(written from a Production point of view)
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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Discovery, and thus may contain spoilers.
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Callum Keith Rennie (born 14 September 1960; age 63) is an actor who played Rayner in the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery.
Rennie is probably best known to science fiction fans for his recurring role as Leoben Conroy in Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica from 2003 to 2009, where he appeared alongside James Callis, Kate Vernon, Rekha Sharma, Dean Stockwell, Rick Worthy, Amanda Plummer, Nana Visitor, and Mark A. Sheppard.
Rennie was born in Sunderland, England and moved to Edmonton, Canada with his family when he was four. He dropped out of college and worked odd jobs in Toronto and Vancouver before venturing into acting at twenty-five. He began his acting career in stage productions, but also ventured into indie films and smaller television guest roles. He gained recognition in the 1993 LGBT-themed experimental short film Frank's Cock and the 1994 independent drama film Double Happiness, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award.
During this period, Rennie appeared in episodes of series such as The X-Files (with Daniel Benzali and Roger Cross, directed by Rob Bowman), The Outer Limits (with Len Cariou and Chris Sarandon, narrated by Kevin Conway), Highlander (with Hagan Beggs), Forever Knight, and Nikita.
Rennie gained international fame by co-starring in the third and fourth seasons of the popular Canadian crime comedy drama series Due South as Detective Stanley "Ray" Kowalski from 1997 to 1999. Kenneth Welsh, Ron Canada, Barbara Eve Harris, Shawn Doyle, Katherine Trowell, and Milton Barnes appeared in guest roles during Rennie's tenure on the show.
Rennie is also known for his recurring role as record producer Lew Ashby on the Showtime series Californication from 2008 to 2013, starring Pamela Adlon, with Brian Posehn and Mädchen Amick, and his role as Gary Connell in the second season of the Amazon Prime alternate history series The Man in the High Castle (2016), starring Chelah Horsdal and Cary-Hiroyuki, with Rick Worthy, Kenneth Tigar, and Hiro Kanagawa.
In 2007, Rennie co-starred in Tin Man, starring Neal McDonough and featuring Gwynyth Walsh. In 2010-11, he starred as Detective Ben Sullivan in Shattered, co-starring Brian Markinson and featuring Rekha Sharma, Eve Harlow, Paul McGillion, and Adrian Holmes in guest parts.
In 2012, he co-starred in NBC's The Firm. Tara Rosling, Victor Garber, Kate Vernon, Daniel Kash, Roger Cross, Rothaford Gray, Bruce Gray, Raven Dauda, Michael Boisvert, Conrad Pla, Jason Gosbee, Aldrin Bundoc, Daryl Patchett, Lisa Berry, Brian Markinson, and Chris Violette appeared in guest roles on this show. In 2018-19, Rennie co-starred in Impulse (starring Missi Pyle, with Tara Rosling, Shawn Doyle, Raven Dauda, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Andrew Moodie, Thom Marriott, Danny Pudi, and Hiro Kanagawa).
His further recurring roles include Twitch City (1998-2000, with Kenneth Welsh), Da Vinci's Inquest (1999-2001, starring Gwynyth Walsh, with Matt Frewer), The L Word (2006, starring Mia Kirshner), the action series 24 (2010, with Annie Wersching, Nazneen Contractor, Necar Zadegan, and Bob Gunton, written by Manny Coto and Brannon Braga), Rookie Blue (2010, with Melanie Nicholls-King and Lisa Berry), Netflix' The Killing (2011-12, starring Michelle Forbes, with Alan Dale, Brian Markinson, Mark Moses, and Janet Kidder), Longmire (2015-16, with Mary Wiseman and Nick E. Tarabay, directed by TJ Scott), Jessica Jones (2018, with Maury Ginsberg), and Netflix' The Umbrella Academy (2022, with Jake Epstein, Graham Parkhurst, Chai Valladares, and Noah Lamanna).
Rennie also made guest appearances in shows such as Dark Angel, Mutant X, The Dead Zone (starring Nicole de Boer, with David Ogden Stiers, developed by Michael Piller and Shawn Piller), Tru Calling, Kingdom Hospital (starring Bruce Davison and Ed Begley, Jr.), Supernatural, Smallville, Brannon Braga's FlashForward (starring John Cho and Peyton List, with Michelle Hurd, James Callis, and Gabrielle Union), CSI: Miami, Transporter: The Series, and Legends of Tomorrow (starring Victor Garber).
He also appeared in a large number of feature films, which include David Cronenberg's Existenz (1999, with Stephanie Belding), Memento (2000), Paycheck (2003, with Chelah Horsdal), The Butterfly Effect (2004), Blade: Trinity (2004, with Patton Oswalt), Snow Cake (2006), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), Case 39 (2009), The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013, with Kyle Gatehouse), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Warcraft (2016, with Clancy Brown), Jigsaw (2017, with Michael Boisvert), and Fifty Shades Freed (2018, with Hiro Kanagawa).
| Star Trek: Discovery regular cast |
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| David Ajala • Rachael Ancheril • Wilson Cruz • Blu del Barrio • Jason Isaacs • Doug Jones • Shazad Latif • Sonequa Martin-Green • Anson Mount • Anthony Rapp • Callum Keith Rennie • Mary Wiseman |
Star Trek appearances[]
- DIS:
- "Red Directive"
- "Under the Twin Moons"
- "Jinaal"
- "Face the Strange"
- "Mirrors"
- "Whistlespeak"
- "Erigah"
- "Labyrinths"
- "Lagrange Point"