5 Actors Who Regretted Leaving Star Trek

3. Jason Isaacs

Wesley Crusher Star Trek
CBS

Jason Isaacs was terrific as Captain Lorca in Discovery's first series. He deftly balanced the macho old-school charm of Kirk with the underlying sense that all was not as it seemed. Of course, an evil Star Trek Captain can only last so long and Lorca was eventually killed off in season one's thirteenth episode, vaporised in a warp reactor.

Isaacs knew of Lorca's fate when he signed up for the role, but it didn't mean that he wasn't gutted to leave the show. Especially when there was a "get out" clause in the form of the Prime Universe Lorca, whose fate is still unknown. Talking to a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas back in 2019, Isaacs discussed the mixed emotions he felt when watching the second season. "I adore all the actors [...] It was odd to see the show and miss my friends."

Isaacs is certainly keen to return to the role of Lorca, playing the Prime counterpart so long as he could "squeeze back into that 8 year old's uniform". If he was to return, it would likely be in the upcoming Pike/Spock spin-off Brave New Worlds given how his Discovery crewmates have ended up 900 years in the future.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.