Leonard H. McCoy is a character in the Star Trek media franchise.^[1] First portrayed by DeForest Kelley in the original Star Trek series, McCoy also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in numerous books, comics, and video games.^[2] Karl Urban assumed the role of the character in the 2009 Star Trek film.^[3]

Depiction[link]

McCoy was born in 2227.^[2] The son of David,^[4]:257-258 he attended the University of Mississippi^[2] and is a divorcé.^[5] In 2266, McCoy was posted as chief medical officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk who calls him "Bones".^[2] McCoy and Kirk are good friends, even "brotherly".^[4]:146 The passionate, sometimes cantankerous McCoy frequently argues with Kirk's other confidant, science officer Spock,^[1] and occasionally is bigoted toward Spock's Vulcan heritage.^[6] McCoy often plays the role of Kirk's conscience, offering a counterpoint to Spock's logic.^[1] McCoy is suspicious of technology,^[7] especially the transporter;^[2] as a physician, he prefers less intrusive treatment and believes in the body's innate recuperative powers.^[1] The character's nickname, "Bones", is a play on sawbones, an epithet for physicians,^[8] in particular, those qualified as surgeons.^[9]

Kirk orders McCoy's commission reactivated in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979);^[2] a resentful McCoy complains of being "drafted".^[10] Spock transfers his katra—his knowledge and experience—into McCoy's mind before dying in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).^[2] This causes mental anguish for McCoy, who in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) helps restore Spock's katra to his reanimated body.^[2] McCoy rejoins Kirk's crew aboard the USS Enterprise-A in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).^[2] In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, McCoy (through the intervention of Spock's brother Sybok) reveals that he helped his father commit suicide to relieve him of his pain. Shortly after doing so, a cure was found for his father's disease and he carried with him the guilt about it for the rest of his life. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), McCoy and Kirk escape from a Klingon prison world, and the Enterprise crew stops a plot to prevent peace between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire.^[2] Kelley reprised the role for the "Encounter at Farpoint" pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), insisting upon no more than the minimum Screen Actors Guild payment for his appearance.^[11]

In the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Survivor", McCoy mentions he has a daughter. Chekov's friend Irina in the original series episode "The Way to Eden" was originally written as Dr. McCoy's daughter Joanna, but changed before the episode was shot.^[12]

Alternate timeline[link]

In the 2009 Star Trek film, which takes place in an "alternate, parallel" reality,^[13] McCoy and Kirk become friends at Starfleet Academy, which McCoy joins after a divorce that he says "left [him] nothing but [his] bones." This line, improvised by Urban,^[14] explains how McCoy came to be known as Bones. McCoy later helps get Kirk posted aboard the USS Enterprise.

Development[link]

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had worked with Kelley on previous television pilots,^[15] and Kelley was Roddenberry's first choice to play the doctor aboard the USS Enterprise.^[16] However, for the rejected pilot "The Cage" (1964), Roddenberry went with director Robert Butler's choice of John Hoyt to play Dr. Philip Boyce.^[17] For the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966), Roddenberry accepted director James Goldstone's decision to have Paul Fix play Dr. Mark Piper.^[18] Although Roddenberry wanted Kelley to play the character of ship's doctor, he didn't put Kelley's name forward to NBC; the network never "rejected" the actor as Roddenberry sometimes suggested.^[16]

Kelley's first broadcast appearance as Doctor Leonard McCoy was in "The Man Trap" (1966). Despite his character's prominence, Kelley's contract granted him only a "featuring" credit; it was not until the second season that he was given "starring" credit, at the urging of producer Robert Justman.^[19] Kelley was apprehensive about Star Trek's future, telling Roddenberry that the show was "going to be the biggest hit or the biggest miss God ever made".^[4]:146 Kelley portrayed McCoy throughout the original Star Trek series and voiced the character in the animated Star Trek.^[1]

Kelley, who in his youth wanted to become a doctor,^[20] in part drew upon his real-life experiences in creating McCoy: a doctor's "matter-of-fact" delivery of news of Kelley's mother's terminal cancer was the "abrasive sand" Kelley used in creating McCoy's demeanor.^[4]:145 Star Trek writer D. C. Fontana said that while Roddenberry created the series, Kelley essentially created McCoy; everything done with the character was done with Kelley's input.^[4]:156

"Exquisite chemistry" among Kelley, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy manifested itself in their performances as McCoy, Captain James T. Kirk and science officer Spock, respectively.^[4]:154 Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, referred to Kelley as her "sassy gentleman friend";^[4]:154 the friendship between the African-American Nichols and Southern Kelley was a real-life demonstration of the message Roddenberry hoped to convey through Star Trek.^[4]:154

