(written from a Production point of view)
Oliver Theess is a stuntman, stunt coordinator, actor and filmmaker who played a command division officer in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. [1]
Theess attended El Camino College in Torrance, California and grew up in Los Angeles. He has started doing sports at early age and became a BMX national champion racer at the age of 15. He later competed in skateboarding and surfing events, trained in martial arts and also founded his company Theess Surfboards where he produces skateboards and surfboards.
After he studied television production, photography and acting and trained under acting coach Estelle Harmon in Hollywood, California, Theess joined three unions and appeared in background roles and stunt parts in productions such as The Bronx Zoo, The New Gidget, Growing Pains, China Beach, Mr. Belvedere, Head of the Class, America's Most Wanted, Santa Barbara (1990), Baywatch, Murder, She Wrote, Beverly Hills 90210, and Matlock. Early film work as actor and stuntman include Gleaming the Cube (1989, with Christian Slater, Richard Herd, Art Chudabala, and Ed Lauter), The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), Flight of the Intruder (1991, with stunts by Terry Jackson and Phil Chong), Point Break (1991, starring Lori Petty and stunt coordinated by Glenn R. Wilder), Wayne's World (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Beverly Hills Ninja (1997).
In 2002, Theess wrote, produced and starred in the independent production Psychotic. Yuri Elvin worked as second unit first assistant director and second unit stunt coordinator on this film, Brian Hite as action coordinator and Alex Chansky performed stunts. Further projects he worked on as either stuntman or stunt coordinator include the action film Urban Task Force (2001), the sport drama The Circuit (2002), the action films Welcome to America and Jumper (both 2002), Goth (2003), the science fiction film Galaxy Hunter (2004), the crime thriller Hit Me (2005, working with Ken Lesco), the horror film Absolute Horror (2007, with Buddy Daniels), the action drama Koreatown (2007, with Seth Ayott and Jon Donahue), the crime thriller Hollywood Confidential (2008, with Bruce Mercury), the comedy After School (2008), the comedy He's Such a Girl (2009, with Jennifer Hetrick and Ed Begley, Jr.), The Green Hornet (2011), and the horror comedy Horrorween (2011, with William Shatner and Robert Easton).
More recently, Theess starred as Agent Dakota Stevens in the two independent action productions Sunset at Dawn and Sunset at Dawn 2, both produced in 2014. Theess also wrote and directed the films, produced, created the special effects, and was responsible for the art direction, production design and cinematography. Other projects currently in pre-production include the short drama Broken Down (2015), the action film No Fear (2016), the drama The Thorne (2016), and the horror film Dracula (2019).