Timothy Olyphant Once Spent An Fine Evening At A Bar With The ‘Good Dude’ Who Previously Beat Him For ‘The Role That Got Away’

Once upon a hatless time (or at least a hat-break time after HBO’s original Deadwood series), Timothy Olyphant auditioned to be part of a 2009 blockbuster movie ensemble and ended up in consideration for a bigger role in the project. After some time, the swaggery actor found out out that the larger role went to a different actor, and that was just fine because Justified debuted in 2010 with Raylan Givens clearly being the role that Olyphant was always meant to play. And we should all thank our hat-inferior stars that things turn out this way because no one else could pull off that legendary presence on screen, and now, we’ve been gifted with the City Primeval followup series.

What was that “the role that got away,” as The Hollywood Reporter phrased the situation (while relaying this revelation from Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast) That would be Captain Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film, which was eventually followed by two sequels with all three installments starring Chris Pine in that coveted role. Actually, Olyphant hadn’t even aimed in that direction, but Abrams told him, “I don’t have a Kirk.'”

Olyphant felt that “he might have been prepared to hire me, but they wanted somebody younger,” and the rest was history. And that history included hanging out at a swanky event bar with Pine, as Olyphant described:

“I have since then met Chris Pine and I am a huge fan of him, both on- and off-screen. I love that guy,” he said of Pine. “He’s a good dude.”

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

Everything worked out as planned, too. If Olyphant had scored the Kirk role, then he’d have been signed for at least another two movies (a fourth installment from Abrams still hasn’t happened), and there would be no way possible for him to star on FX’s six Justified seasons and the current City Primeval that also streams next-day on Hulu. The hat would not exist as we know it, and I don’t even want to think about that possibility.