Happy Birthday, LeVar Burton + Watch 3-hour Burton interview! February 16, 2010
by TrekMovie.com Staff , Filed under: Celebrity, TNG , trackback
Today is another big Trek Birthday. LeVar Burton, who played Star Trek: The Next Generation’s engineer Geordi LaForge in seven seasons and four feature films is turning 53 today. To celebrate his birthday we present below a recent 3- hour interview with the actor.
Burton Tweets on his bday
As noted here before, LeVar Burton is one of the biggest Twitter celebrities, with 1.6 million followers. If you haven’t seen them, here are a couple of his bday tweets from earlier today:
Hey, it’s Fat Tuesday & my Birthday!!! It’s on…and poppin’!!!
Having an AMAZING Birthday… and another shot of chilled Goose, please…!
More at twitter.com/levarburton
Burton’s oral history
The folks at the Archive of American Television have another one of their extensive interviews with a Trek vet, this time LeVar Burton. This was posted in late 2009 and here it is in three parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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Comments»
3 hour interview, Holy Frak! I’m going to have to wait till I go to work to what that. LOL!
I meant watch that, not what that. It’s late and I need to go to bed.
My birthday, too! Happy birthday, LeVar!
Happy Birthday LeVar
I met Levar not long ago and he is a great man, good, person, and has a good heart! Happy Birthday!
It blows me away how old the TNG actors are. I dunno why, but i just see them as younger people, maybe because TOS is really old, and stuff like that, but I don’t know why, but the TNG actors always seemed so young to me, so to find out Brent Spiner’s in his sixties, Levar in his fifties, it’s sort of surreal.
#6 I dunno, I think for the most part they have aged pretty well. Same goes for the surviving TOS cast members.
Happy Birthday, LeVar Burton!
oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, they do very well for their age, it just kind of surprised me o something for some reason to find out they’re as old as they are, perhaps it is because they are still young in some ways if you know what I mean. I guess it’s just like saying now two generations of a lot of peoples heroes are getting older. i mean next up is the DS9/Voy group, and that’ll be really weird, cause that’s what I grew up with!
Three hour interview?
I like Levar Burton as much as anyone, but I don’t think I could still still for a three hour interview with Jesus Christ nevermind Geordi La Forge.
What could anyone have to say for three hours? I’d run out of things to say and start making stuff up after 20 minutes : )
Happy Birthday LeVar I hope you have a great day.
#9 I’m with you voodoo. He’s just an actor when all is said and done- what could possibly take 3 hours?. Admitedly I’m no particular lover of TNG but sorry, life is too short to spend on this.
happy birthday Levar
11
I am fed up with TNG hate, on an articlae celebrating the birthday of a TNG cast member
I know its popular to praise Abrams and his new movie and piss on the rest of Trek but please I love the other Treks and I do like the new movie.
However on this site it seems to be the thing to do don’t it.
I think Levar is one cool guy. I always loved him as a human being and Geordi was one of the most down to earth guys on Star Trek.
A great character and a great actor.
Happy Birthday Levar, always liked him very much.
#13 and you’re opinion is supposed to bother me how exactly? And please, if you are going to pick up on my comments do so correctly- I don’t hate TNG I’m just ‘no lover’ of it. As I said. As with spending hours on end watching Burton going on about acting, life is too short to spend it hating anything. Particularly a tv show.
Favorite quote from the interview:
“I can’t believe I’m standing next to Neil Diamond in the restroom.”
Come back again
I want you to stay next time
‘Cause sometimes the world ain’t kind
When people get lost like you and me
I just made a friend
A friend is someone you need
But now that he had to go away
I still feel the words that he might say
Turn on your heartlight
Let it shine whereever you go
Let it make a happy glow
For all the world to see
Happy Birthday Levar
Happy Birthday, Levar! I have to say, I am partial to February 16th. That’s when all the good birthdays are (mine included). ;)
Happy Birthday, Kunte LaForge Rainbow-guy!
To you LaVar ! A wonderful blessed Bday! You gave 7 great years of your past Bdays to us not to mention I lost count of the maney enriching years of Reading Raimbow to countless kids to be inspired by. Thank you Geordi LaForge for being all you can be! And the love you sent around. And happiness! This is your day ENJOY!
Nothing against LeVar Burton but LaForge was the only Trek character
I truly disliked. He was a complainer kind of wimpish and not really
Star Fleet[’s finest I will never forget how badly he treated Scotty in the Relics episode.
1.6 million followers? Really?
I mean, I like him, but 1.6 million people follow him? Are you sure?
Happy birthday LeVar. And I agree that LaForge was not the best Trek character ever, but I think that LeVar made him much more interesting than another actor could have. I think if you look at LaForge from the start of TNG he was someone who was very unsure of himself and then flash forward to the movie era and he’s a guy who’s on top of things. Plus he was Data’s pall, and the look LeVar gives when Riker’s remembering Data in Nemesis is priceless and says it all.
Hey happy B Day Levar. You are a great actor. Weather it be from Roots to Star Trek to Reading Rainbow. You are an Icon.
neill
i have warned you over and over that you need to lighten up and calm down. Not only with the making multiple posts in a row, responding to yourself, but also this straw man notion that the world hates all trek pre-2009. That is just blatantly false and to be quite frank is just a paranoid fantasy of yours, so stop saying it over and over and calling people ‘haters’ etc.
Happy Birthday Mr.La forge
Really cool interview, but the audio gets more and more out of sync with the picture the further you get into it. :-(
I wonder why LeVar hasn’t tried to get a new TNG movie made (for DVD, Theatre or TV mini-series???) I ask this because he is an accomplished director, and would seem a logical person to try to get the ball moving (well, either him and Jonathan Frakes!) I think it would be great if they did a TNG mini-series. 3 movies, with Frakes and LeVar directing one or two each.
Has anyone asked LeVar or Jonathan if they would be interested in doing something like this in recent interviews?
Well, I watched — or listened to, actually, while I was doing other things — the whole interview. Great stuff; definitely makes me want to watch “Roots.”