Richard William
Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American
actor, blogger, 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 roles as Aqualad
in Teen Titans, Cosmic Boy on the Legion of
Super Heroes and Mike
Morningstar/Darkstar in the Ben 10
universe. He also appeared regularly as a fictionalized version of himself on
the CBS 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 is also the host and
co-creator of the YouTube board game
show TableTop.
Early life
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 appeared uncredited in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "When the Bough Breaks". Amy also 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.
Career
Early work
Wheaton made his acting debut in the television film A Long Way Home (1981), and his first
cinema role was as Martin Brisby in
the animated film The Secret of NIMH
(1982), the movie adaptation of Robert
C. O'Brien's book Mrs. Frisby and the
Rats of NIMH (1971). He had a minor role in The Last Starfighter (1984) as Louis's friend, but it was cut.
He first gained widespread attention for playing Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me (1986), the film adaptation of Stephen King's novella The
Body which was originally published in 1982's Different Seasons.
Star Trek
He played Wesley
Crusher for the first four seasons of Star
Trek: The Next Generation, from 1987 to 1991. This became a recurring role
later in the series. A vocal group of Trekkies
disliked his Star Trek character and,
by extension, Wheaton himself. 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.
Wheaton's notoriety among Star Trek fandom is covered in a number of webcomics. For example,
ArcaneTimes (March 25, 2005) offers a
sympathetic position; Something Positive
presents a range of opinions on the storyline Mike's Kid; and Abstruse
Goose tries to distinguish between the character and the actor.
Post-Star Trek
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. Wheaton said this was a period of growth in his
life, and living away from Los Angeles
helped him deal with anger problems.
Afterward, he returned to Los Angeles, attended acting school for five years, and then re-entered
the acting world. 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. For his performance in Jane White Is Sick & Twisted (2002) he received the Best Actor award at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.
Voice work
Wheaton has worked as a voice actor in animation, video
games, and audio-books, beginning with the role of Martin Brisby in The Secret
of NIMH at age 10. His most noteworthy credits include the roles of Aqualad in the cartoons Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, the voice of radio journalist Richard Burns in Grand Theft
Auto: San Andreas, Kyle in the
Nickelodeon cartoon, Kyle + Rosemary
as well as himself and various other characters on both Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. Wheaton also featured as the second
Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, on Batman: The
Brave and the Bold, Dr. Peter Meechum
in Generator Rex, Mike Morningstar / Darkstar in Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien & Ben 10:
Omniverse. Wheaton also took upon the anime roles of Yakumo in Kurokami: The
Animation, Menma in Naruto, Hans in Slayers Evolution-R,
and Aaron Terzieff in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. He also
appeared as himself in a skit on nerdcore rapper
MC Frontalot's 2008 album Final Boss
attempting to be a rapper, whose rhymes only involved shellfish. Wheaton later
collaborated with Frontalot on "Your
Friend Wil", a track from the 2010 album Zero Day on the subject of what Wheaton calls "Wheaton's law": "don't be a dick". Wheaton and Frontalot have both appeared at
the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).
Wheaton has also narrated a number of bestselling audio-books,
mostly in the science-fiction and fantasy category, including Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Wheaton also exists in the novel's universe,
described as being joint President,
along with Cory Doctorow, of the
virtual world Oasis, which is the
setting for much of the book), "Armada"
also by Cline, Redshirts by John Scalzi, "Fuzzy Nation" also by Scalzi, and books 6–10 of The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny.
