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.