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.[1][2][3] He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy,[4] both of whom appeared uncredited in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "When the Bough Breaks".[5] Amy appeared alongside Wil in the 1987 film The Curse.[6]
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 them.[7][8]
Wheaton first gained widespread attention for his work in Stand by Me (1986), the film adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Body.[12][13][14] In Stand by Me, Wheaton played the lead role of Gordie Lachance, a 12-year-old storyteller mourning the loss of his elder brother.[14] 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".[15] In addition to being successful at the box office,[16]Stand by Me was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama[17][18] and became known as a coming-of-age classic.[19][20]
Star Trek
Wheaton with TNG co-star Gates McFadden (who played his mother on the show) in January 2019
Wheaton played Wesley Crusher, a "boy genius and Starfleet hopeful",[21] during the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation.[22] 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.[23][22] 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.[24]
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.[25][26]
Wheaton returned to Star Trek in 2002, 2022 and 2024, reprising his Wesley Crusher role in cameo appearances in Star Trek: Nemesis, the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Picard,[27] and as a voice actor in the second season of the animated show Star Trek: Prodigy.[28]
Post-Star Trek
Wheaton in 2001
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[29][30] and later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product.[31]
Afterward, he returned to Los Angeles, attended acting school for five years, and then re-entered the acting world.[32][33]
Wheaton regularly portrayed a fictionalized version of himself on The Big Bang Theory, becoming a recurring guest star and then side character on the show.[36][37]
In June 2024, Wheaton announced that he was retired from on-screen acting.[38]
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.[42] 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.[43]
Non-acting professional ventures
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.[44] He has hosted "2nd Watch", interviews with cast members and producers of the science-fiction series Falling Skies that appears online after each episode.[45] 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 10 pm on May 27 for an initial projected run of twelve episodes.[46][47] However, on August 29, Wheaton blogged that SyFy canceled the show after only one season.[48] Wheaton has hosted Star TrekaftershowThe Ready Room since the second season in 2020.[49]
Games
Wheaton at the 2013 Wizard World New York Experience in Manhattan
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.[59]
Narrations
Wil Wheaton has been a narrator for dozens of audiobooks, including his own works. He has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award multiple times, and received an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine.[60]
Wheaton has performed improvisational and sketch comedy at the ACME Comedy Theater in Hollywood.[79] He has a traveling sketch comedy/improv troupe called "EarnestBorg9" that performs science fiction-related comedy at conventions.[80]
Writing
Wheaton is the author of Dancing Barefoot (2004) and Just a Geek (2004). He released a revised follow-up, Still Just a Geek, in 2022.
Wheaton runs his own blog, Wil Wheaton Dot Net. In June 2005, he became that month's featured Tech writer for the SuicideGirls Newswire.[81]
In 2017, Wheaton wrote the short story "Laina" for the Star Wars anthology From a Certain Point of View.[82] The book features 40 short stories, each by a different author, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars.[83]
Personal life
Wheaton married Anne Prince on November 7, 1999,[84] and lives in Arcadia, California, with her and her two sons from a previous relationship.[85] Upon reaching maturity, both sons asked Wheaton to legally adopt them, which he did.[86]
He criticized Dave Chappelle for making jokes about transgender people during Chappelle's comedy film The Closer. Wheaton said popular comics had influenced him to think homophobic humor was acceptable when he was young.[93]
Immediately following the Sutherland Springs church shooting on November 5, 2017, Wheaton on Twitter stated in response to Congressman Paul Ryan's call for prayers for the victims that "The murdered victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they'd still be alive, you worthless sack of shit."[97] Wheaton subsequently clarified his opinion after receiving criticism, writing "I apologize to those of you who are sincere people of Faith, who felt attacked by me", but accused "the right wing noise machine" of using his comments "to deflect attention and anger away from the role that unfettered access to weapons of mass murder played in the latest incidence of mass murder in America".[98][99][100]
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx"Wil Wheaton (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved July 30, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
.jpg)
