By GustavoLeao / 23:13, 28 February 2012 / General Star Trek

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Los Angeles Times posted an extensive interview with TNG actor LeVar Burton and here are excerpts.

PKD: Do you still attend “Star Trek” conventions?

LB: I do. This year is our 25th anniversary of “Next Gen,” so there are a few beginning in April where we will all be together on stage at the same time. We’ve kind of arrived at a place where we don’t enjoy it unless at least one other of our cast is there because then we have an opportunity hang out. Our cast is very close and so it’s fun for us to go and be able to hang out , sit next to each other during the day and sign,  and have dinner. I’m looking forward to all of us being together again. We try and do a Christmas party every year. It rotates, but Patrick [Stewart] lives in England now. It’s been over a year since we were all in the same room at the same time. The thing about the dynamic among us is that we make each other laugh more than I think anyone else in our lives makes us laugh. So when we’re together it’s just really fun.

PKD: Who do you see the most?

PKD: Is there some kind of email loop for “Star Trek” cast members?

LB: It’s not that formal. You’re right — there are a lot of us. You gravitate toward the ones you feel like you have something in common with. I love Bill [Shatner]. I know Bill. I’ve hung with Bill. I don’t really have a relationship with anyone else in his cast.  I revere Leonard Nimoy because he made that incredibly difficult transition from actor to director successfully. That’s not easy to do. Plus, he’s Spock and I’m a huge “Star Trek” fan. With the ”Deep Space Nine” cast, I don’t see Sid [Alexander Siddig] or Nana [Visitor] a lot. But I see Avery [Brooks] and Rene [Auberjonois], who I love. Colm [Meaney], I love. “Voyager,” I don’t see the “Voyager” cast all that often.

PKD: There’s been no “Star Trek” on TV for awhile now. Do you see a difference in how the fans interact with the franchise?

LB: There was a lot left on the table with the “Next Generation” cast when we stopped doing movies and that’s become more and more prevalent in the communication from the fans. Paramount had run the “Star Trek” universe into the ground and caused “Star Trek” to not be special anymore and that was a real dangerous time for the franchise. So it’s been good that there hasn’t been any “Trek.” Like everybody else I was a fan of the reboot that J.J. Abrams did. The only thing wrong with it is that it sort of ignores our timeline. I think that we added a lot to the “Star Trek” canon. The fans really want to see us do something. For our cast, because we came after the revered, beloved iconic original series and earned our way into people’s hearts and we did our own part in terms of expanding the fan base of “Star Trek” we feel very good about our contribution. I don’t know how the other casts feel. But I know that we’re really, really proud of what we were able to accomplish.

PKD: It seems like the original series and “Next Generation” had a cast camaraderie that the other series weren’t able to replicate.

LB: You didn’t tune in for the people. You tuned in for the stories and the storytelling. But on the original series and “Next Generation,” you tuned in for the storytelling and you tuned in because you really cared about the characters.

The full interview is here