For the 2009 reboot film Star Trek, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman saw McCoy as an "arbiter" in Kirk and Spock's relationship.^[21] While Spock represented "extreme logic, extreme science" and Kirk symbolized "extreme emotion and intuition", McCoy's role as "a very colorful doctor, essentially a very humanistic scientist" represented the "two extremes that often served as the glue that held the trio together."^[21] They chose to reveal McCoy befriended Kirk first, explaining the "bias" in their friendship and why he would often be a "little dismissive" of Spock.^[21] Urban said the script was "very faithful" to the original character, including the "great compassion for humanity and that sense of irascibility" with which Kelley imbued the character.^[22] Urban trained with a dialect coach to create McCoy's accent.^[22] Urban says he looks forward to reprising the role in the next Star Trek film.^[23]

Reception and cultural impact[link]

McCoy is someone to whom Kirk unburdens himself and is a foil to Spock.^[19] He is Kirk's "friend, personal bartender, confidant, counselor and priest".^[24] Urban said McCoy has a "sense of irascibility with real passion for life and doing the right thing", and that "Spock's logic and McCoy's moral standing gave Kirk the benefit of having three brains instead of just one."^[25] Jennifer Porter and Darcee McLaren wrote that McCoy is an "unintentional"^[6] example of how "irrational prejudices and fixations, wishful thinking and emotional reasoning, denial and repression, and unresolved neurotic disturbances" compromise "scientific rationality" in Star Trek.^[26]

Kelley said that his greatest thrill at Star Trek conventions was the number of people who told him they entered the medical profession because of the McCoy character.^[27]

The Guardian called Urban's performance of McCoy an "unqualified success",^[28] and The New York Times called the character "wild eyed and funny".^[29] Slate.com said Urban came closer than the other actors to impersonating a character's original depiction.^[30]

"He's dead, Jim."[link]

Twenty times on the original Star Trek McCoy declares someone or something deceased with the line, "He's dead", "He's dead, Jim", or something similar; the phrase is considered a catchphrase of the character,^[31][32][33] although actor Kelley disliked repeating such lines,^[4]:166 and refused to say it on The Wrath of Khan when Spock is near death; James Doohan as Montgomery Scott says "He's dead already" instead.^[4]:249 The line has entered popular culture as a general metaphor, with uses as diverse as descriptions of an unresponsive electronic circuit,^[34] an example of how to add an audio file to function as an alert sound in a computer system,^[35] and an illustrative quote regarding how to know if one's opponent has been destroyed in an action hero game.^[36] USC Literature Professor Henry Jenkins cited Dr. McCoy's "He's dead, Jim" line as an example of fans actively participating in the creation of an underground culture in which they derive pleasure by repeating memorable lines as part of constructing new mythologies and alternative social communities.^[37] One including Google, as they use this line in Google Chrome as an error message that comes up when the user's operating system terminates the browser or a running tab due to a serious error.^[38] Kelley joked that the line would appear on his tombstone.^[33]

"I'm a doctor, not a(n)..."[link]

Another of McCoy's catchphrases is his "I'm a doctor, (Jim) not a(n)..." statements,^[39] used 11 times.^[4]:166 McCoy repeats the line when he must perform some task beyond his medical skills, such as the "classic moment" when he is confronted with the unusual silicon-based Horta alien in "Devil in the Dark" (1967), saying, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer."^[40] Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: First Contact and Dr. Phlox from Star Trek: Enterprise all use variations of the line, which has also made its way into many other shows such as Stargate Atlantis,^[41] Robot Chicken^[42], Terra Nova,^[43] and Friends. In a parody sketch titled "The Restaurant Enterprise", on an episode of Saturday Night Live, Kirk (guest host William Shatner) directs McCoy (Phil Hartman) to help a man who's choking. McCoy snaps, "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a ... (suddenly realizes the situation; slightly embarrassed) Oh ... oh, sure." DeForest Kelley himself parodied the phrase for a Trivial Pursuit commercial ("How should I know? I'm an actor, not a doctor").^[44][45] The phrase also appears in the 2009 reboot, in which McCoy (Karl Urban) says "I'm a doctor, not a physicist" to Spock.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Star Trek: The Original Series

• StarTrek.com: Leonard McCoy
• Leonard McCoy at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Karl Urban
Urban at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Born	Karl-Heinz Urban (1972-06-07) 7 June 1972 (age 40) Wellington, New Zealand
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1990–present

Karl-Heinz Urban (born 7 June,^[1][2] 1972) is a New Zealand actor.

He is known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the 2009 film Star Trek and Caesar on Xena: Warrior Princess. He played Vaako in The Chronicles of Riddick, the Russian assassin Kirill in The Bourne Supremacy, and Ghost in Pathfinder and won acclaim for his performances in New Zealand films The Price of Milk and Out of the Blue.

