Akiva Goldsman Had Two Cameos In Star Trek Before He Started Writing Episodes

Akiva Goldsman has had many highs and many lows in his Hollywood screenwriting career. The scribe won an Academy Award in 2001 for writing “A Beautiful Mind,” but he had previously been nominated for Razzies (honoring the worst in filmmaking) for writing the screenplays to “A Time to Kill” and the atrocious “Batman & Robin.” He’s been deeply involved in major blockbusters and media franchises, writing “The Da Vinci Code,” 1998’s “Lost in Space,” and “The Divergent Series: Insurgent.” He also penned “I, Robot,” “I Am Legend,” and most recently, “The Dark Tower.” 

Since 2017, Goldsman has fallen in with the head honchos at “Star Trek,” serving as one of the franchise’s executive producers and writing multiple episodes of “Star Trek: Discovery,” “Star Trek: Picard,” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” He has also directed five episodes, embracing his new place atop the “Trek” heap. Goldsman is also working on other projects — he created the 2023 series “The Crowded Room” — but “Star Trek” seems to take up the bulk of his time.

Goldsman has long been a Trekkie, so joining the new wave of Paramount+-era shows was likely a dream come true for him. It was also, it so happens, not the first time the screenwriter got to play around in the “Star Trek” sandbox. In 2009, Goldsman finagled with director J.J. Abrams — a friend of his — to have a cameo appearance in his 2009 “Star Trek” film. Look closely at the image below, and scan the faces of the two Vulcan tribunal members looking down on the young Spock (Zachary Quinto). The one just to the right of the central judge is none other than Akiva Goldsman in a wig. 

In the above below from “Star Trek Into Darkness,” one can also spot Goldsman as a human Starfleet admiral. He’s the bald man with the white-chested uniform on the right side of the table. 

Goldsman discussed his Trekkie cred in a 2014 interview with StarTrek.com, and how his cameos came to be. The writer grew up watching “Star Trek,” and he’s such a big fan that he has an opinion on the “Trekkie vs. Trekker” debate. He even went to conventions back in the day. He said: 

“I am a dyed-in-the-wool, diehard, 1000-percent Trekkie. And I say Trekkie, not Trekker, and I don’t care what the nomenclature has become. I think my first ‘Star Trek’ convention was at the Statler Hilton Hotel in 1977 or 1978. I grew up in Brooklyn, and what you saw was on WPIX, Channel 11. And you watched it at 7 every night. I’m not quite old enough, I don’t think, to ever remember having seen it in primetime. But I picked it up very quickly in syndication.” 

Goldsman recalls the wild-and-woolly days of the 1970s when a bunch of teenagers could leave town on their own, get a hotel room, and do nothing but watch “Star Trek” and roll joints (mostly seeds and stems, he said) on vinyl copies of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (by recent EGOT Elton John). It’s likely no coincidence that his production company is called Weed Road Productions. He said that he associated “Star Trek” with his own sense of adolescent liberation, finally finding “a thing” of his own. 

Goldsman said he followed all the weird legal battles Harlan Ellison instigated, and he read all the design sourcebooks penned by the show’s designer David Gerrold. When “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” came out, Goldsman said he was in college and that he fell in love with Persis Khambatta. There was never a moment when Trek wasn’t part of his life.

It seems that Goldsman, because he was friends with J.J. Abrams, was able to merely call up his buddy and ask for a cameo. Abrams was the co-creator of the 2008 TV series “Fringe” (with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci), and Goldsman worked on “Fringe” as a writer, consultant, and producer. Goldsman ultimately wrote 18 episodes of that show and even directed one. Knowing that Abrams was working on “Star Trek,” Goldsman reached out and subtly asked for a little favor. Okay, actually he pleaded. In Goldsman’s words: 

“I introduced J.J. to his wife. I did ‘Fringe.’ And so when he was doing the first ‘Star Trek,’ I basically begged. That went okay, so then I guess it was maybe just a good idea to bring whatever folks from the first one back in [for ‘Into Darkness’]. I might have begged some more. And there I was. I couldn’t love it more. I have a bubblegum card right here in my office of me in the Vulcan council.” 

Akiva Goldsman is, curiously, not one of the many, many producers listed for the upcoming “Starfleet Academy” TV series, currently in development. Both “Discovery” and “Picard” have come to an end, so in terms of “Star Trek,” Goldsman may be focusing all his energies on the upcoming seasons of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Its third year will begin in the early months of 2025.