Interview with Brent Spiner

It's been forty years this month since the crew of the Enterprise first boldly went into space and started the ball rolling on one of the most popular and enduring science fiction franchises ever created. Brent Spiner's first flirtation with that franchise happened a slightly more modest twenty years ago, as Gene Roddenberry and crew first attempted to revive Star Trek on the small screen with The Next Generation. Seven seasons, three spin-offs and three feature films later and there can be no argument that The Next Generation firmly cemented the franchise's position in entertainment history. And Spiner's character, an android by the name of Data, is a big part of that. So when FilmFocus were invited to the Savoy to celebrate Star Trek's fortieth anniversary with a fancy dinner we leapt at the chance. Largely because we usually just settle for a kebab but in no small part because it would be the prelude to twenty minutes with Lt. Commander Data himself...

FF: It's unbelievable to think that Star Trek has endured for forty years.

Brent Spiner: It sort-of is, yeah. That anything endures for forty years is unbelievable.

FF: It's a milestone in television history.

BS: Yeah, and it's kind-of a shame there's not a show on the air now because it would really be a huge celebration. Although if there was a show on the air right now I probably wouldn't be here; they would be bringing over the people who are doing the current show!

FF: True, but there may have been a part for you; you were on Enterprise...

BS: I was briefly on that show, yeah. I still haven't seen them, actually, but they were fun to do.

FF: So let's go back to the start of your involvement in the show - nearly twenty years ago - did you realise what you were getting involved in? Was there any part of you that imagined you'd be sat down twenty years later in a hotel in London celebrating Star Trek's fortieth anniversary?

BS: I knew it. I absolutely knew and I knew it would go forty years. At that moment, in 1987, I said to myself, "This show is going to be wildly popular. It's going to spawn several other shows and feature films and will undoubtedly last at least forty years, if not longer."

FF: Your talent is clearly precognition.

BS: I'm sort-of a seer, yeah.

FF: And yet you were cast as the android so something clearly went awry...

BS: I could have been Counsellor Troi, I guess, but then I couldn't wear the costumes... But let me just say, a propos of my being a seer, whatever you do, do not get in a Porsche.

FF: That's terrifying... You obviously have to credit the fans for the show's success, what's been your experience meeting them?

BS: It's been great. They're wonderful and enthusiastic and affectionate towards the work. There's absolutely no negative about it, they're great.

FF: You were on BBC Breakfast this morning saying how astonishingly normal they are and being that I grew-up with Star Trek that was pretty relieving to hear; that I'm not as geeky as I think I am!

BS: Well there are exceptions... *laughs* No, you know what, I don't think that being a Star Trek fan makes one geeky, I really don't. I don't know what makes one geeky. I think geeky is subjective and I think some people think they are really cool who are in fact geeky, you know.

FF: And hopefully it's something to be embraced; some of the best and most talented filmmakers working today are self-professed geeks; Joss Whedon, Guillermo del Toro, Kevin Smith...

BS: And it goes back a long way, you know, Woody Allen's a geek. Martin Scorsese was a geek when he was a kid. But it depends on what you accomplish in your life. Accomplishment makes one very attractive and success is hugely attractive. Talent is hugely attractive. Geekiness is completely subjective.

FF: Are you a Star Trek fan yourself? To have such an investment in it I imagine you don't hate it but at the same time you say you've yet to see your Enterprise episodes...

BS: I'm a mild fan in that I like it but it's not my favourite thing. If I was on a desert island and I could only have five shows to watch for the rest of time I don't think that Star Trek would be one of them, but I do think it's very good. I think it's way better than Star Wars!

I'll tell you what, when you look at it there've been five hundred and something episodes of Star Trek and ten films. Not to denigrate George Lucas because he's a great artist and God knows I'd be happy to work with him if he ever wanted me to! But the fact of the matter is that after the original three Star Wars Movies - of which the first was spectacular, the second was pretty good and the third one was OK - he had twenty years to think of the next three and they were horrible! In the meantime, we did five hundred and something episodes. It took him twenty years to come up with something lousy.