Brent Spiner

Brent Spiner has spent decades known for one role, and he has said so himself. "There's that double-edged sword of being identified with one role," he told SYFY WIRE in 2021 [4].

Seven years, one android

He was 38 when he started playing Data, he told StarTrek.com in 2011 [3]. Early on he saw no model for the part. "I realized pretty early on that there was really no precedent for it," he said [3]. He chose to play Data as a person rather than a machine, because "it would be really tedious if I played him like a machine and a robot for seven years" [3].

The Next Generation began in 1987, and Spiner appeared in 176 episodes as Data [5]. Looking back, he called the show "a seven-year episode that went on and on and on" [3]. He also said that if he had been ten years younger, he could have played the role for thirty years [3]. The schedule was heavy: "I was spending so much time doing the show, reading the scripts and learning the lines" [3]. Asked about rewatching it, he said: "I've only seen the first 20 or so, from the first season" [3].

Lore, the Soongs and the evil roles

Spiner also played Lore, Data's evil brother. "I always like playing Lore, because Lore is really more like me than any of the other characters I've ever played," he said in 2021 [4]. Asked why, he added, "because I am evil" [4].

He played Dr. Arik Soong in Enterprise and the Soong brothers in Picard [5]. Of those roles he said, "It was all one character, even though the Soongs were human" [4]. Enterprise, in 2004, gave him three episodes in that role [5].

Four films, and the way back through Picard

Data appeared in four Star Trek films: Generations (1994), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998) and Nemesis (2002) [5]. Spiner was also part of the team that wrote the story for Nemesis, and Data's death at the end of that film seemed to close the character's story [2]. At the time, he said, "I thought it was the right way to go" [2].

He came back for Star Trek: Picard, which ran from 2020 to 2022, playing Data again along with the Soong brothers [5]. He had already accepted that his Trek run was over before he was offered a part in the series, he said at Destination Star Trek Birmingham in 2019 [2]. Asked whether he would play Data again, he joked, "I assumed they wanted me to play Picard because I can" [2]. He also voiced Data in Star Trek: Lower Decks in 2024 [5].

Stage work and film before Trek

Spiner also worked on stage. Los Angeles Theatre Works lists his Broadway roles: Hank in A History of the American Film, which it calls his Broadway debut, then Hubert in Life (x) 3, John Adams in 1776, the Duke in Big River, Aramis in The Three Musketeers, and Franz and Dennis in Sunday in the Park with George [6].

He also made films outside Trek. In 1996 he played Dr. Brackish Okun in Independence Day [5].

Television after Trek

In 2011 he described his guest role in The Big Bang Theory as "It's not even a cameo. It's a cam" [3]. He played a fictionalised version of himself in the comedy Fresh Hell, which he called "a sit-trag, because it's a comedy, but it's also sad" [3]. He added that he has never been very good at playing himself [3]. About the Big Bang Theory job he said, "It was hardly working compared to what I used to do in Star Trek," and he hoped the show would bring him back [3].

A Data recast, in June 2026

A fan idea that Tom Hiddleston could play Data did not win Spiner over. At a Spacecon panel in June 2026, which ran from 12 to 14 June in San Antonio, Texas [1], he said, "I don't see it. I mean, I love it, but I still say Tilda Swinton" [1]. Popverse reported on 24 June 2026 that no recast is planned, so the debate stays hypothetical [1].

That June comment is the most recent dated remark from him this page can source.