Derek Mears (born 29 April 1972; age 52) is a stuntman and stunt actor who performed stunts in two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. He first worked as stunt double for actor Chris Freeman on the third season episode "The Xindi" and later appeared as an Orion guard in the fourth season episode "Borderland". He received no credit for his appearances. Mears was the first choice for playing the long faced bar alien in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek but was unable to shoot his part because of his time schedule. He recommended Douglas Tait who got this part. [1]
Mears always plays creepy or large aliens, mutants, or outsiders and specializes in wearing werewolf and vampire prosthetics.
Among his resume are films such as The Demolitionist (1995, with Dana Dru Evenson), Men in Black II (2002, with Jack Kehler, Mary Stein, Kevin Grevioux, Doug Jones, Ransom Gates, and Alex Madison), Signs (2002), The Haunted Mansion (2003, with Wallace Shawn, Rachael Harris, and Michael McAdam), Cursed (2005, with Michelle Krusiec, Brian Avery, Joni Avery, Paul Eliopoulos, Anita Hart, Angela Meryl, Boni Yanagisawa, and Alex Chansky), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003, with Tom Morga), and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006, with Tom Morga), World Trade Center (2006, with Jude Ciccolella, Tom Wright, Donna Murphy, Scott Leva, and Thom Williams), and The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007, with Michael Bailey Smith and Jeff Kober).
Mears also appeared in several television series such as V.I.P. (1999, with Lisa LoCicero, Faith Minton, and Karen Sheperd), ER (2000, starring Eriq La Salle, with Lily Mariye, Joanna Miles, Scott MacDonald, and Christopher Michael), Alias (2001), Charmed, Angel, CSI: NY (2005, with Eugene Collier), and My Name Is Earl (2006, directed by Marc Buckland).
He filmed stunt work for Semi-Pro (2008) alongside stunt performers Shauna Duggins, Ian Eyre, and Stacey Carino, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, also alongside Shauna Duggins and Jon Braver, Lauro Chartrand, Kevin Derr, and Gary Wayton. Both films were released in 2008. Mears has also acted in several short films and short-lived series, such as Time Belt and Wade and Eric sold a Movie for Channel 101 and the short-lived comedy TV series created by the Channel 101 Community, Acceptable TV.
He portrayed Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th (2009, featuring Nana Visitor and Kathleen Garrett, with stuntman Michael Owen. He later portrayed the title role in Swamp Thing (2019, with Virginia Madsen, Tim Russ, and Adrienne Barbeau) and reprised this role for the Legends of Tomorrow episode "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five" (2020, with Cress Williams and Osric Chau). He appeared in the music documentary Slayer: The Repentless Killogy (2019, with Katelyn Brooke and Sean Whalen) and guest starred in episodes of Hawaii Five-0 (2019) and Charmed (2020). Mears also portrayed Awesome Man in the first season of The Guardians of Justice (2022).