10 Star Trek Actors Whose First Appearances You've Totally Forgotten

James Cromwell is best known in the Star Trek universe as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive and one of the first humans to make contact with the Vulcans. Cromwell's performance as the disillusioned, alcoholic Cochrane is one of the highlights of First Contact as the Enterprise crew learn the old adage of never meeting your heroes.

However, Cromwell had made two prior appearances alongside the Next Generation cast. He was hidden under heavy prosthetics to play the shifty information dealer Jaglom Shrek in the Worf-centric two-parter Birthright. Cromwell then reappeared under different prosthetics to play a minister in negotiations with Quark in the DS9 episode Starship Down. Before all of that, however, he played Prime Minister Nayrok in the third season episode The Hunted. As part of a season that features classic stories like Yesterday's Enterprise, Sins of the Father, and The Best Of Both Worlds, it's easy to forget this first appearance.

An escaped prisoner exposes the shocking truth that Nayrok's government have been genetically engineering its young men into killing machines before locking them away when they're no longer useful. It's a classic Star Trek allegory for veteran's rights, and the final confrontation scenes between Cromwell and Patrick Stewart are electric.