-even-more-famous actor would drop out. Berman defined:
“Once we had been creating the character, we at all times had Jamie in our head. After which ‘Babe’ got here alongside and swiftly he was nominated for an Academy Award and we thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re not gonna get him! He is too large for us now.’ However as a result of we had labored with him on a variety of events, we had been delighted that he did the truth is take the function.”
Cromwell would return to play Cochrane in an episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise” and as a hologram in “Star Trek: Decrease Decks.” He was a part of the household in perpetuity.
