Happy Birthday Colm Meaney (Miles O'Brien)

[Takara_Soong 4]

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLM MEANEY!

Part of the fun of being a Star Trek fan is watching the paths that actors take through the franchise, and Colm Meaney is no exception. Beginning on Star Trek: The Next Generation as simply "O'Brien," a nearly anonymous crewman who sometimes appeared at the helm, sometimes at the Transporter Room controls and other times in Engineering, Meaney certainly paid his dues. By season four's "Family," he finally acquired the "Miles Edward" part of his name and his character was nearly complete.

 

Meaney got the opportunity to take center stage later in the fourth season, with his wedding to Keiko in "Data's Day" and in the subsequent episode "The Wounded," where he recounted his experiences with the renegade Captain Maxwell in the Cardassian War. As the series progressed, Miles O'Brien became as recognizable to the viewers as any of the show's "main" cast. When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came along, Meaney had truly come into his own, anchoring the new show's cast as a familiar face from TNG.

 

Born in Dublin, Ireland a half-century ago, Meaney began his career as most of Star Trek's talents have; on the stage. Colm trained at Dublin's Abbey Theatre School of Acting and later joined the Irish National Theatre Company. In the late 1970's he acted with The Focus Company, a Dublin-based theatre group that featured other future stars such as Gabriel Byrne and Stephen Rea. He then made the leap to film and television with his debut on the BBC series Z Cars. Subsequent television appearances after he made the move to the United States include roles on shows such as Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Tales from the Darkside, MacGyver, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

 

Meaney has also appeared in numerous films, including "The Commitments," "(Please stop me from cursing) Tracy," "Die Hard 2," "Far and Away," "The Last of the Mohicans," "Con Air," "Under Siege," "The Van," "The Road to Wellville" and several others. In 1994 he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical for his work in "The Snapper." "The Commitments," "The Snapper" and "The Van" form a trilogy of movies based on the novels of acclaimed Irish author Roddy Doyle.

 

Since the finale of DS9, Meaney hasn't slowed down. He appeared alongside Patrick Stewart ("Jean-Luc Picard") in Stewart's King Lear adaptation "The King of Texas," and is currently working on two films, "Intermission" and "The Great Ceili War."

 

from startrek.com