An Interview With ‘King of the Geeks’ Wil Wheaton

From starring in Stand by Me and playing Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation to appearing as himself in The Big Bang Theory and becoming a social media supernova, Wil Wheaton has charted a career course unlike anyone else. The highly acclaimed producer, narrator, and actor has emerged as one of the most popular and well-respected names in science fiction, fantasy, and pop culture.

Earlier this year, Wheaton released his latest book, Still Just a Geek, which revisits his collection of blog posts detailed in his 2004 memoir, Just a Geek. Filled with insightful and often laugh-out-loud annotated comments, additional later writings, and new material, the result is an incredibly raw and honest story.

Opening up about his life, falling in love, coming to grips with being a child actor, and finding fulfillment, Still Just a Geek is resonating with fans and aspiring artists alike.

Wheaton took some time to talk more about the book, his life, and career with OFM.

Let’s begin by talking more about your latest book, Still Just a Geek, which is an annotated edition of your earlier release, Just a Geek. How has it been received by audiences?

So far so good! I think people who don’t respond to it are not going to seek me out to let me know, but what I have heard overwhelmingly from people is that they got out of it what I hoped people would. They got out of it what I put into it. I’m being told that the story I tell of trauma recovery and abuse survival is meaningful and relevant, which is reassuring to me, but also kind of a bummer, and many people have told me that they enjoy the humor in it. That intimate look at what it means to be me and working out what it was like to be a person who was forced to be a kid actor and become famous against my will, then having to deal with how that affected the rest of my life.

What inspired you to go back and create this annotated edition instead of writing something completely new?

My editor said, “I liked the original Just a Geek and I read it when it came out, but I recently looked at it again and noticed places I think you would agree are problematic. You might want to revisit it.” These pieces are problematic because I was just lazy and ignorant, and I needed to own that. I needed atone for things that are, in retrospect, hurtful, gross, and stupid. I’ve grown and changed a lot.

A reviewer said, and I’m so glad she wrote this because it makes so much sense, I go out of my way to completely ignore my reviews, but I accidentally saw it, and she said, “I’ve always felt that men shouldn’t be writing memoirs in their 20s because they haven’t lived enough to experience life, and they don’t know as much as they think they know. I’m glad Wil went back and revisited this because he’s now an adult and can actually tell the story.”

I thought about that a lot, and it’s very insightful and accurate. Just a Geek, the book I wrote in 2004, was the best I could do at the time. It tells a piece of a story, but it’s very incomplete. It’s very much this first draft, and I didn’t realize it was an incomplete first draft that left out all the deeply personal things that I was unaware of 20 years ago. I was not as in touch with the reality of my life, childhood, and career in 2004 as I am now.

It let me look at it with perspective, wisdom, and time. That allowed me to go, “Oh, the story is incomplete.” These are the places where it can be finished, and the finishing is in the annotating and in the reconsidering of different moments.

How was it to go back and revisit these old blog posts and memories and interact with your younger self?

It was an interesting journey at first. I was embarrassed and impatient with myself because I was spending time with someone who is not as mature as I am, and I saw this person who was not as clever as he thought he was. Because I was impatient and irritated, that was coming through in the way I was approaching the annotations and the way I felt about myself. I thought, “This isn’t right. This is not the right way to approach this. What’s missing?” We looked at it again, and that was when I decided it was time to be completely and fearlessly honest with myself.

Doing that, I found compassion and empathy for myself from 20 years ago. I could see this person who did not know he had depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I saw a person who’s struggling, terrified, hurting, and trying to be all these other things that are not his authentic self. I finally saw who I was. Yes, I said things that were lazy, misogynist, and homophobic, but they were never intended to be hurtful. They were just lazy and ignorant. As I’ve said in countless interviews, when you don’t know, you don’t know. When you do know, what are you going to do? You haven’t grown unless you do something about it.

Are you currently working on any upcoming book projects?

I am! I can’t tell you what specifically because it hasn’t been announced yet, but I am doing a fiction project that I am over the fucking moon about! I’m so excited and I can’t believe I get to do this, for real. It’s amazing, and I’m having such a good time working on it. I don’t know when that’s going to come out or when it will be announced, but that’s a thing to look forward to.

You are also an accomplished audiobook narrator and have lent your voice to several iconic and bestselling audiobooks. What is it about audio narration that appeals to you as a performer?

It lets me bring together the two things that I absolutely love. I love to read and tell stories, so I get to bring to life someone else’s story the same way I would when I read bedtime stories to my kids. The way I narrate books is the way I read in my head. It’s like I’m trying to really bring it alive and make the reader know different characters with different voices, intentions, and attitudes. I’m very lucky to have done an extraordinary amount of work with the same director for at least over a decade. She and I have a very close co-creative collaboration and a wonderful relationship that lets me 100% get out of my way and do the work. It’s such an incredible privilege that I get to do these things.

Which book has been your absolute favorite to narrate?

That’s a tough question because every project is satisfying and fun for its own, different reasons. The series that The Collapsing Empire is a part of, I absolutely loved it because I loved the character Kiva Lagos. I loved being her and feeling her exist in my body when I voiced her monologues. I truly connected with her.

I also cherished working on The Kaiju Preservation Society. It’s a book that John Scalzi wrote during the pandemic, in the aftermath of the coup attempt, and in the unfolding of fascist violence in America. John says he was writing what he described as a breeding symphony of a sci-fi novel, but he just couldn’t make it happen.

