In the years since he was first selected as a Starfleet officer William T. shaping things behind the scenes. However, when the role was cast in the late 1980s, Frakes was not the first choice for the hideously handsome first officer. In fact, he was actually up against some other very talented performers.

In the end, though, it all worked out and Frakes ended up as a guy who just couldn't sit in a chair as designed (as Star Trek: The Lower Decks once entertained). However, things could have been very different on The Next Generation if one of the other actors in the running had secured the part. In fact, the person who almost took the role and took off with it was none other than Billy Campbell, who would go on to star in underrated superhero masterpiece 'The Rocketeer' in 1991.

In an oral history of Star Trek: The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, producer Rick Berman revealed that Campbell was originally cast as Riker. However, then-President of Paramount Studios, John Pike, didn't think it would cut the mustard:

"For the role of Riker, we cast an actor named Billy Campbell, who went on to do a bunch of other good things, and (John) Pike didn't want him. He did not feel that he had a sense of command. Follow this guy into battle, I don't think he really auditioned that well for the part, and then we went to our second choice, which was Jonathan Frakes, who turned out to be the one. great choice."

Although it's probably for the best that Campbell didn't end up as Riker (otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been able to play Rocket alongside the great actor Alan Arkin), it is interesting to think of him in the role. Pike may have been on to something with his credibility, too; Admittedly, it's hard to imagine a "Next Generation" character like Worf taking orders from Campbell, especially clean-shaven and looking handsome like he was in "Rocket." He wasn't the only candidate besides Frakes though, as there were some other famous faces in the mix during the audition process.

Casting for Star Trek: The Next Generation began in March 1987. Then, on April 13 of the same year, audition memo with "wish list" out about the actors desired for each character in the show. For the role of Riker, then spelled "Riker", John Ferraro (who was a senior vice president for Paramount Pictures at the time) noted that Ironweed star Michael O'Gorman was the "favourite" for the role because he had a unique charm. O'Gorman was still relatively unknown and had given up acting just a few years after his audition for The Next Generation, though he definitely had a bit more of the rugged looks to match the show's number one. for at that time.

The memo also named Greg Marks, a soap star who played David Bunnings in Days of Our Lives and Tom Hughes in As The World Turns, along with Ben Murphy, who played Kid Curry in the Western Alias. The 1970s. Smith and Jones." While Frakes ultimately bested everyone at the audition, there was one other actor in the mix who might have beaten him out for the role — one who would become a Star Trek legend himself, no less.

Actor Jeffrey Combs is a genre titan, with a great love for both the world of horror and science fiction. He starred as the depraved doctor Herbert West in the Re-Animator films, once playing the bizarre Doctor Strange rip-off Doctor Mordredand perhaps most importantly, it featured nine different characters in the Star Trek franchise (if you don't count Wayone's multiple clones as separate characters). That's an awful lot screen in the Star Trek universe.and it all happened because of Combs auditioning for Riker.

Although Combs lost out to Frakes for the role, the latter remembered Combs when he got the chance to direct an episode of Star Trek: Nine Spaces Deep and brought him in to play the role of Tyrone. As much as Combs struggled with the character's makeupthis allowed him to work with René Auberjonois, who played the shape-shifter Odo and would later direct the Deep Space Nine episode "Family Business". During the casting of that episode, he suggested Combs for the Ferengi villain Liquidator Brunt, and since the makeup would hide his appearance enough to hopefully fool the audience, the show's producers gave him the go-ahead. This, in turn, led to Combs playing characters in four different Star Trek shows, making him one of the most prolific Star Trek actors.

Basically, Frakes getting the role of Riker was probably the best possible outcome. Otherwise, we'd never get to see Combs as Wayone who defected and discovered the textures of all the foods in the replicator (and that's a universe I just don't want to live in).