Wil Wheaton

Richard William Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor and writer.

He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me, Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers, and Bennett Hoenicker in Flubber.

Wheaton has also appeared in recurring voice acting roles as Aqualad in Teen Titans, Cosmic Boy in Legion of Super Heroes, and Mike Morningstar/Darkstar in the Ben 10 franchise's original continuity.

He appeared regularly as a fictionalized version of himself on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and in the roles of Fawkes on The Guild, Colin Mason on Leverage, and Dr. Isaac Parrish on Eureka.

Wheaton was the host and co-creator of the YouTube board game show TableTop.

He has narrated numerous audio books, including Ready Player One and The Martian.

Wheaton was born July 29, 1972, in Burbank, California, to Debra "Debbie" Nordean (née O'Connor), an actress, and Richard William Wheaton Jr., a medical specialist.

He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy, both of whom appeared uncredited in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "When the Bough Breaks".

Wheaton made his acting debut in the television film A Long Way Home (1981), which starred Timothy Hutton.

He voiced the role of Martin Brisby in The Secret of NIMH in 1981.

In August 2021.

Wheaton voiced the villainous John Juniper in the video game, I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar.

Wheaton appeared in 12 episodes in a recurring, guest-starring role on Eureka, playing Dr. Isaac Parrish, the head of the Non-Lethal Weapons Lab at Global Dynamics and a thorn in Fargo's side.

Wheaton also voices the character of the former scoutmaster and current sous-chef Earl Harlan in the popular dark, surreal-comedy podcast Welcome to Night Vale.

He voiced the character of Martin in the animated film The Secret of NIMH (1982), the film adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971).

Wheaton also appeared in Hambone and Hillie (1983), The Buddy System (1984) (opposite Richard Dreyfuss and Susan Sarandon), and The Last Starfighter.

Wheaton first gained widespread attention for his work in Stand by Me (1986), the film adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Body.

In Stand by Me, Wheaton played the lead role of Gordie Lachance, a 12-year-old storyteller mourning the loss of his elder brother.

In her review of the film, Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Wheaton makes Gordie's 'sensitivity' tangible, but not effete. He's a gem".

In addition to being successful at the box office, Stand by Me was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama and became known as a coming-of-age classic.

Wheaton played Wesley Crusher, a "boy genius and Starfleet hopeful", during the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

He appeared in an additional four episodes of the remaining three seasons.

The Wesley Crusher character is a "polarizing" character; while some Star Trek fans love him, others are vocal about their hatred for the character.

Amy appeared alongside Wil in the 1987 film The Curse.

As an adult, Wheaton described his father as being abusive to him as a child and his mother as being an enabler of that abuse.

He also stated that his parents forced him to become an actor.

He is currently estranged from his parents.

Wheaton left Star Trek: The Next Generation due to concerns over how the production team addressed a scheduling conflict related to his wish to appear in the 1989 film Valmont.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Wheaton appeared in several independent films, including the award-winning The Good Things (2001), in which he portrays a frustrated Kansas tollbooth worker.

Wheaton played Joey Trotta in the action film Toy Soldiers (1991).

After leaving Star Trek, he moved to Topeka, Kansas, to work for NewTek, where he helped to develop the Video Toaster 4000 doing product testing and quality control and later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product.

Afterward, he returned to Los Angeles, attended acting school for five years, and then re-entered the acting world.

Wheaton returned to Star Trek in 2002 and 2022, reprising his Wesley Crusher role in cameo appearances in Star Trek: Nemesis, and in the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Picard.

For his performance in Jane White Is Sick & Twisted (2002) he received the award for Best Actor at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

Wheaton is known for his voice acting.

Wheaton commented about his critics in a 2004 interview for WebTalk Radio:

"Later, I determined that the people who were really, really cruel – like the Usenet weenies – really are a statistically insignificant number of people. And I know, just over the years from people who've e-mailed me at my website and people who I've talked to since I started going to Star Trek conventions again in the last five years, that there are so many more people who really enjoyed everything about the show, including my performance, including the character."

From September 2006 to September 2007, Wheaton hosted a Revision3 syndicated video podcast called InDigital along with Jessica Corbin and Hahn Choi.

He hosted a NASA video on the Mars Curiosity rover which landed on Monday August 6, 2012.

He has hosted "2nd Watch", interviews with cast members and producers of the science-fiction series Falling Skies that appears online after each episode.