CBS All Access Gillian Vigman as Dr. T'ana, Jerry O'Connell as Commander Ransom, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman and Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
Though the ensigns of Star Trek: Lower Decks are clearly the focus of the show, the officers on the bridge do steal the spotlight every once in a while. More often than not, Captain Carol Freeman, Commander Jack Ransom, Lieutenant Shaxs and Dr. T’Ana have to intervene to clean up the messes created by the rest of the crew, especially the foursome the show revolves around.
The voice actors bringing the bridge crew to life are all pretty well-known and accomplished actors. Here are the faces behind the cartoons.
Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman
Most people know Lewis from her iconic role on The Cobsy Show spinoff A Different World. She played Jaleesa Vinson, Denise Huxtable’s college roommate. That was actually Lewis’s very first television role, and it propelled her into a wildly successful acting career.
Right after A Different World ended, Lewis landed a major role on Hanging With Mr. Cooper. Throughout the 90s, she had guest roles and recurring roles on several popular television shows. She also landed some major roles in TV movies and began her voice-acting career.
She continued to work regularly as both a television actor and a voice actor through the 2000s and the 2010s. She had small recurring roles on several popular television shows and regular voice-acting roles in several popular cartoons. Lately, her biggest recurring roles were Patrice Perry in the crime drama Major Crimes and the Chief in the Netflix reboot of Carmen San Diego.
Jerry O’Connell as Commander Jack Ransom
O’Connell exploded onto the scene when he was only 12 years old, starring in the coming-of-age classic Stand by Me. Coincidentally, that movie also starred Wil Wheaton, who would go on to play Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation just a year later.
O’Connell did some television work and a few TV movies in the 80s before his career as a teen heartthrob really took off in the 90s. He had major recurring roles in My Secret Identity and Camp Wilder and soon began landing roles in major movies. Over the span of a few years, he had parts in Jerry Maguire, Scream 2, Can’t Hardly Wait and Mission to Mars. During that time, he also landed the lead in the sci-fi TV show Sliders.
The 2000s and 2010s were just as successful for O’Connell. He landed several major recurring roles in popular television shows and he took more voice acting roles as well. His impressive list of credits includes more than 120 roles.
O’Connell also happens to be married to a fellow Trek star. His wife, Rebecca Romijn, portrayed Number One in Star Trek: Discovery and will be starring in the new Trek show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs
Though Trek fans might not be familiar with Tatasciore’s face, they’re likely familiar with his voice. He’s done at least one voice, if not many voices, for almost all of the most popular cartoons in recent animation history. He’s got over 800 credits on IMDB.
Tatasciore started his career as a voice actor in the 80s. In the decades that followed, he became one of the most used voice actors in the business. He’s done voices for television, movies, and video games.
Some of his more popular roles include Gato in the anime Naruto, Hulk in pretty much every Marvel cartoon focusing on the Avengers, Bolza Grool in Star Wars: Resistance, the entire main cast of Star Trek: The Original Series in Robot Chicken and Rhino in The Amazing Spiderman. He’s also the “Additional Voices” listing in so many animated series and movies that it’s impossible to list them all here.
He’s also been involved in the Trek-verse before, beyond impersonating the TOS crew. He recorded additional voices for Star Trek: Into Darkness.
Gillian Vigman as Dr. T’Ana
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Vigman started her acting career in the late 90s with some television work and a few small movie roles. In 2003, she got a recurring role on the sketch comedy show MADtv. After that, she started getting more movie roles, including small roles in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Step Brothers and The Hangover.
In the 2010s, Vigman continued to work in both movies and television, with a strong focus on TV. She had several recurring roles in popular TV shows like Suburgatory, Lopez, New Girl and Life Sentence. She also started doing more voice acting, taking on a few characters in the show Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which Lower Decks costar Tatascione also worked on.
READ NEXT: PHOTOS: This is What the Ensigns of ‘Lower Decks’ Look Like in Real Life