Happy Birthday Herbert Köfer!

Ich war Mädchen für alles, habe eine Art Flohzirkus betrieben, denn die Kamera musste Futter bekommen. Zusammen mit Gerhard Wollmer aus dem Westen Berlins habe ich viele Unterhaltungssendungen erfunden.

Ich habe in meinem Bereich, also in der leichten Unterhaltung, mit der Partei am allerwenigsten zu tun gehabt! Viele Fernsehspiele sind ja auch von Westkritikern hoch gelobt worden, da war nicht alles dogmatisch.

Ich habe darauf bestanden, mich älter schminken zu lassen!

Die DDR war ein Staat, in dem auch Unrecht geschah. Ich überlege schon, ob ich die Passage weglasse, denn ich bin ein Mensch mit einem politischen Bewusstsein, aber kein Revoluzzer und dieses Thema langsam leid.

Ich habe den Krieg als Soldat bis zum allerletzten Tag mitgemacht, habe Schreckliches erlebt, habe dann wie Millionen andere den Schutt weggeräumt und ein neues Land mit aufgebaut, das ein Ergebnis des Kriegs und der Besatzungsmächte war. Die Leistungen in diesem Land kann man doch nicht in Bausch und Bogen abwerten.

Ich wäre glücklich, wenn ich wüsste, dass Frieden herrscht auf der ganzen Welt.

Um diese Frage zu beantworten, reicht kein 5 Minuten-Fragebogen. Alles andere wäre in der heutigen Zeit oberflächlich.

Ich glaube, dass in jedem Menschen ein guter Kern steckt.

Ich fahre immer das Auto gern, das ich im Augenblick habe.

Nudeln mit Schinken, mit Gulasch, mit Chili, mit Knoblauch usw. usw. usw.

Ich hatte im Februar eine Krebsoperation. In der Lungenspitze hatten sich zwei Tumore gebildet, die vollständig entfernt werden konnten. Im Juli war ich zur Nachuntersuchung. Der Krebs ist weg. Es hat sich nichts Neues gebildet. Der Chefarzt der Pneumologie ist sehr zuversichtlich, dass es so bleibt.

Ich hätte eigentlich nicht spielen dürfen. Aber ich wollte die Vorstellungen von „Paul auf hoher See“ im November und Dezember nicht absagen.

Wie ein Hypochonder habe ich mein Leben  lang auf jeden Mucks meines Körpers reagiert, bin zu Vorsorgeuntersuchungen gegangen. Nie hat sich eine Befürchtung bewahrheit. Krebs zu haben, war meine größte Angst. Und dieses Hirngespinst ist plötzlich Tatsache gewesen.

Natürlich gibt es viele positive Erinnerungen. Erfolge, von denen ich nicht weiß, ob ich sie heute wieder so erreichen würde. Ich bereue nicht, das DDR-Fernsehen mit aufgebaut zu haben – mit allen Fehlern. Ich habe mich immer mit meiner schmalen Brust vor die Unterhaltungskunst gestellt, wenn auch nicht alles toll war. Sie brachte mir eine große Popularität. Doch das ist kein Privileg. Ich kann nicht zufrieden sein, weil ich die Ernsthaftigkeit des Berufes hintangestellt habe. Als ich 1950 ans Deutsche Theater kam, begriff ich die Chance nicht, die mir Regisseur Wolfgang Langhoff gab. Er sagte mir damals: „Die Entwicklung zu einem guten Schauspieler braucht ihre Zeit.“ Ich habe die Mühen gescheut und die Flucht ergriffen, als 1952 das Fernsehen mich wollte

Ich bin Figuren nicht auf den Grund gegangen, weil ich nicht gelernt hatte, mein Wissen umzusetzen. Das arbeite ich auf, um es künftig besser zu machen. Ich stehe nicht vor dem Spiegel und denke: „Jetzt bin ich zu alt.“

Ich bin lange noch nicht am Ende. Ich kann es mir beweisen, wenn ich die Gelegenheit bekomme.

Meine Herzklappe, von der ich bis vor kurzem gar nicht wusste, dass ich so etwas habe, musste ausgetauscht werden.

Mir geht es sensationell gut, auch die Ärzte sind von meinem Gesundheitszustand begeistert.

Sie chauffiert mich. Sie koordiniert meine Termine. Sie guckt für mich in den Computer. Sie spielt mit mir auf der Bühne. Kurzum: Heike organisiert mein Leben.

Gottseidank durfte ich bisher mehr lachen als weinen.

Den Hauptmann von Köpenick. Den hätte ich soooo gerne einmal im Leben gespielt. Die einzige Hauptrolle, die ich noch übernehmen würde.

Selbst, wenn nur zwei Zuschauer kommen: Ich spiele und singe. Abgesagt wurde und wird nie, solange ich gesund bin.

Happy Birthday LeVar Burton!

After many years of training myself, strong emotions are now a trigger for me to look at something. I think that all emotions are triggers for us to grow in our level of consciousness.

It's definitely true that there are a lot of the devices we used on 'Star Trek,' that came out the imagination of the writers, and the creators that are actually in the world today. 

Kids are sponges. They will emulate what they see and what they're exposed to.

This wired generation is kind of cool. 

You can break down anything for a child, and you have to know what your child is ready for and what your child is not.

Reading a hard copy book, and reading a book on an iPad are slightly different experiences. What they both have in common though is that you must engage your imagination in the process.

With the technology of tablet computers, if we bring the right content to them and distribute them ubiquitously throughout the land, we can do something about America being ranked 29th in the world in terms of our level of education.

