Wil Wheaton?

[Gravekeeper]

I like Trek, but to me The Next Generation (or TNG) kind of ruined his acting career. The Westly Crusher character was just universally disliked. He was great in "Stand by Me" and then he did TNG, and that was the end. I am sure he made enough money.

He actually does a lot of cartoon/video game voice work and some anime dubbing. Actually appearing on film though, yeah, Wesley sunk him and he usually only does guest appearences and what not. Kind of a shame, really. The character of Wesley wasn't his fault, it was a Mary Sue being shoved into the series until Ronald Moore finally managed to shove him out.

It seems to me that a lot of Star Trek actors are stereotyped as Trek actors and cannot break out of that role. Some like Shatner and Patrick Stewart has, but I rarely have seen the other players of the newer series in anything else.

Actually most of the original Trek actors kept on pretty well I think and still do a lot of work these days ( Even aside from Shatner and Nimoy ). The TNG actors aren't as visible, but they still do quite a bit of stuff and several of them have done a farkton of voice acting work.

But I imagine after you do so many years on a show as a certain character though you're likely content to get out of the spot light for a while and focus on other projects you've been putting off all those years. Remember, TNG actually ran over twice as long as the original series. So all the main actors were on TV for 7 years plus however many movies. After that you'd want to relax for a while and do crazy shit like voice video game villains ;p

[Andara Bledin]

I don't know. IMDb shows that he's been working pretty steadily since ST:NG, with several recurring roles or solid gigs (mostly voice roles), such as Teen Titans, Legion of Super Heroes, The Guild, Ben 10, and Eureka. And that's not even counting the appearances he does as himself, which are nothing to sneeze at, either, including Penny Arcade and The Big Bang Theory.

^-.-^

[Racket_Man]

If I remember correctly Jonathon Frakes (Cmdr Will Reiker on ST;TNG) does a LOT of voice over stuff, narration of programs and is heavyily into directing

Patrick Steward is still very active in acting in non Sci-Fi stuff.

[AdminAssistant]

Patrick Stewart was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for years before Star Trek and is still associated with them. Also, fairly recently, he and Sir Ian McKellan did Waiting for Godot together....I can only imagine how amazing that performance must have been.

[Gravekeeper]

If I remember correctly Jonathon Frakes (Cmdr Will Reiker on ST;TNG) does a LOT of voice over stuff, narration of programs and is heavyily into directing

Heh, Xanatos on Gargoyles. Him, Brent Spiner ( Data ) and Marina Sirtus ( Counciler Troi ) all voiced regular to semi regular characters on Gargoyles, and Michael Dorn ( Worf ) guest starred in a few episodes as well. They pop up in a surprising number of places. Sirtus and Dorn were both in the Mass Effect series for example.

Chekov had a stint on Babylon 5 as a reoccurring villain too now that I remember.

[jackfaire]

Jonathon Frakes was also seen sans facial hair on a guest spot in NCIS LA

[draco664]

Patrick Stewart was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for years before Star Trek and is still associated with them. Also, fairly recently, he and Sir Ian McKellan did Waiting for Godot together....I can only imagine how amazing that performance must have been.

Sir Ian was feckin' awsome when I saw him in Waiting for Godot in Melbourne.

The costumes were so good that when he took a break from rehearsal one day, a passerby dropped a dollar into his hat.

[MadMike]

You know, I think you should all be nicer to Hwil Hweaton.

[Gravekeeper]

Jonathon Frakes was also seen sans facial hair on a guest spot in NCIS LA

Ok, that would freak me out. Nothing good ever came out of him being beardless. Whenever I see anything from the first season of TNG when he was beardless, I can never shake the feeling something is wrong with the universe.

[Hyena Dandy]

The reason I hated his character was the way he'd always 'save the day' in far too many episodes, and was the Mary Sue of Star Trek, IMO.

That was really pronounced in the first episode, when they'd been planning on writing combining the best elements of all the Wesley-centric episodes into one. They didn't have time for that, and used the several different scripts they'd been given.