BRENT SPINER

If you look around at the people in show business today they are basically the people who didn't give up.

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!

Radical surgery is never fun.

My own personal favorite Cher song is the unforgettable Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.

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.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Data was the comic relief on the show.

People think that being on Star Trek is career suicide, but it's really just the opposite.

I don't read fiction at all.

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'm an avid biography reader.

Acting is acting.

Yes, Data is hairless but I am not. And we are both anatomically correct.

I think it's the business part of the word show business that causes me the most concern.

Having spent so much time in a fictional world, I prefer to read about the real world.

I think he is an extremely accessible character. In Data there is no potential for cruelty.

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.

I don't read Science Fiction.

The Dain Curse [Tom Fink] was a great job. I was in New York, and I was young - I think I'm 28 years old in that - and I got to work with James Coburn and Jean Simmons and Jason Miller. Plus, it was a Dashiell Hammett story, and I had a great character. It was fantastic to shoot.

John Logan pretty much does the Woody Allen thing of just bringing people in and meeting them.

I mean, I'm the tag of the [ Big Bang Theory ] show! That was one of the easiest jobs I've ever had.

[Independence Day] was a sweet, sweet job, because it was one of those big surprises.

I got to play a funny part [in the The Master Of Disguise]. There was one thing my character did that involved flatulence and laughing at the same time - that was in the script - and that was basically what sold me on it. I really thought, "This can't help but be funny." And when I saw the film, I was proud that I'd had those moments.

Comedy really is my bread and butter, even when I'm doing a serious character, with the exception of Outcast. I have found very little humor in this character. Most of the time, what I do, somewhere there is comedy in it.

Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre, the guys who run that show [Big Bang Theory], are really funny and really smart, and the cast is fantastic to work with.

Rent Control is not a terrible movie, certainly not for the budget they had. And, again, it's such an '80s kind of thing.