It is rare for a Star Trek fan to end up landing a recurring guest appearance on a Star Trek show. But for Noah Averbach-Katz — the husband of Star Trek: Discovery’s Mary Wiseman — that childhood dream has become a reality this month as Averbach-Katz appeared as the Andorian fugitive Ryn in two episodes: “Scavengers,” and “The Sanctuary.”

Since the premiere of “Scavengers,” Averbach-Katz has been sharing his Star Trek fandom and some of his experiences working on Discovery, and this week he sat down for an interview with John Krikorian of the TrekProfiles Podcast to talk more about his fandom and his time on Discovery.

Introduced to Star Trek at a very early age by his mother, Averbach-Katz talked about how the casting of his wife (who plays Ensign Sylvia Tilly on the series), followed by his own casting in the role of Ryn, has been a transformative experience for his fandom, and how it has helped Mary with her introduction to the Star Trek fandom:

It was so exciting, and it just kept getting better. And it’s mutually beneficial in a way because I can clue her in on what she was getting into, and clue her into why it was important to people.

Because I think with any fandom, if you don’t have a close relationship it’s like, “Yeah, it’s great. It’s fun. But why does it mean so much to people?” And I think I was able to give her a window into that.

Averbach-Katz’s own road to casting in Star Trek: Discovery was a convoluted one. He explained that in speaking with Akiva Goldsman after a taping of After Trek, Goldsman introduced Averbach-Katz to Alex Kurtzman:

Alex nodded, and then right then somebody who worked at CBS came up to me and was like “Oh I know you! You were on ‘The Good Fight!’” And at that point it was like, “Oh this guy isn’t just a fan who wants to be an extra. He’s an actor.”

Then later down the road, I actually auditioned for Spock, which was interesting because the secret script they had [Spock] was coded as an Andorian named Tom. But as a ‘Star Trek’ fan I knew right away this was a Vulcan, this was not an Andorian. You’re not fooling me!

I auditioned for that, and they liked that. It was clear I had a relationship with this material. And then this [Ryn] part came up and I was in Toronto at the time and flew to New York and auditioned for it, and just kind of got it from there.

In preparing for the role of Ryn, Averbach-Katz did what any good Star Trek fan would do, and watched a lot of Jeffrey Combs.

“The first thing I did when I got the role was to go through Enterprise and watch all of Jeffrey Combs’s Shran,” he said. “As much as there’s that episode in the Original Series, I think Jeffrey Combs invents Andorians. He and the other guest stars on the show are the ones who invent this idea of the sort of boisterous, haughty, confident, blustering front footed Andorian.”

Averbach-Katz also talked about how his more restrained portrayal of Ryn matches up against the fiery passion of Combs’ portrayal of Shran:

I think what Jeffrey Combs lays a blueprint out for is that this haughtiness and confidence [in Andorians] is covering a deep emotional sensitivity. A deep emotional well.

I think in [Enterprise] when [Shran] loses his partner [in “United”] and his daughter is kidnapped [in “These Are the Voyages”] you see just such a depth of experience that is not just showboating. It’s really showing that there is this really deep emotional well.

And so my approach for Ryn is that we pick up when he’s at his bottom. He’s already had this moment, which is alluded to in “Scavengers,” where he has brought this confidence, this swagger, and tried to knock down this character Osyra that he feels is unjust. And he’s failed. And he’s hit absolute rock bottom.

He’s been humiliated, degraded, and forced to do the worst job on this planet which separates him even further from his Andorian-ness. And I think my approach for Ryn is that his story is a redemption story as he makes his way back from the bottom.”

And though Averbach-Katz describes the prosthetics in Star Trek: Discovery as an “insane experience,” there is one thing he misses from the Enterprise Andorians – the active antennae.

“Those moving antenna are amazing. They’re absolutely amazing. So much fun. They’re insane. I read interviews where they said, ‘If you break one of these it’s $10,000 and we need to stop shooting,’ so I understand why they stopped doing that. But it’s campy in the best way.”

In a discussion about his favorite Star Trek collectibles, Averbach-Katz indicated his favorite piece of star Trek memorabilia was one he might have absconded from the set with.

“I think my favorite thing that I’ve gotten is something I’ve posted on Twitter which is the communicator badges [from “Scavengers”], which serendipitously wound up in my pocket somehow from the set of Star Trek,” he said. “I feel like that’s really cool. Something where I got to create and pass on my own piece of authentic memorabilia.”

And as revealed by Anthony Rapp (Stamets), Averbach-Katz has also been hosting a regular Dungeons & Dragons game for members of the Discovery cast, including Emily Coutts (Detmer), Ian Alexander (Grey Tal), and Blu del Barrio (Adira Tal).

In the process of describing that experience, Averbach-Katz talked a little about what filming for season four is like for the Discovery cast and crew:

You know it’s been a weird time because while everyone is up here shooting they get to spend their days at work together. Masks. Very safe. Lots of really, really necessary but very intense protocols.

There’s not a time outside of set for people to socialize, which sucks because that was one of the most fun things about this cast. It’s a very social cast. They have a lot of fun together.

Everybody gets along really well, so having that taken away has been a bummer, so I thought that [D&D] could be an opportunity for people to find a time to hang out, to make some new stories together, and to not be focused on work for a little bit.

To hear more about Averbach-Katz’s experiences on Discovery, including acting in prosthetics, as well as to hear more about his early convention experiences, make sure to check out the full episode of TrekProfiles.

Star Trek fan if we didn’t find out Averbach-Katz’s favorite episode, and he does not disappoint. “I think my favorite episode of Star Trek is “The Offspring” [from The Next Generation.] It’s an incredible work of television, of sci-fi, and it really exemplifies what Star Trek can do that no other television show can do.”

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 17 with “Terra Firma, Part 2” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 18 on Netflix, in all other global regions.