Timothy Olyphant lost the role of Captain Kirk in the Star Trek movie trilogy to Chris Pine.

During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Justified actor revealed that he was in the running for both Dr. Leonard McCoy/Bones and Captain Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek, which kicked off a new trilogy.

“Here’s what I can tell you about Star Trek: I went in and auditioned not for Captain Kirk, but I remember reading with (director) J.J. Abrams and he’s just a lovely, lovely guy. And just a lovely, lovely audition process,” the 55-year-old recalled. “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. And somewhere along the line, J.J. called and said, ‘I found a guy, younger, who’s really good.'”

Karl Urban played Bones alongside Pine as Kirk in the 2009 movie and its sequels Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond in 2013 and 2016. They starred alongside Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldaña, Anton Yelchin, and John Cho.

Despite losing out on the role, Olyphant has no hard feelings towards Pine, 42.

“This sounds very show business-y, but I had the honour, we’re going to say honour, to go to the Golden Globes one year… and I spent most of the evening at the bar with Chris Pine,” he shared. “Just really adored him. What a good guy. I really like his work. He’s one of those guys who makes it look simple and easy.”

Development of a fourth Star Trek film has been ongoing for years.

© Cover Media