Before establishing himself as Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Brent Spiner secured a part in a Star Wars radio adaptation, only to be dismissed after struggling to pronounce ‘Millennium Falcon’. The troublesome line required him to inform a captain that the spacecraft had landed. Recounting the incident decades later, he stumbled over the name once again.
The admission came during Dropping Names with Brent and Jonny, which Spiner co-hosts with fellow Star Trek actor Jonathan Frakes. Their guest, Terry Matalas, asked whether Spiner had ever been fired from an acting job. Initially reluctant to elaborate on an experience he found embarrassing, Spiner eventually identified the production as a Star Wars radio drama. He could recall neither his character nor the particular adaptation, although he remembered the involvement of Mark Hamill and Brock Peters. Hamill reprised Luke Skywalker, while Peters voiced Darth Vader.
The trilogy’s radio adaptations aired on National Public Radio: A New Hope ran for 13 episodes in 1981, and The Empire Strikes Back followed with ten in 1983. An NPR financial crisis delayed Return of the Jedi until 1996. All three were written by Brian Daley and directed by John Madden, who later directed Shakespeare in Love. Despite his early dismissal, Spiner eventually joined the franchise in the 2010s, voicing the exiled senator Gall Trayvis in the animated series Star Wars Rebels.
