John de Lancie

This article is about the American actor. For his father, the oboist, see John de Lancie (oboist).

John de Lancie
Born	(1948-03-20) March 20, 1948 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1976–present
Spouse	Marnie Mosiman
Children	2 sons

John de Lancie (born March 20, 1948) is an American actor. He has been active in screen and television roles since 1977, though he is best known for his recurring role as Q on the various Star Trek series, as Donald Margolis on Breaking Bad, as Eugene Bradford on Days of our Lives, as Discord on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and as Frank Simmons in Stargate SG-1.

De Lancie has produced and acted in several audio dramas based on classic science fiction stories for the production company Alien Voices, which he founded with Leonard Nimoy. Alien Voices was discontinued because it was not selling well enough to recoup costs.

Personal life

De Lancie was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Andrea and John de Lancie, who was principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1954 to 1977, and in his time one of the best known oboists worldwide. He is married to actress-singer Marnie Mosiman, and they have two sons, Keegan and Owen.

Acting career

Television

De Lancie has appeared in numerous television series. He starred as Dr. Deroy in three television films of Emergency! (1977-1979): "The Steel Inferno", "The Convention" and "What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing". In 1988, he played assassin Matthew Drake in the premiere episode of the Mission: Impossible revival series. He also starred in a first season episode of MacGyver, "The Escape", where he played a gunrunner. In 1997, de Lancie lent his voice to The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest as Doctor Quest. He also recently appeared on AMC's Breaking Bad. From 2001–2002, he was Agent Dark Booty on the television series Invader Zim. He also starred in the eighth, ninth and tenth episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day. In both parts of the 2011 season premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, he voiced the antagonist 'Discord', the draconequus who comes back in season 3. In 2012, he guest-starred as Royce Armstrong in the CW's The Secret Circle.

Star Trek

De Lancie is best known for his portrayal of the iconic, all-powerful Q, a recurring character on Star Trek. Q is one of few characters appearing in multiple shows of the Star Trek franchise: in eight episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Encounter at Farpoint", "Hide and Q", "Q Who", "Deja Q", "Qpid", "True Q", "Tapestry", "All Good Things..."), in one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ("Q-Less"), and in three episodes of Star Trek: Voyager ("Death Wish", "The Q and the Grey", "Q2"). De Lancie's son, Keegan de Lancie, appeared with his father as Q's son in Star Trek: Voyager's seventh season episode "Q2".

Other television roles

De Lancie co-starred in Star Trek writer Michael Piller's short-lived creation Legend as eccentric scientist Janos Bartok. He had a recurring role as NID Colonel Frank Simmons on Stargate SG-1. He has also appeared as Beka Valentine's Uncle Sid in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, as pollster Al Kiefer on The West Wing, and as an Elder on Charmed.

De Lancie also played:

• An air traffic controller and father Donald Margolis on the AMC series Breaking Bad.
• A middleman who dealt with dangerous arms dealers in CBS's The Unit during the fourth season of that show.
• A judge on Law & Order: LA.
• Allen Shapiro, a CIA official in the Starz/BBC sci-fi drama Torchwood: Miracle Day.
• Justinian Jones, a farmer who brings a lawsuit against God, demanding rain in a fourth-season episode of the CBS series Touched by an Angel.
• A mysterious unnamed Link, who has many mysterious and evil powers, one of which is to raise the dead in the second season of Special Unit 2, in episode 5, The Eve.
• John de Lancie plays Major Preston Waterhouse, a double agent in "Get Smart, Again!", and is not credited in opening or closing credits, though the whole show revolves around this character.

He has also voiced:

• The villain Sinestro on the "The Green Loontern" episode of Duck Dodgers,
• The Yak In The Sack, a parody of Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat from the episode of the same name in The Angry Beavers,
• French mercenary L'Etranger on Max Steel and
• The antagonist Discord, who appears in the two-part Season 2 premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "The Return of Harmony", as well as in the 10th episode of Season 3, "Keep Calm and Flutter On". Lauren Faust designed the character as a homage to de Lancie's role as Q on the various Star Trek series.
• De Lancie was the narrator for a General Motors (GM) commercial in the early 1980s that featured a robot that drops a bolt and talks about the future of the auto industry.

Films

His film credits include The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Get Smart, Again!, The Fisher King, Bad Influence, The Onion Field, Taking Care of Business, Fearless, Arcade, Multiplicity, Woman on Top, Nicolas, Good Advice, Patient 14, The Big Time, Teenius, Pathology, Evolver, and Reign Over Me, My Apocalypse, & You Lucky Dog (1998).

