Now, Oded Fehr is recurring on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as Admiral Vance, a character he originated on Star Trek: Discovery. Vance is a good guy. But Fehr has also played the exact opposite type of character in the past, including on NCIS, in four episodes in Season 10 as Ilan Bodnar.
“I love being the bad guy. I love being the bad guy. It’s really a lot of fun because you’re really a good guy. Bad guys don’t see themselves as bad guys,” Fehr explains to TV Insider. “They see themselves as good guys, just misunderstood. So it’s really a lot of fun. You get to do a lot, much bigger kind of emotional scope.”
Bodnar was the one responsible for the murders of both Ziva’s (Cote de Pablo) father, Eli David (Michael Nouri), and Vance’s (Rocky Carroll) wife, Jackie (Paula Newsome). He died after facing off with Ziva.
Fehr came in during Season 10, and he remembers how impressed he’d been by the show being on air that long and also doing 22 episodes a year. “They were very lovely,” he shares. “You could feel the cog wheels working. The machine just keeps moving. It made me really feel like, ‘Wow.’ It used to be the actor’s dream. They don’t do 22 episodes anymore as they used to. ‘Oh my God, I could work the entire year. I don’t have to worry about working again and all the rest of it.’ But it is hard. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, these guys have done this for 10 years. That’s incredible.’”
As for reprising his role on Starfleet Academy, Fehr feels honored that they brought him on.
“It was a long time coming. I actually did reach out when I first heard about it and went, ‘Look, this happens, I’m sure Admiral Vance wouldn’t mind being involved,’” he admits. “But yeah, I feel very honored and blessed. It means something when a character you’ve portrayed is brought back to another show. It’s a wonderful compliment.”
