Started as a no-name red-shirt helmsman in the pilot; got a last name and an on-going occupation after one year; graduated to getting a full name, a wife and his very own B-plot a couple years after that; and another couple of years (and a lucky break) later his name's in a damn opening title sequence. No other actor/character has ever risen through the ranks like that on Star Trek. From probable cannon-fodder to new-Scotty. Wonder what kind of perspective one gains from climbing each individual step of the ladder like that.

This dude never change his hair lol. Just been Chief O'Brien forever lol.

Deep Space 9 still my favorite Star Trek

He is a very humble man and doesn't give himself enough credit what his character gave to TNG and DS9. He was the epitome of everyone sworn to Star Trek. He showed the way a father and husband behaved and also what a hero had to perform in a violent space environment. His best episode is when he was captured and he thought he had suffered a life time of abuse even though it was only a few days and his friend Dr. Bashir stopped him from committing suicide.

O'Brien and Bashir is one of the best bromances in a TV show.

DS9 was my fav. More meat in that show. Everything wasn't wrapped up in an hour.

One of best aspects of the chief was that he was the only main, starfeet character, that wasn't an officer; he was an enlisted man.

while I love the interview with O'Brien,.. ;) ... being able to see THE QUESTIONS being asked of him would certainly put his ANSWERS in a much better perspective!

I literally started watching DS9 this year. Thanks to Netflix. I resisted for decades because I thought it would be boring. Boy was I wrong! Love Chief O’Brien.

Ah, poor O'Brien, I can still hear Keiko reprovingly saying "Miles!" like she did all the time.

Colm Meaney and his character were absolute jewels of both DS9 and Star Trek as a whole. I think he was such an important character and without him the show wouldn't be the same. DS9 was one of those shows where more so than even Next Generation, every character felt indispensable. They seemed like they were a family on screen and off screen. I think DS9 has been my favourite series.

He has aged well

Can we take a moment to appreciate Chief Obrien... He has all the heavy work and duty, almost no time for family, he was always facing danger. He is the best ♥️

Colm Meaney is a fantastic actor. My husband enjoyed seeing him in the movie "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain".

Loving hearing Colm's insights and opinions on his run with Star Trek, one of the best performers and characters of all the series.

He seems like such a nice man. I love DS9 more than most things.

Not only did Star Trek offer a future,it was a future without hunger,disease,racism or the need to work in a job you hated because of the replicator.A truly bright vision that I wish more people shared.

First time I saw Meaney was in Con Air, which he was great in, then in Hell on Wheels where he is even better. now I'm going back and watching the old star trek shows on netflix and he is one of my favorite characters in DS9 and TNG. Underrated actor in my opinion.

TNG won me at the first episode. I was 20 yo and just happy to have a new Trek to watch again....Grateful I remember being. Great interview.

What a fantastic guy.

The way the Chief & the Doctors friendship developed is a great side story, going from intense dislike to intense friendship over years.

Colm Meaney is awesome. Trek would not have been the same without him!!

Colm, you are the BEST!!! Thanks so much for your contribution to DS9. Each time you were in a scene I was glued to the screen. You are such a great actor! Thank you thank you thank you!

Thanks for putting this up. This is literally the first Colm interview I've ever seen. He seems more reclusive than even Andrew Robinson. I know he was acting but the man doesn't seem too far off from the character, who has always been one of my favorites.

Deep space Nine is my favorite. Loved your portrayal of Miles O'Brien Colm and all of your other work.

Being from Ireland and a huge science fiction fan I love Colm Meaney, he's such a cool guy. "O'brien must suffer" - Star Trek writers

Ha ha! Of course DS9 was darker. I love DS9 because of the obvious moral ambiguity introduced into the Star Trek saga. The Dominion War was not something from Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek. DS9 showed how even good well-meaning people sometimes have to commit violent despicable acts to fight for their lives in self defense, and they should be prepared to do so.

Been a Star Trek fan for 35 years - DS9 is the greatest Star Trek series. The character development is phenomenal.

Yes Colm playing Miles AND Smily OBryan. Good stuff. Watching DS9 over again he's one of my fave actors in it.

One of Trek's luckiest finds ever, our own Irish treasure. Colm Meaney. The man is gold! Mad he auditioned for Data, when the part eventually went to Spiner Menaey was given a couple of roles in season 1, then in season 2 was established as a regular, Chief O'Brien. Loved him over his long run on TNG/DS9.

All I gotta say is Colm man, that episode Hard Time on Deep Space Nine had me good. Having only a spent a small amount of nights in jail seeing you in that episode felt real as hell man. Hard to think you didn't actually spend any time but it was all acting. That's when I knew I was a fan.

Deep space 9 was great. He really loves star trek like I do.

After all the amazing roles in so many acclaimed movies, he still sounds exactly like Chief O'Brien in person.

