Been seeing this circulating around... If you're not a Star Trek fan, you're not going to care, but I find it pretty fascinating. This is allegedly a Paramount memo from 1987 on the casting of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Wesley Snipes Was Almost Geordi La Forge, and Other Star Trek: TNG Casting Fun.
If this is legit, there are some really interesting what-could-have-been scenarios here, most notably that they were favorably looking at two Asian American actresses, Julia Nickson and Rosalind Chao, for the role of Tasha Yar, which eventually went to Denise Crosby -- who was actually a serious contender to play Deanna Troi.
I'm also stunned to see that Kelvin Han Yee was once in the running to play Data. Crazy, because that character is so inextricably linked to Brent Spiner -- and he's not even on this list! But wow, imagine an Asian actor as one of the most iconic roles in the entire Star Trek franchise.
But damn, Wesley Snipes as Geordi LaForge? Damn! It's like the old mirror universe episode. But in this one, the Enterprise's chief engineer hunts vampires and kicks everybody's ass.
