The Kelvin Timeline could have had a very different Captain James T. Kirk. Timothy Olyphant revealed that he had auditioned for the Star Trek reboot back in 2009. Although he didn't get the lead role, the Mandalorian star has nothing but praise for Chris Pine, who was cast as the iconic character.
It's hard to imagine anybody other than Chris Pine as Captain Kirk (except, obviously, for William Shatner). However, there was a time when director J.J. Abrams was struggling to find the perfect actor to take on the role in Star Trek. One of the stars who tried out for the role was Timothy Olyphant, who wasn't even auditioning for the coveted role in the first place.
Timothy Olyphant was a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast where he opened up about auditioning for Star Trek. "I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with J.J. Abrams and he's just a lovely, lovely guy," he shared. "And just a lovely, lovely audition process."
Olyphant then admitted that he was trying out for a different character but Abrams was getting desperate. "Somewhere in there, I was auditioning for Doc, he's like, 'I already got a guy for Doc, so I don't need you for that, but I don't have a Kirk.' I believe it was one of those things where it's like they might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger, and [Abrams] was having a hard time finding somebody younger," he said.
It was later announced that Abrams had chosen Chris Pine for the role but Olyphant points out that he has no negative feelings about losing the role to the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves actor. "I love that guy," he said of Pine. "He's a good dude."
Captain Kirk isn't the only role in a major franchise that Olyphant missed out on. It was previously confirmed that he had auditioned to play Tony Stark in Iron Man but the role eventually went to Robert Downey Jr. in 2008. Still, Olyphant would later join the Star Wars Universe when he was cast as Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian. Interestingly, it reunited him with Jon Favreau who had passed on him for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
For now, it is still unclear whether Olyphant will return as Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian Season 4 or the second season of The Book of Boba Fett. In the meantime, Chris Pine is expected to return as Kirk in Star Trek 4. The still-untitled sequel has not yet been given an official release date.
