John de Lancie is an American actor, producer, musician, and writer. He has been featured in several recurring roles on American television series, including Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, Colonel Frank Simmons in Stargate SG-1 and Donald Margolis in Breaking Bad, and Discord in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Known for his wit, de Lancie portrayed the god-like Q, a recurring character in several of the Star Trek franchises. Q is one of the 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 the Star Trek: Voyager’s episode “Q2.”

In addition to his roles in Star Trek, de Lancie has appeared in many other television shows. He was a popular actor on the soap opera Days of Our Lives as Eugene, who one day went down to the basement and was never seen again. He also co-starred in Star Trek writer Michael Piller’s creation, Legend, had recurring roles in Stargate SG-1 as an NID agent. He has also appeared as Dr. Deroy in three television films of Emergency! Additionally, de Lancie has also guest starred in multiple television series, including Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Charmed, Andromeda, The Unit, Law & Order: LA, Torchwood: Miracle Day, Touched by an Angel, Mission: Impossible (1980s Revival) and Special Unit 2.

De Lancie has also voiced characters in several animated series, including Duck Dodgers, The Angry Beavers, Max Steel, Duckman, Invader Zim, and the character Discord, who appears in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This character was actually inspired by de Lancie’s Q, as a being who embodies chaos but is occasionally helpful to the heroes of the show.

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, Reign Over Me, My Apocalypse, Crank, Crank 2 and You Lucky Dog.

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 appeared in Star Trek: The Music, a touring company, 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 in 2001 at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles.

Further, 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 Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball game, Star Trek: Borg, and Star Trek: The Game Show.

While on stage at the 2012 Ottawa Comic Con, de Lancie announced that he had 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 disrespectfully 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 Kickstarter campaign began on May 13, 2012 and by June 10, 2012 had reached a grand total of $322,022, becoming Kickstarter’s second highest funded film project of all time. Recently, de Lancie appeared in a production of Mr. Wolf.

This biography was adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_de_Lancie as well as other sources.