Stage career

He has been a member of The American Shakespeare Festival, The Seattle Repertory Company, South Coast Repertory, The Mark Taper Forum, and the Old Globe where he recently performed Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues.

De Lancie has performed and directed for Los Angeles Theater Works, the producing arm of KCRW-FM and National Public Radio, where the series The Play's the Thing originates. He recently returned from a national tour of the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Star Trek: The Music was a multi-city tour with Robert Picardo. De Lancie and Picardo narrate around the orchestral performance, explaining the history of the music in Star Trek.

De Lancie performed the character, Pierre Curie in Alan Alda's play, "Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie" 11/2011 to 12/2011 in Los Angeles at the Geffen Theater.

Audio dramas

De Lancie is co-owner, with Leonard Nimoy, of Alien Voices, a production company devoted to the radio-style dramatization of classic science fiction. De Lancie produced, co-wrote, and directed audio dramatizations of: The Time Machine, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lost World, The Invisible Man, and The First Men in the Moon; as well as three television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel. In addition, he played the lead in Yuri Rasovsky's award-winning audio version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He also narrated the show "Black Holes", an educational show produced by the Clark Planetarium for use in full dome planetarium star theaters.

Video games

De Lancie provided the voice of the character Antonio Malochio in the PC game Interstate '76, as the angel Trias in the video game Planescape: Torment, and as Dr. Death in Outlaws. He also provided the voice for William Miles in Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Assassin's Creed III, the voice of Professor Fitz Quadwrangle in Quantum Conundrum, and Q in the PC Video Games Star Trek: Borg and Star Trek: The Game Show.

Documentaries

While on stage at the 2012 Ottawa ComicCon, De Lancie announced that he has made plans to co-produce a documentary about "bronies," older, usually male teenage and adult fans of the television show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. De Lancie stated that he was taken aback by how disrespectful national news media portrayed the brony fandom. He resolved to do it "the right way" and, with the help of producer Michael Brockhoff and director Laurent Malaquais, began a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the documentary, now titled Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony.

The documentary follows De Lancie on his journey to a large convention of bronies in Secaucus, NJ, known as BronyCon Summer 2012, where he has been invited to speak. De Lancie stressed that the documentary will be "respectful, insightful, and very entertaining," in an effort to paint the community in a more positive light.

The Kickstarter campaign began on May 13, 2012. By May 16, 2012, the project had already surpassed its $60,000 goal. On May 27, 2012, it was announced that Tara Strong and Lauren Faust were joining the project as producers. They also announced plans to enlarge the project's budget, hoping to increase the scale and broadness of the documentary, upping the budget to $200,000.

The campaign ended on June 10, 2012, and reached a grand total of $322,022, becoming Kickstarter's second highest funded film project of all time. PayPal donations for the project at the time the Kickstarter campaign ended had reached $26,142. PayPal donations continue to be accepted for the time being.

Music career

In the world of music, John de Lancie, Jr. has performed as narrator with a number of major orchestras including: Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis and the New York Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; the National Symphony Orchestra and The Montreal Symphony. His repertoire includes: Peer Gynt, King David, The Bourgeois Gentleman, Lincoln Portrait, St. Joan, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oedipus Rex, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, The Soldier's Tale, The Nightingale, and Peter and the Wolf.

De Lancie was the host of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphonies for Youth for four years where he helped conceptualize the student concerts "Don't Educate–Stimulate". In addition, he's written and directed ten symphonic plays. These ninety-minute programs are fully staged productions with orchestra; titles include Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Bourgeois Gentleman, and The Abduction from the Seraglio. They were produced with the Milwaukee, St. Paul Chamber, Ravinia, Los Angeles, and Pasadena Orchestras.

De Lancie makes frequent appearances with the Pasadena Symphony, which holds concerts of orchestrated music in the Fall and the Spring. In spring 2004, he gave pre-concert lectures where the symphony is held in Pasadena, California, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

He was also the writer, director, and host of First Nights, an adult concert series at Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic which explored the life and music of Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Schumann, and Prokofiev. These were fully integrated, fully staged productions. John de Lancie has performed and directed for L.A. Theater Works, the producing arm of KCRW-FM and National Public Radio, where the series The Plays the Thing originates. He recently returned from a national tour of the Scopes Monkey Trial. He was co-owner, with Leonard Nimoy, of Alien Voices; a production company devoted to the dramatization of classic science fiction.

In 2006, de Lancie made his opera directorial debut with The Atlanta Opera performing Puccini's "Tosca" on May 18 to May 21.

In September 2007, de Lancie provided dramatic narration to the Cleveland Orchestra's performance of Peer Gynt. He performed this role again with the National Symphony Orchestra in June 2008, under the direction of Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Writing career

De Lancie co-wrote the Star Trek novel I, Q with Peter David, as well as co-writing the novel Soldier of Light with Tom Cool. He also was the writer for the Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #1 DC comic book story "The Gift."

