Mount: Neither Lorca Nor Parker
2 min readSpeaking with Space.com, Anson Mount revealed that he had a different captain in mind when auditioning for Star Trek: Discovery.
“I was actually talking to them earlier in the year about the role of Captain Lorca and then they very wisely hired Jason Isaacs, who was great and did a much better job than I ever could have,” he said.
Mount must have made a good impression though, because “when Pike was coming around,” Mount said; “they called up and said, ‘Hey, there’s this other role, a new captain, would you mind putting yourself on tape?’
“And I said, ‘of course.’ And they sent me dummy scripts. So the character’s name on the dummy scripts was Captain Parker. And I thought, ‘Well that’s a terribly unimaginative name for a captain. All right, fine. I’ll do it.’ And I put myself on tape and then they called back the next day and they said, ‘Okay, doing it and it’s Captain Pike.’ And I just about fell out of my seat.”
Mount was a fan of the original series due to his mother Nancy Smith, a former professional golfer. “She’s to blame actually,” he said. “When [Star Trek] started syndication on local TV here, she’s the one who turned it on and told me I had to watch this. I asked her why and she told me it was about this group of people who fly around the galaxy and meet different aliens each week. And at first, I thought that’s a terrible idea for a TV show and then I very quickly got hooked and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.”