Captain Liam Shaw Is Not The First Star Trek Character Todd Stashwick Has Played
Todd Stashwick, who plays Captain Liam Shaw in Star Trek: Picard, also played a Romulan in Star Trek: Enterprise.
Star Trek has a long tradition of re-using characters in completely different roles, including sometimes even in subsequent movies; such was the case with the late David Warner who played a human diplomat in 1989’s Star Trek V, the Klingon Chancellor in 1991’s Star Trek VI, and a year later the Cardassian interrogator Gul Madred in TNG. Likewise, Picard‘s Captain Liam Shaw isn’t Todd Stashwick’s first appearance in Star Trek. He had a one-off as Talok — an undercover Romulan disguised as a Vulcan — in the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Todd Stashwick has earned a lot of new fans as the surprise favorite new character Captain Liam Shaw in Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard. In one sense, the type of character Stashwick is playing is nothing new to the franchise. He’s the foil to the heroes, who seemingly starts off as an obstacle because he operates too strictly by the book.
But unlike most of those kinds of characters in the franchise, Shaw ultimately proves to have a lot more going on. Liam Shaw unloads on the titular lead in the fourth episode of Star Trek: Picard‘s third season, revealing he was at the Battle of Wolf 359 when an assimilated Picard aided the Borg in killing over 11,000 Starfleet personnel including many of Shaw’s colleagues. The scene makes it clear he still suffers from the trauma the experience marked him with.
Not to mention that while his character is a jerk, he’s just really fun to watch playing a jerk.
To hear him talk about it, Stashwick is exactly the kind of actor fans would want in the role of Captain Liam Shaw or any other character in Star Trek. Speaking to Collider, Stashwick said, “I was pretending to be a captain of the Starfleet when I was six.” He spoke at length about the responsibility he feels toward researching his roles and his “sense of responsibility” toward the fans.
Fans of things on the more nerd end of the spectrum may be even more familiar with Todd Stashwick’s work than they realize. Even before appearing as Liam Shaw or as Talok on Star Trek, Stashwick was filling the world of geekdom with other appearances. You could hardly be blamed for not recognizing him in the role, but he was the M’Fashnik demon (remember like “mmm… cookies?”) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s sixth season.
He played a completely different demon on Buffy‘s spin-off Angel. He also enjoyed appearances in series like Dark Angel, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Heroes. To Supernatural fans he will always be the man who played the Bela Lugosi Dracula to perfection in “Monster Movie.”
