Happy Birthday Robert Picardo!

Even though my face has gotten more familiar with doing 'China Beach' and 'The Wonder Years,' I'm the kind of actor that people thought, 'Gee, that guy looks familiar. He must have put my storm windows in. He works at my bank or something.' 

I've always had a particular affinity for father-son dramas.

My family was pretty solidly middle-class. We had a furniture store out near Connie Mack Stadium, and when Dad died, my mom took it over.

'Star Trek' posited a better future.

Science fiction fans are great, but they just aren't the same as groupies. 

I have played some wonderful leading roles on stage and had the whole 'China Beach' years where I really played a leading man on that. That was a fun change for a character actor. But I'm perfectly happy going back to building my gallery of memorable character roles.

Science fiction's been good to me. The fans are the most loyal fans in the world. 

I didn't realize it at first, but the Doctor is in the same spirit as those natural 'outsider' characters 'Star Trek' series have, like Spock and Data.

I really used my own imagination a lot and made a number of suggestions during my tenure on 'Star Trek.'

I'm not a futurist, and my taste in science fiction was sort of in the gothic horror vein, not space movies and futuristic stuff.

When an actor gets a role, especially in series television where he really is the part, the audience never thinks of another actor playing that role. If they accept you in the role, then they can't separate the actor from the character.

The fact that we were encouraged to follow our conscience and not to follow the crowds - that's something I really miss. On the other hand, there were things that drove me nuts in the '60s. There was an aspect of the hippie movement that everyone is an artist, which is lethal. 

Nobody wants to play - I've talked to Brent Spiner about this. You don't want to play a character indefinitely who's not supposed to age.

We were second-generation immigrants, and it was luxury enough to go to college. The luxury of the arts was still a generation away.

Let's face it: Amanda Tapping's shoes are difficult to fill. She's a great actress and a popular character on 'Stargate'; she's just a lovely person. 

I think there's something inherently interesting in the Monday morning quarterback: the guy who, you know, sits at one end of the briefing room and tells everyone what they should've done and how they've screwed up.

I love to play humorous moments in dramatic shows. That's always the most fun: to keep the logic of the character in a show that's basically action-adventure and then play the comedy moments.

I was part of the generation that was supposed to become doctors. 

We had great comic mileage in the 'SG-1' episode 'The Swarm,' where Woolsey is running away faster than anybody else.

I'm not really shy. 

I could not play a straight-ahead courageous hero. It's not what I do. 

As an actor, you're never supposed to complain about being too busy because it can go the other way real fast.

'Star Trek' tends to take itself a little too seriously. They were either very dramatic shows, or if we did a humorous show, it was always a little like, 'Oh, we're doing humor on 'Star Trek,'' especially on the original series. 

Doing 'Star Trek,' I got to learn about it from the inside out. I got to learn what appealed to them, why sci-fi meant so much to people, why 'Star Trek' meant so much to people.

My character on 'Voyager,' because of the way he was presented, I could go either way. I could be a real buffoon, a windbag, be self-involved, and we could get a lot of comic mileage from him. However, the audience accepted me with gravity when I was in a dire situation, so they would follow me in comic or dramatic stories.

People admire a screen actor if they have theatre skills, but it's looked down upon by the industry as being not a 'real job,' in the way it isn't in New York or the U.K. 

'Star Trek' is still my signature role because once you do a 'Star Trek' series, it's never really out of the marketplace. 

My agent loves me.

I think I've been pretty fortunate.

For two consecutive Broadway seasons, I had probably the best juvenile roles there were for an actor. Then I moved to California to recreate my role in the film version of 'Tribute.' I started working in film and television after that, and 38 years blew by! 

After 'Star Trek,' I was the commander on 'Stargate Atlantis,' the final season, and once my character had become a good commander, I was sorry that the show didn't last beyond that. 

If you're looking at my other major science fiction roles - the Doctor on 'Star Trek' and certainly Woolsey on 'Stargate' - I often play characters that might be good theorists and good thinkers, but you wouldn't call either of them very macho characters.

Sometimes I have little movies that I've made that I wish would be seen by a larger audience. I have a horror movie called 'Sensored' which I'm very creepy and disgusting in, and then I have a family drama called 'The Legends of Nethiah' which has a science-fiction B-story. 

Jerry Goldsmith's 'Voyager' theme is a brilliant reworking of the original material. 

Most of my major roles have been to play characters that the audience does not initially like or warm up to and then they grow to like in spite of that.

So many articles said, ''China Beach' is uncancellable,' but when they dragged it on, I started to have doubts.

It was hard to make a living as an actor in New York if you did not do soap operas or commercials.

For me, the ideal job as an actor would be something that is intrinsically a drama but to which I could bring in as much humor as possible.

It's nice to have a signature role. 

I'll never forget my first moment of looking out on a convention audience with my mouth open like they were kidding me.

No one likes to think of themselves as a one-trick pony as an actor, but on the other hand, it's nice to be part of something that has an international popularity, that is seen literally everywhere in the world and stays in the marketplace forever.

When we shot the pilot for 'Voyager,' Armin Shimmerman, who played Quark on 'Deep Space Nine,' was very gracious and outgoing about preparing us for these personal appearances. Still, nothing really can prepare you for the first time when you walk out on stage and 2,000 people in a room stand up and applaud simply because you're there.

No one can replace Amanda Tapping. 

'Twin Peaks' is like a movie; 'China Beach' is like a movie. These are two of the most cinematic shows on television, and they belong together. 

You play a hologram on 'Star Trek,' and you have to spew line after line. I spoke in paragraphs on 'Star Trek.'

Yuri's Night is a world celebration for everyone who's interested in a human presence in space - without concern for politics, the Cold War, countries that do and don't have space programs.

My favorite thing that I can do with my iPhone is dictate a letter. 

I went to the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, where I had a teacher really named Edward Shakespeare. He was a very influential figure in my childhood - I acted in high school a few times, but Mr. Shakespeare got me to lead in 'The Crucible.' I played John Proctor.

I like some science in my science fiction. 

The best way to tell an actor he's going to be working more and much harder is to appeal to his ego.

I don't get 'Star Wars.' I just don't.

Being on 'Star Trek,' you have a funny relationship with fame. 

Working with J. J. Abrams would be absolutely great.

Why wouldn't I like to walk into a room full of people who are dying to hear everything I say? 

What's wonderful about 'Star Trek' having been rebooted so successfully by the J. J. Abrams movie franchise is that - the corollary effect is that it creates a new generation of fans, and they're interested in all of it. They don't just sit around and wait for the next movie to come out; they'll go back and re-examine episodes. 

I can walk down the street, and 85 percent of the people on the block are really quite oblivious to me. They either think I'm probably an actor or else I installed their storm windows two years ago, or I work at their bank, or maybe I'm their cousin Marie's gynecologist. Then, to the other 15 percent of those people on the street, I'm a rock star. 

'Trek' is probably more cerebral and philosophical. 'Stargate' does seat-of-the-pants adventure and humor better.