The Impossible star turned down the role of Spock on Star Trek.

Ask any actor to name the performance that made him want to become an actor and you’ll get people citing monumental works like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice or Denzel Washington in Malcolm X—big, deep dives that require the singers to use almost every part of their instrument. They want the audience to cry and experience the full range of human experience with joy. They don’t want to play, say, a monotonous android whose only function in the plot is to occasionally provide information. It won’t leave them with anything interesting to do, and likely won’t add much to their reel.

So when Gene Roddenberry started casting star trek pilot in 1964, he probably didn’t have actors knocking down his door to play Vulcan first officer Spock, whose adherence to logic and lack of emotion seemed a dull assignment alongside impulsive Captain James T. Kirk and moody medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy. Obviously, at the time, no one knew how the character would develop, nor could they have foreseen the series’ profound impact on pop culture, so it’s not a case of almost every Hollywood performer rejecting John McClane in Die Hard before the campaign 20th Century Fox threw an unprecedented $5 million to TV star Bruce Willis. They really only had a pilot script.

And that’s why one up-and-coming actor turned down an iconic role to star in Mission: Impossible.

Martin Landau had already established himself as James Mason’s murderous partner in 1959. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “North by Northwest” when Roddenberry and NBC offered him the role of Spock in a Star Trek pilot called The Cage. Landau refused them because, as he said Starlog in 1986 he “doesn’t know how to play wooden.” Instead, he took on the role of master of disguise Rollin Hand in the first three seasons of Mission: Impossible.

Then again, in all fairness, Landau couldn’t have known the series would become a cultural phenomenon that’s still spawning new shows and movies 59 years after its network premiere. But even if he is had knowing this, Landau says he would have declined the offer anyway. As he told Starlog:

“I would make the same decision today. But I knew that when the show came out, Spock would be very effective. You have to remember the hustle and bustle of the 60s. The pointy-eared, super-intelligent being who thought logically was right—except I didn’t want to play, I didn’t want to be a burdened role, not feeling that the newscasters were more emotional Spock.’

If you think this kind of disrespect for Spock would have surprised Leonard Nimoy, think again. Landau and Nimoy were very close friends. When the latter died in 2015, Landau wrote a touching tribute to his friend for Timecalling it less. “Even though (our) first meeting was cordial, we both realized that we could play the same roles, and we were clearly going to compete for those roles,” he wrote, adding, “It really happened. Years passed and our careers went in different ways, we remained friends and always enjoyed our individual success (…)”.

As for Landau’s post-Mission Impossible career, he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s excellent Ed Wood, so turning down the role of Spock worked out quite well for him. good.