Brent Spiner Movies
Best known for playing the android Data on the syndicated television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and in its feature film spin-offs, Brent Spiner is also a talented singer. Before agreeing to play Data, Spiner had spent a decade on the New York stage. A native of Houston, TX, he was raised by his mother and her second husband (Spiner's real father died when he was a... (read more) baby). The Quaid brothers Randy and Dennis were among his high school classmates and the three learned about acting under Cecil Pickett. Eventually Pickett would leave the school to take a teaching job at the University of Houston. Spiner enrolled there soon after graduation, but only remained at the university through 1974 when he decided to become a professional actor in New York City.
Like many other aspiring thespians, Spiner had dues to pay in the form of taking a job as a cab driver before launching his career off-Broadway. He made his Broadway debut with Sunday in the Park With George opposite Mandy Patinkin. He made his television debut in a miniseries, The Dain Curse, and first appeared in films with a bit part in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980). Spiner had a rare starring role in Rent Control (1981). He moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and launched a career as a television guest star on series and as a supporting actor in telemovies and miniseries. He most frequently appeared on the sitcom Night Court as the man who establishes a snack bar in the courthouse. He then successfully auditioned for the role of Data. Interestingly, Spiner claims no particular love for science fiction and was not a big fan of the original Star Trek. He says he mainly took the job because he didn't think the new series would last and because he needed to pay a few bills. The show lasted seven years also spawning a successful film series, and from the start, his was the most popular character on the show. In an effort to capitalize and satirize his nonhuman role on the show -- and perhaps to poke fun at actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy who capitalized on their Star Trek fame by each recording equally awful albums (can anyone forget Nimoy's bouncy rendition of "Bilbo Hobbitt"?) -- Spiner recorded his own album, Old Yellow Eyes Is Back (1991), with an 80-piece orchestra and fellow castmates Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Michael Dorn.
Though the bulk of his fame comes from being Data, Spiner is not content to spend the rest of his career typecast and so occasionally plays other characters. His portrayal of prissy singing cruise director Gil Godwin was the funniest thing about Martha Coolidge's waterlogged Out to Sea (1997). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Superhero Movie
PG13 2008
After spoofing disaster films in Airplane!, police shows in The Naked Gun, and Hollywood horrors in Scary Movie 3 and 4, producer David Zucker sets his...
Material Girls
PG 2006
Stripped of their wealth and forced to fend for themselves when the multi-million-dollar cosmetics company inherited from their father suffers due to controversy, two sisters who...
Threshold [TV Series]
2005
CBS' spin on ABC's Lost for the 2005-2006 TV season was the weekly, hour-long sci-fi effort Threshold. The crash-landing of an alien spacecraft in the Atlantic...
Friends: The One With Princess Consuela
2004
Upon discovering that she can now legally change her name to anything she likes, new bride Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) assumes the identity of "Princess Consuela Bananahammock,"...
The Aviator
PG13 2004
Martin Scorsese directed this fast-moving, epic-scale biopic documenting the life and loves one of the most colorful Americans of the 20th century, Howard Hughes. The...
Jack
PG13 2003
An adolescent who is sorting out his new sexual feelings is less than comforted by the example of his immediate family in this coming-of-age comedy drama. Jack (Anton...
Frasier: Lilith Needs a Favor
2003
Frasier's mercurial ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) is back in town, and as usual she wants a favor. This time around, Lilith is determined to have another baby -- and...
Star Trek: Nemesis
PG13 2002
The tenth film in Paramount's highly lucrative sci-fi franchise is also positioned as the last for the entire original Next Generation crew. En route to the honeymoon of...
Master of Disguise
PG 2002
Dana Carvey ventures into the world of PG-rated, family-oriented entertainment as star and co-writer of this light adventure comedy, which requires the actor to assume more...
Geppetto
2000
Wise-cracking, beer-drinking comedy star Drew Carey makes a change of pace as he tops the bill of this made-for-TV adaptation of Carlo Collodi's classic children's fantasy....
Star Trek: Voyager: Unimatrix Zero, Part I
2000
Season six of Star Trek: Voyager came to a traditional climax with Part I of the cliffhanger "Unimatrix Zero." In a dream, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) envisions a...
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
R 1999
Dorothy Dandridge was a singer, nightclub entertainer, and actress who became the first African-American woman to receive an Academy award nomination as Best Actress (for her...
Star Trek: Insurrection
PG 1998
Star Trek: Insurrection manages to recall the original 1960s series' spirit of liberalism, while transcending it for sheer boldness, embracing issues that are on the political...
Out To Sea
PG13 1997
A pair of grumpy old men hit the high seas in this comedy. Small-time con man Charlie (Walter Matthau) fast-talks his considerably more straight-laced friend Herb (Jack...
Independence Day
PG13 1996
A group of intrepid humans attempts to save the Earth from vicious extraterrestrials in this extremely popular science-fiction adventure. Borrowing liberally from War of the...
Star Trek: First Contact
PG13 1996
The first "Trek" film to feature the cast of the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series without any of the members of the original series, this action-packed hit was well...
Phenomenon
PG 1996
Director Jon Turteltaub followed up the hit While You Were Sleeping (1995) with this fantasy similar to Charly (1968) and a film from the previous year, Powder (1994)....
Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long
1995
Originally made for cable television, this biographical drama chronicles the life of Huey P. Long (John Goodman), whose corrupt political machine dominated Louisiana for...
Pie in the Sky
R 1995
This comedy chronicles the romantic exploits of a rather stodgy young man with a traffic fetish. Even as a child Charlie Dunlap was totally fixated by freeway traffic....
Mad About You: Just My Dog
1995
The Buchmans' dumb-dumb dog Murray lands a walk-on role in Paul's (Paul Reiser) commercial for Yum Yum Gum. In a twinkling, Murray has acquired an agent, an entourage,...