15 Star Trek Actors Who Directed Episodes
3. Tim Russ - Commander Tuvok
Tim Russ played the second major Vulcan member of Starfleet, following in Leonard Nimoy's footsteps. He directed one episode of VOY, season four's 'Living Witness.'
Russ studied Drama and Theater in both New York and Texas, then did graduate work at Illinois State University in Fine Arts. He started acting in small TV roles in 1985, gradually moving into films, perhaps most memorably as the trooper in Spaceballs who was ordered to 'comb the desert' and reported 'We ain't found s**t!'
Before appearing on Voyager, Russ played a terrorist on an episode of TNG, a Klingon mercenary on DS9, and a helmsman in Star Trek: Generations, all helping him land the role of Tuvok.
The episode Russ directed involved an alternate history of the Voyager crew, told by a civilization that had reconstructed history to portray Voyager as a warship and the crew as a pack of genocidal murderers. This provided Russ with the challenge of not only directing his peers, but of directing their 'evil' alter egos and of ensuring that the loose ends that often arise from mirror universe or alternate timeline Star Trek stories were all tied up by the end.