Brent Jay Spiner (/spanr/, created February 2, 1949) is an American actor, famous for his portrayal of the android Lieutenant Commander Data in the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and four following movies. He’s also enjoyed a career in the theater so when a musician.
Spiner moved to Nyc, where he became a stage performer, performing in several Broadway and Off Broadway plays, including The Three Musketeers and Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George. He’d a nonspeaking background character in the movie Stardust Memories as among the quiet Felliniesque “grotesques” on Sandy Bates’s train auto. Spiner appeared as a media tech in “The Advocates”, another season episode of the Showtime cable show The Paper Chase. In 1984, he moved to La, where he appeared in a number of pilots and made-for-TV movies. He played a recurring character on Night Court, Bob Wheeler, patriarch of a rural family. In 1986, he played a condemned soul in “Dead Run”, an episode of the short lived revival of Rod Serling’s show The Twilight Zone on CBS. He made two appearances in season 3 (1986) of the situation comedy Mama’s Family, playing two distinct characters. Spiner’s first and only starring movie role was in Rent Control (1984). He impersonated Jim Stevens in the made-for-TV movie Manhunt for Claude Dallas. In 1987, Spiner began his 15-year run impersonating Lieutenant Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which crossed seven seasons and four feature films. As a principal character, he appeared in all but among the show’ 178 episodes; he had not been in the episode “Family”. He reprised his role in the spinoff movies Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Although billed as the ultimate Trek film for the TNG cast, the ambiguous conclusion of Star Trek: Nemesis indicated a potential path for the return of Data. Nevertheless, Spiner has opined that he’s too old to carry on playing the part, as Data embodies a “childlike innocence” that Spiner can not credibly show, as his look had already started to lose that quality by the time he filmed his last Trek movies.
Brent Jay Spiner , Spiner, Brent , Brandt Jay Spiner , Brent Mintz
Awards
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Albums
Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back, Dreamland
Nominations
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical, Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Movies
Independence Day: Resurgence, Star Trek Nemesis, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek Generations, The Master of Disguise, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Aviator, Out to Sea, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Material Girls, Superhero Movie, Phenomenon, Stardust Memories, Rent Control, I Am Sam, Miss Fire...
TV Shows
The Paper Chase, Ryan's Hope, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deadly Games, Threshold, Alphas, Fresh Hell, Star Wars Rebels, Robert Kennedy and His Times
[September 12, 2006] 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.
2
[on his Lt. Commander Data action figure] At first, I was reluctant. But then I figured, if it's good enough for Alec Guinness, then it's good enough for me.
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Fact
1
Currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
2
Has appeared on Star Wars Rebels (2014), making him the first Star Trek actor to appear on the animated series, soon to be followed by Clancy Brown and Simon Pegg.
His parents, Sylvia (Schwartz) and Jack Spiner, were both from Jewish immigrant families (from Austria, Hungary and Russia).
6
He is the only actor to be nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice in the same year, for both Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Independence Day (1996); he won for the former.
7
He starred as John Adams in the Broadway revival of "1776" for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for best performance by a lead actor in a musical.
Last name changed to Mintz at about age six, readopted Spiner as a stage name at about age 20.
25
Released an album titled "Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back" (based on an old crooner song of the 1940s) with his male co-stars from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) singing backup vocals. Title of the album refers to Data, whom he played on the series.