101: Thomas Kopache and The Joy of Acting

Thomas Kopache joins us for the kickoff to season three of Trek Untold, a man who has appeared in the Star Trek franchise a whopping eight times as seven different characters!

He was the Romulan named Mirok in "The Next Phase" and a train engineer on "Emergence" from Star Trek TNG, an Enterprise-B comm officer in "Star Trek Generations," the ill-fated Viorsa on "Star Trek: Voyager," the Father of Kira Nerys in two episodes of DS9, a Vulcan ambassador in the series premiere of Enterprise, and finally a Sphere-builder test subject in the third season of that series.

Thomas is an original and lifelong Trekkie, and in addition to our Trek talk tells us how he discovered his passion for acting, what he learned while working on "Spenser for Hire" with Avery Brooks, stories from the sets of "Stargate SG-1" with Richard Dean Anderson, "Ghosts of Mississippi" with Alec Baldwin, "Boston Legal" with William Shatner, Rene Auberjonois, and - unrelated in Trek but still great - James Spader. First, Thomas ruminates on why he was a judge so often in his career. Then, we examine his recurring role on "The West Wing" with Martin Sheen, their reunion special, and whether that show changed his views on politics and how he finds the "inner joy" of acting in all of the diverse types of work he does. Plus, who is "the catheter cowboy"?

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