Star Trek Stars Send Data Actor Brent Spiner Happy Birthday Wishes

Today is Star Trek: The Next Generation star Brent Spiner‘s birthday. Spiner is best known for playing the role of Commander Data, Starfleet’s first android officer, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He also played the role in four movies: Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis. That final film showed Data’s death as the android sacrificed himself to save the life of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. That didn’t stop Spiner from reprising his role again in the new CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard, reuniting with his friend and longtime co-star Patrick Stewart.

Some of Spiner’s co-star took to twitter to wish him a happy birthday. Spiner was the best man at LeVar Burton’s wedding. Burton tweeted, “Happiest of Happy Birthdays to my friend in life and on TV and the best damn Best Man a guy could ask for. Happy Birthday, Spine… Love, Burt”

Jonathan Frakes also took to twitter. He writes, A privilege to spend his birthday with one of my favorite humans @BrentSpiner HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENTO.”

Marina Sirtis also chimed in. She tweeted, “A very happy birthday to one of my best buds in the world; the incomparable @BrentSpiner. I love you.”

ComicBook.com spoke to Spiner about his return as Data in Star Trek: Picard. He explained how surreal it was to be sitting across from Stewart as Picard again after so many years.

“Sitting across from Patrick, it was the first shot of the series,” Spiner said. “And we looked at each other and just sort of went, ‘This is bizarre,’ because I see Patrick all the time and I wasn’t actually sitting across from Patrick, I was sitting across from Captain Picard, and he was looking at Data, and we hadn’t done that in a long time. So it was kind of special.”

Spiner also says he sees a lot of the potential in the new Star Trek: Picard cast, comparing them to the Next Generation cast that remained friends decades after the show’s end. “I think this new group is going to have a lot of the same kind of chemistry,” he says. “They were really terrific to be around. They had a lot of fun and they all seem to really like each other, which I think is critical.”

New episodes of Star Trek: Picard become available to stream Thursdays on CBS All Access.

Disclaimer: ComicBook.com is owned by ViacomCBS.