Happy Birthday Brent Spiner!

Well, I think there are other shows where it's a nightmare every day to come to work.

We did the series for seven years and they colored my hair for seven years. It was not gray when we began but, uh, it was a lighter color than they wanted to go. So they colored it from the very beginning. As soon as we finished the film, I had my hair cut very short to let my own color grow out. And I was surprised as you to see how old my hair had gotten. Fortunately, none of the rest of me did.

I think there is something like 90% unemployment in the Screen Actors Guild, so we are the exception.

Radical surgery is never fun.

The Lindbergh biography is fantastic. I just read it. And I loved it.

Question: Were jokes ever played on the set?
Brent: "We were dignified, serious actors... What's that? (man in audience yells out "Your nose is growing!") Tell you what, in my case that could be tragic!"

I have considered working with George Clooney, but so far, I'm only considering it.

I don't read fiction at all.

Almost everyone has worked at Paramount at one time or another.

I think in all of the time we've used Spot the writers have only written on sentence that was appropriate for Spot. The sentence went: 'Data watches Spot eat tuna out of a bowl.' First take. Boom!, went right to the bowl!

But we laugh all day long! And you can't knock that!

There is no question that everybody who works in show business is lucky because of the number of people who wish they where working in show business.

Question: Do you think non-Trekkers that watched the movie figured out that Data was an android?
Brent: "I think once they opened up my head, it was clear I was not a human being."

Acting is acting.

We'd been on the ship for seven years! But obviously there were a lot of rooms I'd never been in and it wasn't necessary that I see the room prior to the movie. It was a huge platform that was 15 feet in the air; it was like a diving board surrounded from the floor to the ceiling by a blue screen that they projected all those images on. But I'm not great with heights - this is from somebody who has traveled the galaxy - and it moved too, it was not stationary, and as you got closer to the edge of it it started to move. We were up there for two starlit days. Patrick loves heights, of course, and I explained to him when we first got there that I'm really nervous right now and I don't care for heights at all, and for the next two days he started doing this (Brent jumped up and down to demonstrate) and it would start bouncing - it really would! We had no problem with it, but I was terrified the entire time.

I'll tell you what I've been doing. I've been sleeping for about 10 months straight, and it's been good.

Question: Will you do another CD?
Brent: "I probably will. I'm just trying to get to the point where I'm ready to lose a whole bunch more money. I know I'll get there someday, so eventually probably so."

I don't read Science Fiction.

At first, I was reluctant. But then I figured, if it's good enough for Alec Guinness, then it's good enough for me.

I don't really trust someone who doesn't think Laurel and Hardy are funny.

Question: What role have you played that has influenced your perception of yourself more than any other?
Brent: "Bob Wheeler on Night Court changed my perception of myself because I never realized until that moment that a jerk I truly was, and seeing myself on TV opened up a whole world of possibilities."

Yes, Data is hairless but I am not. And we are both anatomically correct.

I don't think I should play Data anymore. I think I'm too old to play him anymore to be honest. I think it would look stupid putting that make-up on me at this point. There certain characters that I think work in a youthful way and I think I really skated along the edge in the last couple movies as it was.

OK. Questions... So, as I always say, feel free to ask me about anything you want, there are just those two little areas I'd like to stay away from - Star Trek and my personal life. Anything else you want to ask me about - names in the news, the OJ trial...

Question: How long did it take to do the make-up?
Brent: "An hour and fifteen minutes the first day, and it took an hour and fifteen minutes on the last day. never fluctuated in the least. It was probably the only down-side of being on the show, because I had to be there at 5:45 every day and there was nobody else there but Michael Westmore, which was very pleasant - he's a very nice guy and a genius makeup artist - but about five minutes to seven Patrick would come breezing in and they'd run a dry mop over his head!"

I think he is an extremely accessible character. In Data there is no potential for cruelty.

Sometimes I go off and er.....(laughs with people laughing in the background)...I er.......(laughs)......I may just go off now as a matter of fact.

I remember the first air conditioner we got was a window unit. I would sit in front of it about 12 hours a day, just looking at it and praying to it – the god of cool air.

My character has a distrust of government as Big Brother, ... He doesn't see why this should be kept secret from the public.

If you look around at the people in show business today they are basically the people who didn't give up.