Television and web
Wheaton was a contestant on a 2001 episode of The Weakest Link featuring Star Trek actors attempting to win money
for charity. He has made guest appearances on the November 23, 2007, episode of
the TV series Numb3rs, and the
October 22, 2008, episode of the series Criminal
Minds, and appeared on Internet
presentations, including a cameo in a comedy sketch ("Lock Out") for LoadingReadyRun
(and a reprise of the same the following year, in CommodoreHustle 4), and the May 30, 2008, episode of the Internet series Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show. From 2009-2011, Wheaton
appeared in seasons 3, 4, and 5 of the web series The Guild as Fawkes, the leader for a rival guild known as Axis of Anarchy. Wheaton credits his roles in Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show and The Guild for reigniting his career by
encouraging him to seek out roles as the "Villain
You Love to Hate" stock character. He also appears in seasons 2, 3, and 4 of the
television series Leverage, as rival
computer hacker Colin "Chaos"
Mason, antagonist to Leverage
team hacker Alec Hardison. He makes
regular appearances in many web productions for Geek & Sundry, including hosting TableTop, a board game based show, and Titansgrave, a roleplaying game based show.
He appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in several
episodes of the sitcom The Big Bang
Theory, starting in season 3, episode 4: "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" (2009). On the show,
Wheaton behaves in comically petty and manipulative ways towards the main character
Sheldon Cooper, who regards him as an
archenemy until the season 5 episode "The
Russian Rocket Reaction", when they make amends and become friends.
Wheaton appears 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.
Wheaton played Alexander
Rook in the Syfy TV series Dark
Matter, based on the eponymous comic book.
Hosting
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 also hosted "2nd Watch", interviews with cast members and producers
of the science-fiction series Falling
Skies that appears on-line after each episode. On April 3, 2014, Wheaton announced on his
blog that his new show called The Wil
Wheaton Project would premiere on the
SyFy network at 10pm on May 27 for an initial projected run of twelve
episodes. However, on August 29, Wheaton
blogged that SyFy canceled the show
after only one season.
Other ventures
Games
In 2003, Wheaton mentioned his love for the game of poker on
his blog. The following year, he began writing more extensively about his
poker-playing experiences; including stories about playing Texas hold 'em tournaments locally and in Las Vegas. Eventually, he worked up to regular play, including a
run at the 2005 World Poker Tour
Championships. On June 23, 2005, Wheaton accepted an invitation to join Team PokerStars. He went on to play in that year's World Series of Poker and was the guest
speaker for the 2005 BARGE Banquet.
In June 2007, he announced he would no longer be on Team Pokerstars due to changes in the US legal system that would cause poker sites to have to focus on European and Asian markets and held a farewell Pokerstars tournament on June 5, 2007, which he titled So Long and Thanks for All the Chips.
Wheaton is a Dungeons
& Dragons player, and played during the PAX 2010 event using the 4th edition rules. Wheaton, along with
webcartoonists Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade, and Scott
Kurtz of PvP played in front of
a live audience. The game was hosted and recorded by Wizards of the Coast with Chris
Perkins as the dungeonmaster. Wheaton also played D&D 4th edition at the
PAX 2011 event using the 4th edition rules, and used the D&D Next play test
rules at PAX Prime 2012.
Wheaton hosts the web series TableTop that he created with Felicia
Day, in which he explains how to play various card, board, and dice games, and
then plays the game with celebrity guests. This web series has had over 4.5
million views and raised $1.4 million on Indiegogo
for its third series, a record amount for a web series at that time. In 2018 it appears in syndication on the TBD
cable television.
Wheaton also starred in the Kickstarter-funded game There
Came an Echo by Iridium Studios. In Dungeons and Dragons Online, he became
the dungeon master of the Temple of
Elemental Evil quests.
Nintendo of America
announced on Twitter that Wheaton
would be voicing Abraham Lincoln in Code Name: STEAM. Wheaton announced in February 2015 that he was
chosen to provide voiceover talent for the upcoming strategy role-playing video
game Firefly Online, a game based on Joss
Whedon's Firefly sci-fi
franchise. Wheaton also does the voice
narration on the Secret Hitler
companion app for the Secret Hitler
social deduction game.
Wheaton has spoken out against misogyny in video game
culture, and wrote a profile of Anita
Sarkeesian for the 2015 Time 100.
