Movies - TV
Star Trek: Picard Gave Brent Spiner A Challenge He’d Never Faced Before
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
By the third season of "Star Trek: Picard," Data had already died twice and was brought back a third time by Dr. Altan Soong. Brent Spiner played both roles.
The third incarnation also contained the consciousness of Data's evil twin, Lore. This new composite version of Data couldn't initially determine if Data or Lore would be dominant.
Viewers saw Data and Lore standing opposite each other inside Data's mind. Spiner played Data and Lore while they bickered about who was "better."
Spiner also played both characters in "Next Generation," but in distinct costumes. He would film the scenes as one character, change outfits, and do the scene again.
For "Picard," however, Data and Lore wore the same costume, and the scene took place in a white void with no set. This allowed Spiner to play both parts without edits.
"There were times in that scene [...] where I would leave the frame as one character and literally come in the other side of the frame as the other character," Spiner said.
He continued, "There were no cuts. The camera was moving and I was moving and I would just be the other person [...] It took an entire day to do that scene and it was a challenge."
Since the characters' costumes and makeup were the same, it was up to Spiner, as an actor, to communicate if he was Data or Lore in any given shot.