Parece provável que ambos os atores estivessem muito cientes do conteúdo e da mensagem do filme. De acordo com uma entrevista entre The Libertarian Enterprise e o escritor / diretor / produtor / editor do filme, J. Neil Schulman, vários atores foram abordados e se negaram a participar por causa da postura abertamente libertária.
É difícil acreditar que dois atores tão experientes como Russ e Wang participariam de um filme desta natureza sem apoiar tacitamente seus objetivos, embora seja digno de nota que nenhum dos dois esteve presente na estréia do filme, nem em nenhum dos filmes, nem qualquer uma das sessões Q & A que Sorbo e Schulman realizaram após cada exibição.Now, I will reveal publicly for the first time that I made offers to two prominent Star Trek actors for Alongside Night and was turned down because of the libertarian content. I offered Walter Koenig the role of Dr. Murray Konkin and Walter turned me down because I had not written this libertarian revolutionary as a villain and I refused to rewrite the role to make him one. Walter even admitted that if my story had been set in the further future on another planet he wouldn't have turned the role down. After Walter turned me down I offered the same role to John Billingsley, Dr. Phlox on Star Trek Enterprise. John was even more offended by the libertarian content of Alongside Night than Walter—especially with my choice to have the specific agency of the federal government that acts as the antagonists be FEMA, the bête noire of conspiracists and Tea Party types alike. In the original 1979 novel it was the FBI and I changed it because it made sense to me that in the economic collapse I portray in the movie the agency that would naturally take point for the federal government would be the one with "Emergency Management" in its name. I made John an offer that if he took the role we could tour the movie to college campuses and after each showing he and I could debate the issues. I thought that would be fun. It wasn't enough to convince John that I wasn't making a Tea Party propaganda movie though and I next offered the role to Ethan Keogh—Agent Jack Goldwater in Lady Magdalene's—who took the role and killed it. There is still a Trek connection, though, because like me Ethan is also an out-of-the-closet Trekkie.
Fannish Interview with Alongside Night author/filmmaker, J. Neil Schulman