Comic book
A fictionalized version of Wheaton was included in the comic
book PS 238, in which he harbors the
power of telekinesis. Wheaton's debut comic book The Guild: Fawkes, which he wrote alongside Felicia Day, was released on May 23, 2012.
Audio-books
Wheaton has recorded several of his non-self-published books
as downloadable audio-books. These include Just
a Geek, Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and his Criminal Minds diary from Sunken Treasure.
He also released excerpts of Memories of
The Future: Vol 1 as free podcasts. He has also narrated several audio-books
by other authors, including Ready Player
One and Armada by Ernest Cline; Masters of Doom by David
Kushner; Homeland by Cory Doctorow; Fuzzy Nation, The Android's
Dream, Agent to the Stars, Redshirts, Lock In, Head On, The Collapsing Empire, and The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi; Peter and Max: A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham; Looking for
Alaska by John Green; "Byways", part of METAtropolis: Cascadia by Tobias Buckell; What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
and How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall
Munroe; and Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Similarly, Wheaton has provided the voice-over
for the digital gamebook, Trial of the
Clone.
Live shows
Wheaton has performed improvisational and sketch comedy at
the ACME Comedy Theater in Hollywood. He has a traveling sketch comedy/improv troupe
called "EarnestBorg9" that
performs science fiction-related comedy at conventions.
Writing
Wheaton runs his own blog, Wil Wheaton Dot Net. Between 2001 and late 2004, he operated a
message board, known as "The
Soapbox" or "Paracosm",
as part of the blog site. Two collections of writings taken from postings
to the message board have been published, titled Boxer Shorts (ISBN 1-932461-00-0) and Boxer Shorts Redux (ISBN 1-932461-03-5). He contributes regularly
to the Los Angeles-based Metroblogging
site. In June 2005, he became that month's featured Tech writer for the SuicideGirls Newswire. He had a monthly column, entitled "Wil Save", in the Dungeons & Dragons-based magazine Dungeon, until May 2005. From January
2005 to October 2006, he wrote a column for The A.V. Club about early video
games, called "Games of Our
Lives." On December 12, 2008, he returned to his role as Geek in Review editor, with his editorials being published every second
Wednesday of the month.
In early 2003, he founded the independent publishing company
Monolith Press and released a memoir
entitled Dancing Barefoot. Monolith
Press was "founded on the idea that
publication should not be limited by opportunity." Most of the entries are extended versions
of his blog entries. Dancing Barefoot
sold out three printings in four months. In winter 2003, Wheaton signed to
publisher Tim O'Reilly with a
three-book contract. O'Reilly acquired Dancing
Barefoot, and published his extended memoirs, Just a Geek, in the summer of 2004. He has since written about his
bitterness regarding how the book was marketed, believing it was pitched as a Star Trek book when he intended it as
more of a personal memoir. Subsequently,
in 2007, his next book, The Happiest Days
of Our Lives was again published by Monolith
Press.
With the release of Sunken
Treasure: Wil Wheaton's Hot Cocoa Box Sampler in February 2009, instead of
using traditional publishing, Wheaton decided to self-publish using Lulu Publishing, releasing paperback
and digital copies, something he has continued to do with all his publications
since. As a chapbook, Sunken Treasure
contains several small extracts of various different projects, including two
short stories from Ficlets, an ACME comedy sketch, William's Tell and a Criminal
Minds production diary. The production diary was later released as an
audiobook. Later that same year, Wheaton released Memories of the Future: Volume 1, a humorous critique, as well as
an account of Wheaton's own experiences with, and memories of, the first
thirteen episodes of Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Closing up 2009, Wheaton published a special edition of The Happiest Days of Our Lives, which
also included an afterword by his son, Ryan. The Happiest Days of Our Lives and Sunken Treasure were also released on a Creative Commons license.
In 2017, Wheaton wrote the short story "Laina" for the Star
Wars anthology From a Certain Point
of View. The book features 40 short stories, each by a different author, to
commemorate the 40th anniversary of Star
Wars.
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