Star Treks Spock Was Originally A Woman?

First Published: December 8, 2011 4:14 PM EST Credit: Getty Premium Caption Leonard Nimoy (as Mr. Spock) speaks to actress Nichelle Nichols (as Uhura) on the bridge of the USS Enterprise in a scene from The Man Trap, the premiere episode of Star Trek, which aired on September 8, 1966 LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- In a twist that would have significantly changed the Star Trek universe, Spock was originally to be played by a woman according to Lieutenant Uhura actress Nichelle Nichols. In an interview from 2002 for Trek Nation Directors Log, which recently aired on the Science Channel special Trek Nation, the actress claimed that creator Gene Roddenberry wanted the famous Vulcan to be played by a woman. They gave me a three-page script to read from that had three characters named, she said in the interview. There was Bones, Kirk and someone called Spock and they asked me to read for the role of Spock. When I looked at this great text, I said to myself, Ill take any one of these roles, but I found the Spock character to be very interesting, and I asked them to tell me what she [Spock] was like. But not all are convinced of Nichelles take on the early casting concept. According to geek/tech blog io9, in early versions of the script, there was a Spock-like character, named Number One, which was to be played by a woman. The role was reportedly cut after the studio took issue with such a large female role. After nixing Number One, Roddenberry promoted the role of Spock to first office. Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.