Early life[link]

Urban was born in Wellington, New Zealand. His father, a German immigrant, owned a leather goods store, and his mother once worked for Film Facilities in Wellington, through which the young Urban was exposed to classic New Zealand cinema and developed an interest in the film industry.^[3] Urban attended St Mark's Church School, where he showed an early love for public performance. His first acting role came at age eight, when he had a single line in one episode of the New Zealand television series 'Pioneer Woman'. Though continuing to take part in school stage productions, he did not act professionally again until after high school.

He attended Wellington College from 1986–1990, then Victoria University of Wellington in the Bachelor of Arts programme for one year, but left to pursue his acting career. Over the next few years, he landed several theatre roles in the Wellington area, and eventually he moved to Auckland, where he was offered many guest roles in local shows (one of which was playing a heroin addict in the police drama Shark in the Park). The role which launched him to local fame was that of gay paramedic Jamie Forrest in the hit New Zealand TV series Shortland Street. He appeared on the show for the 1993–1994 season.

Urban then moved to Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia in 1995, returning to New Zealand the following year.^[4]

Career[link]

New Zealand roles[link]

As well as appearing in films and television shows, Urban had various roles in theatre productions and TV advertisements. In February/March 1998, he was in a play called The Herbal Bed at the Maidment Theatre in Auckland. In August 1998, he played Mark Antony in Auckland Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The following year he starred in the Auckland Theatre Company's production of the New Zealand classic Foreskin's Lament.

Urban was seen on the internationally syndicated American TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and on its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess, in which he played the recurring roles of both Cupid and Julius Caesar from 1996 to 2001. Both shows were filmed in New Zealand. In 2001 he appeared in the offbeat rural romance The Price of Milk, for which he received his first nomination at the New Zealand Qantas Film and Television Awards. Urban later won acclaim for his portrayal of policeman Nick Harvey in Out of the Blue, a dramatisation of New Zealand's Aramoana massacre, for which he won the Qantas Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2008.

International roles[link]

Urban's first Hollywood role was in the 2002 horror film Ghost Ship. Since then, he has worked on many high-profile movies, including the second and third installments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Two Towers and The Return of the King), The Bourne Supremacy, The Chronicles of Riddick and Star Trek.

The Hollywood Reporter speculated that Urban was one of several actors being considered for the part of British secret service agent 007 in Casino Royale, directed by fellow New Zealander Martin Campbell.^[5] The role eventually went to Daniel Craig.

Urban at the premiere of Peter Jackson's King Kong in Wellington, New Zealand

Urban played John "Reaper" Grimm in Universal Pictures' Doom (based on the classic first-person shooter video game Doom), which was released on 21 October 2005. In 2007 he starred in the Viking adventure Pathfinder. A longtime fan of Westerns,^[6] Urban appeared as Woodrow Call in Comanche Moon, the CBS miniseries prequel to Lonesome Dove, in January 2008.

In 2009, he played Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, a role famously originated by DeForest Kelley, in the eleventh Star Trek film.^{[7][8][9][10]} A fan of the Star Trek franchise since childhood, Urban actively pursued a role in the film.^[11] His performance was widely embraced by the Star Trek fan community for its faithfulness to the spirit of Kelley's McCoy.^[12]

In 2009, Urban appeared as himself in the documentary film Reclaiming the Blade, discussing his sword-wielding experience in films such as The Lord of the Rings.^[13]

Urban next appeared as CIA agent William Cooper in RED, adapted from the DC Comics graphic novel of the same name and co-starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren.^[14] He portrayed Black Hat, a villainous priest-turned-vampire, in the film adaption of the Korean manhwa Priest, released in 3-D in 2011.^[15]

In July 2010, Urban was cast as law-enforcing comic book hero Judge Dredd for the upcoming film entitled Dredd. In an interview with Shave Magazine, Urban described it as a "high-octane, action-fueled film... about the day in the life of Dredd." The film is directed by Pete Travis, with a script by Alex Garland.^[16]

Urban is currently filming the ensemble thriller Loft, a remake of the Belgian film of the same name. Filmed in New Orleans and Belgium, it is helmed by the director of the 2008 original, Erik Van Looy.^[17]

Personal life[link]

Urban married Natalie Wihongi (who was his makeup artist on The Privateers)^[18] in September 2004. Together they have two sons: Hunter, born November 2000, and Indiana ('Indy'), born January 2005^[19] and named for the eponymous hero of the Indiana Jones franchise,^[20] which Urban has cited as among his favorite films.^[21] They live in the Auckland, New Zealand suburb of Herne Bay.^{[citation needed]}

Urban serves as a celebrity ambassador for KidsCan, a charity which currently supports over 16,000 disadvantaged children all over New Zealand by providing them with essentials such as food, coats and shoes.^[22]

He is an avid fan of rugby union; in particular, the New Zealand All Blacks national team.^[23]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Karl Urban

• Karl Urban at the Internet Movie Database
• Karl Urban at AllRovi
• Karl Urban at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Karl Urban Interview at www.sci-fi-online.com