Did You Know Legendary Star Wars Actor James Earl Jones Had a “Secret” Stargate SG-1 Role?

Though the world recently lost legendary actor James Earl Jones at the age of 93, he leaves behind a massive legacy in film and television — including several iconic roles well-known to sci-fi fans.

But in addition to voicing famed Star Wars baddie Darth Vader, Jones also popped up in a much sneakier role in another beloved “Star” franchise: Stargate SG-1. 

James Earl Jones’ Stargate SG-1 Cameo Explained

Stargate SG-1 followed teams of present day soldiers and explorers as they visited other planets and battled evil aliens across the universe thanks to the “Stargate,” a nifty device that can create a portal to pretty much any planet that has a connecting gate on the other end.

In the 10th episode of the show’s very first season, “Thor’s Hammer,” which was airing on Showtime at the time (the series didn’t make the jump to SYFY until its fifth season), the characters of Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) are teleported into an underground cave after being caught in an alien security system. 

James Earl Jones Photo: Jesse Dittmar for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Once there, they meet an alien creature called an Unas, who is under the control of a parasite alien, the Goa’uld (who are the show’s main baddies for most of its run). Much of the episode finds the Unas hunting O’Neill and Teal’c, and which actor provided the voice work for the Unas you might ask?

That’d be James Earl Jones, himself.

Had you not been watching the show’s credits, as fan site Gateworld notes, it’d have been easy to miss the voice cameo, though even when filtered through an alien creature the voice of James Earl Jones is still unmistakably that of James Earl Jones. It was a largely unheralded bit of voice work, but still, it connected Jones to yet another huge science fiction franchise.

Stargate SG-1 is one of the longest-running sci-fi franchises in existence, lasting from 1997-2007 for 10 seasons and 214 episodes (plus two tie-in movies). After moving to SYFY following its fifth season, the franchise would go on to spawn two SYFY original spinoff series along the way, in Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe.

Stargate creators’ latest show? SYFY’s The Ark

Some of the key minds behind the Stargate franchise are still working in the science fiction space, with Dean Devlin (Stargate, the original film) and Jonathan Glassner (Stargate SG-1) the current showrunners of SYFY’s ongoing space-set original series, The Ark. The show follows the crew of a space ship looking for a new planet to call home after escaping a dying Earth. But of course, space is a dangerous place — especially when half the crew is killed in an accident that kicks off the action.

The Ark just wrapped its explosive second season, and fans can catch up on the full series run at Peacock and in the SYFY app.