Why did Brent Spiner play so many different roles on Star Trek:The Next Generation? Of course his primary role was Data but he also played his evil brother Lore, his father Noonian Soong, the entire holographic population of a western town, and later an entire civilization. He also played Data taken over by his grandfather, and Data taken over by an Ux-Mal prisoner. Was any other TNG actor ever tasked with more than three roles?
He played Data and a bunch of derivatives of Data. That's not what I would call a variety of characters.
When it comes to Lore or even Noonian Soong I agree, they are variations of the same character but that's to be somewhat expected. But what about Brent Spiner (in Data make-up) portraying the entire holographic population of a western town? Or Mr. Spiner (again in Data make-up) portraying the inhabitants of an entire civilization? He also played Data taken over by his grandfather, and Data taken over by an Ux-Mal prisoner. Those characters weren't derivatives of Data either. What I'm curious about is why Mr. Spiner was given so many different roles. Was he considered a superior actor, did the writers have a special connection with the character, was it coincidence, were damning photos involved?
In another thread, I posted about Suzie Plakson, who's had FOUR roles in Trek: 1. Doctor Selar, the Vulcan physician (TNG) 2. K'Ehleyr, Worf's mate (TNG) 3. Q, wife of Q (VOY) 4. An Andorian (ENT) Of course, Mark Lenard has had three roles as well: 1. Sarek, Spock's father 2. The Romulan commander in "Balance of Terror" 3. The Klingon captain in TMP. There might be a couple of others who've played three different roles.
Arman Shimmerman was Quark, a generic Ferengi in "the last outpost", a talking robot head in "Haven", Daimon Bractor in "peak performance", and the pulp magazine publisher in "far beyond the stars". There's 5 for him.
Because "A Fistful of Worfs" would be a stupid name for an episode. A better question would be why didn't they ever do an "Old Man and the Sea" type episode called "Fisherman's Worf"?
Im pretty sure the actors who played both Galron and Mortock turned up as a few different characters too.
If you'll notice, in the later seasons, they tended to write episodes to focus more on one particular actor and allow them to do different things. So we end up with Crusher suddenly being an expert in stellar physics, Troi getting command training, etc. Data's character is pretty limiting to an actor, so by giving Spiner a number of different roles, they were able to allow Spiner to show a greater range than they otherwise would have. Handy, because I'm sure many in the cast were worried about being typecast and spending their remaining days on the convention circuit, rather than performing (which is what they want to do).
A lot of actors have been mentioned who played a ton of roles in Trek. Here are a few more: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/J.G._Hertzler#Other_appearances http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Randy_Oglesby#Star_Trek_appearances http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Thomas_Kopache#Star_Trek_appearances
The thread has split into two categories, the first being actors who've played multiple roles in the same series and the second being actors who've played multiple roles in multiple series. As for the former, it seems clear that Mr. Spiner far and away played more characters in a single series than any other Trek actor. I'm curious if there was more to it than mere coincidence. As for the latter, there have indeed been many actors who've made multiple appearances in the Trek universe. Which makes sense, one good performance deserves another. Kinda like Law & Order famously drafted cast members after successful guest appearances.
Not sure what that means. Keep in mind this forum is to discuss entertainment stuff, not a forum to discuss other WF members.
Probably partly because they figured he had the acting chops and partly because he wanted to stretch beyond playing an android all the time. [edit]Also, it was probably partly because he was the android, and everyone wanted to do stories about the android, and a lot of TNG stories involved regulars discovering that they had relatives or getting possessed by aliens/electrons/kumquats/etc., and the two sets simply overlapped.
Plus, of course, the artificality of the android could also be explored in terms of its (!) potential reduplication, see Toy Story 3.