Would love to see O’Brien show up on Picard

The Chief is one of my favourite all time characters. A guy dealing with shit falling apart, having to put up with shit every other Thursday and going back to his quarters to get nagged at by his wife, and then rolling out of bed at 0600 hours to get everything done in half the time his estimates to the officers were. Always loved the Starfleet engineering characters.

Colm Meaney's one of my favorite characters. A working man's working man. He just got things done with no fuss and very little annoyance.

When we watched Star Trek NG, we wondered where the heck did O'Brien go? Just finished DS9 so we were happy to finally figure it out. Couldn't stop calling him "Chiefy" like Jaws character, everytime someone said "Chief". Great character and actor.

Michael Dorn and Colm Meany - both smashed TNG and DS9 two of the best TV shows ever produced.

Not exploring O'Brian's PTSD with Cardassians from his experience during the Setlik III massacre was a missed opportunity to reach an amicable closure. He held a measure of animosity against the Cardassians because of what they turned him into. He even said to one, "It's not you I hate, Cardassian; I hate what I became because of you." When he came over to DS9, this little detail completely disappeared. It should not have considering his assignment was a Cardassian space station. In real life, a person with PTSD going over to a place like Germany or Vietnam would likely have had great difficulty, and it would take years to come to terms.

Double strong, double sweet.

Showing the questions would've been a great help!

He always looks the same whenever I see him, lol, like not too old not too young he just stays in place

O'Brien was a character that made me feel good, safe. When DS9 started I was skeptical at first, but then when I saw Chief O'Brien show up I said ok, it's going to be fine! When Worf joined, holy shite! Even better! Thank you Colm for many great memories!

DS9 and Hell on Wheels just shows the depth of his acting skills

I disagree with him, I think DS 9 was darker. But a lot of that had to do with the fact it had long term story arcs in a way the other trek shows don't. Sure they would have recurring villains and plots to a degree. But nothing like what DS 9 was able to do delving into the horrors and moral ambiguity of the occupation of Bejor and the war with the Dominion etc. I wouldn't say it's a dark show overall, but certainly darker than what I've seen of the other trek series.

DS9 is my favourite. The character development was done very well

The fans of Star Trek being so in love wth the original series that they forgot why it was subtitled The Next Generation. But the first episode of that latter series did start out with Data assisting a rather elderly and feeble Bones McCoy down the corridor of the next-generation starship Enterprise.

I think that after Patrick Stewart,Leonard Nimoy (RIP) and Brent Spiner, Meaney was the best actor in all Star Trek.

The best character in the show. Played by a great actor.

For me, Colm Meaney was THE BEST character actor in all of Trek .. hands down. Probably best TNG episodes were: The Wounded, where he get's Captain Maxwell to back off; Power Play, where he is taken over by a penal colony prisoner, and has to treat his wife Keiko with such contempt. In DS9, he really got to shine with episodes like: The Story Teller, Whispers, Tribunal, Visionary, Hippocratic Oath, *Hard Time*, *Honor Among Thieves* (last 2 are outstanding). On top of all that, he's a 'regular guy', who I got to meet at a Con, have lunch with, have a coffee with in "10 Forward", and not at all the sort that pushes his ideology on his fans (like the rest of the cast/crew who are raving liberals and expects you to suck up to their liberal nonsense).

I can't understand why anyone would hate TNG, DS9 or Voyager. All 3 series show that the Milky Way Galaxy is huge and diverse and each series explores every aspect of how huge our galaxy is. DS9 with the Gamma Quadrant and Voyager explores the Delta Quadrant and ENT/TOS/TNG explore both Beta and Alpha Quadrant.

"I CAN'T BELIVE IT... I TORE MY PANTS!!!!"

He is fantastic in Hell on wheels. Loved him in star trek too!

The episodes featuring O'brien are some of my favorites. "The wounded" seemed to have been a good springboard to his future work with DS9. I really like the the pilot episode where Picard personally beams him over.

I watch them all over and over so many times I almost know the scripts. I just love them. Yet, I still see something new I missed before!

I hated DS9 at first. I saw them as usurpers. But now DS9 is my favorite Star Trek series. The characters are just so lovable. The writing was superb, and funny. Especially Quark.

My favorite episode that his character of Chief O'Brien was focused on was where he had been arrested and convicted on an alien world of espionage and they implanted memories of having been in prison for 20 years. Part of the programed memory was that he was incarcerated with a being who became his best friend but they were both starved and he thought his friend was holding out on him with secret food and in a fit of rage he killed him. When he returned to DS-9 the fake memories almost drove him to suicide. It was a very, very dark episode and that's not something you usually see on Star Trek.

Loved the show. Watching it for the third time.

A wonderful actor who is so underrated. O’Brien was the one character that everyone could relate to - honest, loyal and hard-working. (He even played a Welsh Pub Landlord in a film with an OK Welsh accent.).

