Hundreds of actors have portrayed characters in the Star Trek Universe, and it is common to see them in other roles. Sometimes you’ll find that a show features several actors from Star Trek, often purely by coincidence.

I am, of course, referring to the real Total Recall from 1990 with Schwarzenegger, not that thing with Colin Farrell that had an elevator that went through the Earth’s core for… some reason. I can’t get into how bad that movie was, or we’ll never get this list started. The original Total Recall was a fantastic movie and featured seven actors that would go on to roles on Star Trek.

Elizabeth Dennehy

She had such a small role in Total Recall that she wasn’t even credited, nor could I find a picture of her from that movie. But, she WAS there. Later, Elizabeth Dennehy would be Lieutenant Commander Shelby on two of the most important episodes of TNG: The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 & 2. She was a Borg expert and was intent of succeeding Commander Riker as the first officer of the Enterprise.

Marc Alaimo

Marc Alaimo played many roles throughout Star Trek, most notably as Cardassian Gul Dukat on dozens of episodes of DS9. If you want to see him without all the makeup, he had several scenes in Total Recall as one of Michael Ironside’s goons, Captain Everett. He was at the spaceport during the famous ‘fake head’ scene.

Robert Picardo

Every Star Trek fan recognizes Robert Picardo from his role as The Doctor on seven years of Voyager and the feature film First Contact. Before all that, he was the voice of the JohnnyCab in Total Recall. Picardo is certainly a super-talented guy   – and he is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lycia Naff

It honestly took me quite a while to realize that the adorable Ensign Sonya Gomez and the… um… ‘well-endowed’ mutant from Mars are the same person. Lycia Naff is probably one of the most recognizable characters from Total Recall. She would go on to act in two episodes of TNG: The Samaritan Snare and Q Who?

Roy Brocksmith

In Total Recall, Roy Brocksmith took a bullet to the head from Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Edgemar. He would play two characters in the Star Trek Universe. First, as stratagema master Sirna Kolrami in TNG’s Peak Performance (pictured). He would later be Razka Karn in the DS9 episode Indiscretion.

Mel Johnson Jr.

Benny, the freaky cab-driving mutant from Total Recall (“Screw You!”) was played by Mel Johnson Jr. A few years later, he has appeared twice on DS9 as the Cardassian Broca: What You Leave Behind and Dogs of War.

Ronny Cox

The main bad guy in Total Recall was Vilos Cohaagen, portrayed by Ronny Cox. He would play Captain Edward Jellico and actually take command of the Enterprise from Picard in the TNG two-parter Chain of Command. Cox always seems to have roles as a disagreeable character, but I bet he is pretty awesome in real-life.

If you haven’t seen the classic Total Recall, you are missing out. This movie had some of the first digital effects ever, but relied heavily on practical applications. I made the error of buying the re-make on Bluray. It has a lot of cool actors and no plot or sense. Not that Schwarzenegger’s eyes would really pop out of his head in the Martian atmosphere.