We want a book to be a book. We'll have all the interactive bells and whistles but our intent is to engage young people in reading, not to show them a movie. 

All literature is political.

I fly my geek flag proudly. Absolutely. 

I feel like I have been able to notice throughout the incremental march of history during the course of my own lifetime patterns emerging, and there's a sort of a rubber band effect that happens where social growth and change is concerned.

I'm excited to see how current and future technologies revolutionize the way we learn.

I want to live in an America where we are able to marshal all the resources we have at our disposal and that we - people like me, and companies like Apple and Intel and others - can make it our business to put a tablet computer in the hands of every single kid in America. Every single kid.

I have always been a fan of 'Star Trek.' I love Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future. 

I've always been the sort of guy who's happiest doing more than one thing at a time.

Because storytelling, and visual storytelling, was put in the hands of everybody, and we have all now become storytellers.

I'm a firm believer and always have been that there aren't all that many things that you should not express to children in an age-appropriate manner, and as a parent, that is your job - to be discerning as to whether or not your child can handle the information, provided you have the ability to express yourself in that age-appropriate way.

The unvarnished truth is that we have spent the last decade funding the machinery of war, and our children have been sacrificed. 

That's not a role you prepare for. There's no preparation. You don't have time to prepare for the reading of an audiobook. You do the reading of an audiobook in basically two days' time - an unabridged version, maybe three days.

If we marry educational technology with quality, enriching content, that's a circle of win.

Jim Carrey can do anything he wants, right? There are guys like that. I'm not one of those guys, so my career has been cobbled together with what the universe has put in front of me.

We had to figure out how to produce books in a cost-effective way. 

I genuinely believe we have an opportunity to revolutionize how we educate our children.

I get most of my news updates from electronic and social media. 

I'm enormously proud of the fact that Star Trek has really not just sparked an interest, but encouraged, a few generations of people to go into the sciences.

Yeah. I do. I think that we have to continue to expand the areas in which we want our kids to be literate. And social media's going to be a part of their lives. And why not? Why not give them a sense of what the rules of the road are?

As long as we are engaged in storytelling that moves the culture forward, it doesn't matter what format it is. 

For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.

We have an amazing advantage right now in that we have developed technology that is so sexy, so engaging for kids. 

I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being.

I've always been interested in gadgets and technology and I've always been a reader.

Human beings are the laziest creatures in the history of creation. We would rather not do anything if we could avoid it.

And it's here and it's ready and we can really revolutionize the way we educate our children with tablet computers, and I'm committed to doing whatever I can to speaking to whomever I can to send this signal - to pound this message home. Now is the time.

I felt like it was important to use my life to help others. I think we all feel that, to some degree. In fact, I know we do. I believe we all have a contribution to make, we have all come here with a specific intention to contribute something unique to who we are. And our job is to identify as best as we are able what that thing is that we are meant to do. What is our gift, what is our contribution.

It is no longer appropriate for me as an American to sit by and expect my government to get it done.

And when we do that, the world changes. There's a shift that happens that would not be there if it weren't for you, doing what you are meant to do.

We can't afford to sacrifice another generation of American children to bureaucratic politics. We've got to get it done. The future, the health, the life - our nation depends on it and it's just foolish to think or act otherwise.

In a society that functions optimally, those who can should naturally want to provide for those who can't. That's how it's designed to work. I truly believe we're here to take care of one another.

There would be no Star Trek unless there were transporter malfunctions.

Maturity is a series of shattered illusions.

It's not about division. It's not about politics. My concern is how do we come together?

Libraries do one thing that no other institution does and that's provide access to all.

Happy Birthday Brent Spiner!

So from the first year to the fifth year, we've seen Data get closer to basically being human-but he's not.

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 would assume that, at some point in the future, Paramount Pictures would consider doing a Next generation movie.

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

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

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! 

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

I'm an avid biography reader.

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.

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.

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.

Radical surgery is never fun. 

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

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

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.

I don't read Science Fiction.

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

As I get older and I get more of this dialogue and I lose more and more brain cells, it really does become the most difficult part of the job!

Well, I was always a huge fan of the movies. I spent a great deal of time , as a a kid, watching movies.

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. 

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

I am thinking of going into rehab. I am not addicted to anything, but I think its good way to jumpstart an acting career.

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.

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

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

I like to think of myself as the Rutger Hauer of this show Star Trek: The Next Generation. But then I like to think of myself as Rutger Hauer in real life: strikingly handsome, irresistible to women, an intergalactic enigma.

Truly, the best part of my job are the people.

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

I wanted to direct very early on, and then we started having directors who were caterers, drivers, and grips, so I thought better of it.

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

Producers in this crazy town simply won't leave me alone, and I'm having to be firm.

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

Sometimes I go off and er... I er... I may just go off now as a matter of fact.

And the basic sort of thrust of Star Trek being about equality and tolerance and things I believe in deeply.

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

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

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.

Certainly I find it most interesting to play a role that I can invent from nothing.

It's so good, I can't even tell you,

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

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.

No, actually I'm trying to stay away from the big screen.

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

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. 

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

Hollywood has more than its share of harsh and crewel stories. In fact, it's probably more the norm than the exception.

But he's absorbed so much information and so much behavior from serving with humans that he is allot less machinelike now than he was in the beginning, and that was intentional.

I don't read fiction at all. 

But, I think Star Trek is a very honorable show and there is allot of television that one could be doing and feel embarrassed about and certainly not proud of, which I feel very proud to be part of Star Trek.

In my heart, I've never left Brazil.

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.

Acting is acting. 

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

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

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

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

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

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