He speaks so well! Well put, always loved O'Brian. One of my favorite episodes was with his old captain coming back and they sung a war song. DS9 wasn't dark at all, but looking back at it there were actually a few epidodes that were too "heavy" and excessively serious. You think THOSE were "dark"? Ha wait'll you see Enterprise show when Archer goes into the expanse. THAT was much darker stuff, not a fan at that point. But early Enterprise was ok.

Respectfully no mr. Meaney Next Generation and the original series would have never had an episode anything in the same vein as "in the pale moonlight" those on the episodes where Jake went to war and watched that Marine die, also nothing you would have ever seen in the Next Generation. Section 31 never something that would have come up in the next Generation although maybe I could see something like it in the original series. When people say the Deep Space 9 was darker they are not talking about the set, they are in fact talking about the storylines and themes.

Please include the questions. It would be easier to follow.

Funny how everyone always points out the fact that DS9 is set in a fixed location. True, it was, but they left the station many times during the series so that's oversimplifying it a great deal.

👍🌟 He was awesome in his role as the Chief.

Most interesting character of each series: TOS - Spock TNG - Data DS9 - Quark Voyager - EMH Enterprise - None

We love you, Chief!

Oh yes he was wonderful on Deep Space Nine.

O'Brien is one of the BIGGEST reasons I stuck with DS9 and gave it a shot...without him...I probably would have missed out

Colm Meany's Miles Edward o brien was great.like carried on like "the minstrel boy With his wild heart slung behind him".taking on "Whatever".id take him on my next mission ANYTIME

my fav ds9 ep where he infiltrates the orion syndicate was some great story telling.

Chief! Awesome actor.

Great man

I agree . Loved ds9

He is actually a really good actor. Nerd icons suffer from the child actor dilemma, they get typecast but you should check him out in Layer Cake. It was like his Orion syndicate episode, but that's because I'm a Trekkie. Colmb Meaney is a talented fellow.

This is like Jeopardy, we have to guess the question.

Love my Space Dad.

Interviewer: *asks any question* Colm Meaney: ahe ahn-em hwugh ahgh ughm

Half-baked attempt at timestamping: 0:02 DS9: the phenomenon 1:30 Darkest Trek? 2:47 Enjoyable episodes 3:28 O'Brien/Bashir relationship 3:56 Picard vs Sisko 4:40 Why does Star Trek endure? 6:03 Character variety 7:02 Final remarks

He was also on Stargate Atlantis😊

1:10 Priceless! Eh bububla bewitz erajesay

He played Bad guys in movies very well.

I hated when ds9 ended but it was my favorite show

He's starting to look like Peter Jurasik.

both were very different but very good series Then again I love them all including TAS lol.I mean who doesnt like quark or data.

funny that the actor who plays Miles, the character who was nearly driven to killing himself because he couldn't cope with his years of artificial memories as a prisoner, says the show wasn't necessarily darker.

Deep space Nine was very cool even when they had the Defiant and a few other thigns

The Chief 🙂Love the characters in DS9 🙂

legend

intelligent guy!

They should have had an engineer's get together with Scotty and B'Elanna and Miles O' Brien and Geordi Laforge... and give us a history of Starfleet engineering. Perhaps there is something like that out there somewhere. At least there was an episode when Scotty came back after 75 years stuck in a transporter buffer...!

i didn't even know about deep space 9 existing until a couple seasons in to voyager, and i had been watching star trek regularly since near the start of next generation. keep in mind i turned 10 in 1994, what i saw on tv was my information about star trek, and star trek next gen/voy pretty much never promoted their sister project on another channel. i just didn't see it. never sad down and watched ds9 through until the early 2000s during enterprise's run, overall i have found that i like ds9 more than any other star trek series, it felt grounded because it was more serialized, i constantly smack myself for not finding it sooner. i've been on the internet since 92 but i was never in any trek groups or any crap like that, i just liked to watch the tv show, didn't really rise to the level of actively seeking more information, i had allot of crap going on.

where can I get one of Quark special hollodeck programs ?

I hope he knows that obrien is now Canonically the most important person starfleet history.

Great answers… now what were the questions!? :D

Deep space 9 is life

If it were me, I'd write O'Brien into a Voyager episode with Barclay. Why? Because it would make perfect sense for 3 reasons: 1) They are both highly skilled engineers 2) Though not necessarily seen on-screen at the same time, they both worked on the Enterprise together, which would make it an even more interesting reunion, even with Troi, somewhere in the background, wolfing-down some chocolates. 3) O'Brien is back on Earth, having accepted a teaching position at the end of DS9... perhaps on his spare time, as a hobby, he donates his time to partake in research projects........ kind of like the Midas Array (the one used to contact Voyager in the Delta Quadrant).

For me he represents the common man type. Combat vet, family man, expert engineer. Your best bet-hire a vet!

"Not again Riker!" -Picard

It's such a shame there was no room for him on TNG, because I enjoyed him and his story on DS9 as much as I did anyone else on TNG.

Hey Colm, I just wanted to ask, who's your least favorite character on DS9 and why is it Keiko?