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1979	The Onion Field	LAPD Lieutenant #2
1990	Bad Influence	Howard
	Taking Care of Business	Ted Bradford Jr.
1991	The Fisher King	TV executive
1992	The Hand that Rocks the Cradle	Dr. Victor Mott
1993	Arcade	Difford
1993	Fearless	Jeff Gordon
1995	Evolver	Russell Bennett
1996	Multiplicity	Ted
1998	You Lucky Dog
2000	Woman on Top	Alex Reeves
2001	Nicolas	Dr. Fisher
	Good Advice	Ted
2002	The Big Time
2007	Reign Over Me	Nigel Pennington
	Teenius	Principal Senseman
2008	Quality Time	Nathan Eastman
	Pathology	Dr. Quentin Morris
2009	Crank: High Voltage	News Anchor
	Gamer	Chief of Staff

Year	Series	Role	Notes
1977–1978	The Six Million Dollar Man	various	Incl. Episode "Death Probe"
1978–1979	Emergency!	Dr. Deroy
1979	Battlestar Galactica	Officer	Episode "Experiment in Terra"
1981	Nero Wolfe	Tom Irwin	Episode "Might as Well Be Dead"
1982–1986	Days of our Lives	Eugene Bradford
1983	The Thorn Birds	Alastair MacQueen	television mini-series
1986	The New Twilight Zone	The Dispatcher	segment "Dead Run"
	MacGyver	Brian Ashford	Episode "The Escape"
	Murder, She Wrote	Binky Holborn	Episode: "If the Frame Fits"
1987–1994	Star Trek: the Next Generation	Q	Episodes: "Encounter at Farpoint", "Hide and Q", "Q Who", "Deja Q", "Qpid", "True Q", "Tapestry" and "All Good Things..."
1988	Mission: Impossible revival series	Matthew Drake	Episode "The Killer"
1989	Get Smart, Again!	Major Preston Waterhouse	uncredited
1989	The Nutt House	Norman Shrike	Episode: "Pilot"
1991	L.A. Law	Mark Chelios	Episode "The Beverly Hill Hangers"
1992	Civil Wars
1993	Star Trek: Deep Space Nine	Q	Episode: "Q-Less"
1993	Batman: The Animated Series	Eagleton
1994	Without Warning	Reporter	TV movie in mockumentary style
1995	Legend	Janos Bartok
1996	Picket Fences	District Attorney	Episode "Three Weddings and a Meltdown"
1997	Duckman	Tyler Fitzgerald	Episode "From Brad to Worse"
	Touched by an Angel	Justinian Jones	Episode: "Jones vs. God"
1996–2001	Star Trek: Voyager	Q	Episodes: "Death Wish", "The Q and the Grey" and "Q2"
1999	The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest	Dr. Quest
2000	Angry Beavers	The Yak in the Sack	Episode: "Yak in the Sack Gets Thwacked"
2000	The West Wing	Al Kiefer
	Sports Night	Bert Stors	Episode "April is the Cruelest Month"
2001	Special Unit 2	King of the Links	Episode "The Eve"
2001	The Practice	Walter Bannish
2001–2002	Stargate SG-1	Colonel Frank Simmons / Goa'uld	Seasons 5–6 (5 episodes)
2003	Judging Amy	Dr. Eagan	Episode "Picture of Perfect"
	Duck Dodgers	Sinestro	Episode "The Green Loontern"
2004–2005	Charmed	Odin
2005	The Closer	Dr. Dawson	Episode "Flashpoint"
2009	Greek	Himself	Episode "The Dork Knight"
2009	Crank: High Voltage	Fish Halman
2009–2010	Breaking Bad	Donald Margolis
2011	Law & Order: LA	Judge Avery Staynor	Episode "Carthay Circle"
	Torchwood: Miracle Day	Agent Allen Shapiro
	Young Justice	Mister Twister	Episode: "Welcome to Happy Harbor"
2011–2013	My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic	Discord	Episodes: "The Return of Harmony Part 1", "The Return of Harmony Part 2", & "Keep Calm and Flutter On"
2012	NTSF:SD:SUV::	Leonardo da Vinci	Episode "Time Angels"
	The Secret Circle	Royce Armstrong	Episode "Crystal"

External links

• Official website
• John de Lancie at IMDb
• John de Lancie at AllMovie
• John de Lancie at Memory Alpha
• StarTrek.com biography
• John de Lancie Interview at AMCtv.com
• BronyCon: The Documentary Kickstarter Page