Star Trek: The Next Generation gave fans plenty of memorable characters and shot multiple names to stellar fame. However, none might be as iconic as that of Jean-Luc Picard, played by the legendary Patrick Stewart. While fans may argue that it is impossible for them to imagine any other actor donning the role, the same is seemingly not true for a colleague of his.
That is none other than Brent Spiner, who played the role of the android Data in The Next Generation and multiple other projects. Spinner published his own memoir, Fan Fiction, back in 2021, and during the promotion, talked about how he one day wishes to make a mini-series out of it.
In it, instead of casting The Next Generation’s Patrick Stewart, he wished to star a James Bond actor for the role.
Brent Spiner wanted to cast Daniel Craig as Jean-Luc Picard in Fan Fiction
The memoir by Spiner is based on real events. However, it is not your straightforward, run-of-the-mill memoir. Instead, it presents actual events as fictionalized accounts and the cast of The Next Generation, along with Spiner, is included as characters in this alternate version of the 1990s.
Hence, Spinner’s own claim, the following, is not concerning for Star Trek fans: (Via Inverse)
I’m already thinking Daniel Craig plays Patrick.
This is because he planned to include the actual cast of The Next Generation in his memoir miniseries as themselves. Hence, rather than Spiner intending to take away Stewart’s iconic role, he wanted to see the Charles Xavier actor play himself, while Daniel Craig took over the role of Picard for his mini-series.
One a former James Bond, the other a veteran who has worked in multiple huge franchises, the comment was therefore a compliment for Patrick Stewart. After all, while Stewart is now 83, Craig is 56, which means there is a gap of 17 years between the two. Still, Spinner thought that Craig will be able to play Picard perfectly, a role which was in the first place made iconic by Stewart.
Brent Spiner’s Fan Fiction presented a hilarious twist on his life
Spiner’s life has been chronicled by himself as part of Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir: Inspired by True Events. While he sticks to the truth with respect to a range of major events in the narrative, certain events were exaggerated for dramatic effect:
It’s not really me. It’s a heightened-for-comedic-effect version of me. I don’t think I took myself as seriously as this guy takes himself. But it was fun to take myself back in time a little bit and be that guy again as opposed to the guy I am now. Which, by the way, if I were writing myself now, it wouldn’t be any more realistic. It’s the style of the piece that can tell you more about who I am than anything in the book.
The story itself deals with Brent Spiner, an actor who works on The Next Generation, fear for his life after receiving fan mail from Lal, Data’s deceased daughter in the series. The actor revealed that while the book was written from a perspective of satire, he was still sure it would ruffle a few feathers:
I know it’s going to piss off people,” Spiner says. “But I think it will amuse a lot of people, too. And that’s really what I wanted to do; entertain people,” Spiner explains. “I didn’t want to write about my less-than-interesting life. I wanted to give them a piece of entertainment. So, I didn’t worry about it. That is sort of the way I see things — in a darkly comic sort of way.
Of course, that did not quite happen, as Fan Fiction continues to be a crucial piece of extra reading for more ardent fans of Star Trek.
The Next Generation is available to be streamed on Amazon Prime.