We're going to discover as time goes on that there is some adversity ... They are not in love with each other. These three guys were essentially shanghaied and made to do this job, whether they want to or not. And they're geniuses, so they have egos. I play a doctor, and I never met a doctor without an ego.

That's the way I looked at it. In terms of the western, absolutely. Star Trek from the beginning; Gene's notion for Star Trek was "Wagon Train to the Stars" that was the whole concept. It is a western. I think all sci-fi is western. It's just a different format.

I think they have developed the character very nicely and it's gone exactly as it was planned to happen.

I think it's the business part of the word show business that causes me the most concern.

I try not to make plans. Because, even the best laid plans etc. etc.

At the end of the day, whenever that may come, some people are going to remember me as Data. My only hope is that I've just done enough other work to kind of balance it a little bit. I don't want to erase it, certainly, because I feel fine about the work.

Everyone I've ever known in my life, or seen, or met, or loved, or hated, is at risk of being destroyed. That's a pretty big chunk of fear, and I think that's what we are all dealing with, if we don't save the day.

My own personal favorite Cher song is the unforgettable Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.

In my heart, I've never left Brazil.

You know The Original Series costumes were made by the actors mothers!

Yeah, I do like X-Files. I like the ones that star David Duchovny.

I think the potential for man is so enormous, if we can stay alive long enough, we're going to be seeing a lot of what Star Trek is projecting.

I really think that success in this field is about tenacity and just sticking with it.

You know, I'm not sure that all kids aren't performers. Everybody plays cowboys and Indians – it just depends on how seriously you play it.

With the state of the world today, an alien intervention might be just what the doctor ordered. ... Threshold.

And I think it's likely that there will be Data's out there one day. I hope so, if there are, that they all look exactly like me!

Data is no different from any other role I've ever played in that it's always difficult and it's always something that you just want to find some level of truth and believability in and try to solve problems along the way.

I think it's likely that there will be Data's out there one day. I hope so, if there are, that they all look exactly like me!

Mad About You.

I'm an avid biography reader.

It;s always challenging to try to make a scene work- to make something you think would be interesting to watch.

Brent: "...I'm not much of a cook, to be honest with you."
Question: Microwave-type person?
Brent: "I'm not even a microwave-type person. I'm a 'Let's see, do you have a menu? I'll have the... ' I really don't cook at all. I do make coffee..."
Question: Do you like cappuccino? Café mocha?
Brent: "No, I'm talking about those filter packs that you put in the cold water."
Question: You put water in those little packs?
Brent: "I told you I'm not much of a cook."

We're going to discover as time goes on that there is some adversity ... They are not in love with each other. These three guys were essentially . . . made to do this job, whether they want to or not.

Having spent so much time in a fictional world, I prefer to read about the real world.

Any job you can go to and have a laugh everyday has got to be a good job.

Is that the first full house laugh you've ever had? It's a wonderful experience, isn't it? If you're anything like me, you will be on the stage before you know it.

Generally, I have to be able to get the lines out of my mouth without making a mistake before I go to sleep.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Data was the comic relief on the show.

I think the idea, from the beginning, was that Data was a machine that basically teaches himself everything he experiences and sees becomes a part of his programming.

A Klingon says to Brent in a Klingon voice "Sorry about the Enterprise."
Brent: "We've got more of them where that one came from."

Well my family and friends where delighted that I was going to be working on a regular basis and that they could turn on their TV every week and see me.

And, you know, when you are a kid, everybody wants to be an actor. I think that everybody wants to be in show business, frankly.

I think he is a bit of an outsider: he doesn't quite fit in, he doesn't quite belong, and people relate to that idea of being an outsider and being alienated.

The two Spots we work with now, are the two finest actors I have ever worked with.

I think as time has gone on, they've been pleased to find it not at all limiting role and probably the most wide open role in terms of what I am allowed to do.

People think that being on Star Trek is career suicide, but it's really just the opposite.

I like coming to work every day and hanging out with 50 or 60 people who are a lot of fun to be around.

You remember the Picard Maneuver? We call it, where he would pull down the front of his...(Brent tugs his shirt to demonstrate) Well, everybody started doing that. Well I, of course, couldn't do it because it would leave a gold hand print on my... (laughter) So I had to get very in-depth at never touching myself... (lots of laughter) I have to say, uh, please they're children in the room. That's bled over into my personal life and I haven't touched myself now in eight years.

And I think that was the idea: by the end of the series, Data would ba about as close to human but still not be there.