If you look around at the people in show business today they are basically the people who didn't give up.
Brent SpinerInitially I objected to the Data makeup. I said, "Why do I need this makeup? Why can't I just look like me?" In fact, I said to Gene Roddenberry, "Don't you think that by this time in history, they would've figured out how to make skin look like skin?" And he said, "What makes you think that what you have isn't better than skin?" And I went, "Um, okay."
Brent Spiner[The Aviator] came about through John Logan, who I've been friends with for many years.
Brent SpinerI have to say, though, that somebody pointed out to me on YouTube that Conan O'Brien was being interviewed, and he was talking about how, oddly enough, he went to see that movie [South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut ] in Hawaii with his girlfriend or wife or whoever, and he didn't even realize his character was in it. But there he was, and he said, "This voice comes out of me, and I'm thinking, 'That's not me! Who is that? That doesn't even sound like me!'
Brent SpinerI went to New York out of college, and in my day, we were told that was the way you became a good actor. You don't go to Hollywood, you go straight to New York and work in the theater. So that's what most of the people I knew did.
Brent SpinerI wanted to look right. I remember a review - a very positive one - in The New York Times that said I was so good in the role [Earl Mills] that I "even managed to overcome a terrible red wig." I wanted to write her and tell her about the agony I'd gone through with the perm, but I thought better of it.
Brent Spiner