Despite being the least emotional being on the USS Enterprise-D, Brent Spiner’s Data is the heart and soul of Star Trek: TNG. The android is on a quest to understand humanity and often contemplates rationally on what makes one a human. Till his last breath in Star Trek: Nemesis, Data is on this never-ending quest, only realizing it before his apparent death.
While Spiner’s performance was a huge aspect of why the character worked so well, being emotionless and deadpan during intense sequences would be hell for any actor. Actors are trained to react, and Data hardly does so. An early director for TNG reportedly used this aspect of the character to warn Spiner that he would get tired of the character.
Brent Spiner was warned by a Star Trek: TNG director that he would grow tired of playing Data
Ask any actor, and they will say most of acting is reacting to situations that happen around them. Great acting can be loud and in the face, with shouting, crying, and an emotional monologue, but it also lies in the subtleties. While an actor can choose to be loud or subtle, a reaction and an emotion are still required. Brent Spiner had to avoid both.
Even an actor like Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Picard, admitted that among all the cast members in Star Trek: TNG, Brent Spiner deserved to atleast be nominated for an Emmy for his performance as Data. The largely emotionless and stoic android is on a never-ending quest for humanity in the series and is often rational.
The character cannot be emotional for any reason, as Data just does not feel anything. He is not programmed to do so, thus making him one of those characters that deconstructed humanity. An early director on TNG reportedly warned Spiner that he would get tired of playing this. Spiner recalled on The Ready Room,
We had a director very early on, third episode or so, who said, ‘You are gonna get so tired of this because it’s gonna be the most limiting work you’ve ever done. I mean, you can’t be emotional…You know, you’re gonna hate this. By the seventh season, you’re just gonna be miserable.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so.’
While Spiner did grow tired of the golden makeup, he never seemed to get tired of playing Data (or any of his variants) as he returned to the role after seven seasons and four movies in Star Trek: Picard.
Data’s original inspiration from Star Trek was initially apprehensive about the limitations of the character
Anyone who watched Star Trek: The Original Series will know that TNG’s Data was basically the Spock of the new show. Leonard Nimoy’s Spock was half-human and half-Vulcan, thus making him less emotional and often at loggerheads with Captain Kirk over a rational option. Nimoy’s nuanced performance was incredible, but it was not easy.
Leonard Nimoy was reportedly so troubled by the character initially that he almost quit Star Trek because he could not navigate the stoicism of Spock. Director Joseph Sargent reportedly said in the novel The Fifty-Year Mission that Nimoy was extremely tortured by the lack of emotion from the character. He said (via Slash Film),
He said, ‘How can I play a character without emotion? I don’t know how to do that. I’m going to be on one note throughout the entire series.’ I agreed with him and we worked like hell to give him some emotional context, but Gene [Roddenberry] said, ‘No way, the very nature of this character’s contribution is that he isn’t an earthling…’
Nimoy eventually figured out that Spock felt the emotion but chose to control it instead, and that was how he navigated the performance. He was reportedly breaking down randomly as the emotions had to come out somewhere.
Star Trek: TNG is available to stream on Paramount+.
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