Wil Wheaton is something of a fanboy favorite for the people. He’s a former child star, best known as the lead in the Rob Reiner adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand by Me, and also as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s done tons of other stuff along with these two better-known titles, but the best thing about him is that he’s grown into a regular everyday guy and fan of many things geek, which puts him high on our list of coolest celebrities in the universe.
One thing that we didn’t know about Mr. Wheaton — and you probably didn’t know it either — is that he was actually in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek. That’s right, Wes Crusher of Next Generation was in the new Trek.
On the official Wil Wheaton blog, the actor and writer shared the whole story yesterday, and it is quite the amusing tale indeed. The interesting thing about the story is that apparently, Wheaton and Abrams decided that it would remain a sacred secret for all eternity, leaving only a special handful of chosen ones who would possess the truth. Eventually, Viacom found out and for some reason, declared that Wil had to be credited for the work — even with him agreeing to the secret and many “uncredited roles” already existing.
Basically, the story starts with Heroes star and Abrams’ buddy Greg Grunberg initiating a Twitter conversation with Wheaton that eventually lead to the revelation that Abrams needed voice actors for his new Trek venture. This little morsel of information resulted in the fanboy in Wheaton having a little party in his head, and then responding with his interest in the job even though skeptical that someone was out to pull a fast on on him.
This is way too good to be true. This has to be a prank. Someone is fucking with me and I’m going to be the butt of a pretty mean joke. I’m not famous enough to be Punk’d, and Greg Grunberg doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would do something mean, anyway.
Wheaton goes on to talk about Abrams giving him the call, his experience on the set, what parts he did (Romulans — lots of Romulans!), and how he was invited to hang out after his work to watch some scenes from the movie he worked on.
This is just a brief recap and you should definitely head over to Wheaton’s blog to read the whole story. If you’re one of the geeks that this site is all about — and especially if you’re a Trekkie — then you will definitely smile reading about Wheaton’s dream-come-true experience on this fittingly next generation Star Trek adventure.
Now we just need to see J.J. give Wil an even sweeter, possibly physical role for Star Trek 2 so we get a sequel story like this in a couple of years.