Turns out, the world didn’t need a breeding symphony of a sci-fi novel. What the world needs right now is a fun pop song. When John knew the idea for Kaiju Preservation Society, it arrived fully formed in his head, and he wrote it in a few days. I loved reading that book because I needed a pop song right now, too. It was a lot of fun.

How was it to narrate Still Just a Geek?

Narrating Still Just a Geek was important, but I wouldn’t call it fun. It was work. There are parts where I revisit extraordinarily traumatizing moments in my life, like when my parents forced me to go work on a movie in Italy, where my sister and I were abused constantly. The physical abuse never ended. I was terrified the entire time I was there and completely unsupported by my parents, who absolutely knew everything that I was going through. They didn’t do anything to stop it. I carry the memory of that trauma. It’s never very far away, and I never talked about it.

I talked about it for the very first time in my life when I wrote the book, and then I said it out loud for the very first time in my life in the narration. The take in the audiobook is the only one we did. When it was over, I asked Gabrielle, the director, if I needed to do it again because I felt it was maybe too intense. I really didn’t want to go back and re-experience it, but she said she thought the take that we had was the one that should be in the book. Saying all these things out loud in Still Just a Geek, that gave me the catharsis and the healing that I hoped I would get when I wrote the book.

I originally said in the afterword, “I hoped for catharsis in writing this, and all I really got was re-traumatized.” Now, there’s an annotation to that saying. I actually did achieve the catharsis, and it came through the recording of that audiobook. Saying it out loud, it activated something in my physical body. That changed something in me. I don’t entirely understand how the science of it works, but it was very healing. So, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had, but it was the most helpful.

May I ask which movie you were referring to?

The Curse.

Oh my God, really? I’m so sad to hear that because I actually enjoy that film.

Well, listen. When you watch that movie, I need you to know that you’re watching two children who are being abused regularly the entire time. That movie is nothing but child abuse and exploitation. One hundred percent of it. Every adult involved in that production should be forced to answer for their participation in the abuse of my sister and me while we did it. It was the most traumatic moment of my entire life. Everything else in my career was varying levels of great.

I’m so sorry you and your sister went through that. Even though you were forced to be a child actor and you experienced this trauma and abuse, why did you continue to pursue this career? Why didn’t you go into something completely different?

I didn’t know how to do anything else. I was 7 when my mom made me go to the agency and tell the agent, “I want to do what mommy does.” She coached and trained me, and I did a good job. I booked some commercials, and it was fun at first. It was new, different, and I was getting tons of attention. I was making my mom proud, and it felt great. Then the reality of what that meant really settled in almost immediately. Every day after school, instead of going home to do my homework, ride my bike, play with my friends, do any things that kids do, I was in the car in Los Angeles rush hour traffic going to auditions that I didn’t want to do.

I told my mom right away I didn’t want to do this, and she didn’t listen to me. She found ways to make me feel like I had no choice. Then I started saying, and I remember this very clearly, “I just want to be a kid. Please let me be a kid.” I don’t know how selfish, self-centered, and fucked up a parent has to be to hear their child beg them to let them be a kid, and the adult’s response to that is no. What I am using you for is more important to me than your clearly stated desire to be a child. Then my mom lied to me about that my whole life. She started saying to me, “I gave up my career so you could do this. You made a commitment to do this.”

None of that was true, but I gave up, and I had to believe the lie because fighting against it was exhausting. On top of that, my dad has hated me my entire life. He treated me like garbage, was never loving, nurturing, or caring, never expressed an interest in me, and never did things with me. He made it clear that my brother is perfect and can do no wrong, whereas I am awful and can do no right. I believe if I could be the best at acting and be successful enough to make my mom happy and fill up what she’s missing, that would somehow convince dad to care about me. She’ll then be happy and won’t be so needy all the time. That clearly didn’t happen because it was not about me.

As I was reaching the end of my teens, I remember thinking, “I need to find out if I can do something else because I don’t know if I want to be an actor for the rest of my life.” So, I started learning how to do other stuff, and I was totally unsupported by my parents. Dad couldn’t have been less interested, and the only time mom paid any attention to me was when I was pursuing this thing that was really important to her. As I got older, I tried to quit and do other things, but because I was so unsupported, I didn’t do it the right way. A couple crappy acting gigs were offered, and I felt like I had no choice. This was my life and all I could do.

I may be good at acting, but I don’t love it. It’s not my passion, and I honestly had no clue what my passion was. I started writing, and that was when I started thinking about maybe being a writer and learning how to do that. All in all, I am very grateful and lucky to have had the support of the cast of Star Trek, who have become the family I never had. I found love and support from my wife and some very close friends, and they made it possible for me to find this career that I actually want. I love voice acting; I love narrating audiobooks; I love hosting The Ready Room, and that all supports the core of my creative self, which is being a storyteller.

Did you enjoy making any of the films that you did as a child?

I loved working on Stand by Me. I had a wonderful time with that movie, and most of the time on Star Trek. I say most of the time because there were days where I was just an angsty teenager in a lot of emotional distress. Because of that, I had days where I just didn’t want to be there. I honestly didn’t want to be anywhere on those days, and it had nothing to do with Star Trek. It had everything to do with what I was experiencing.

You mentioned earlier that you have said some homophobic things in the past, but over the years, you have become quite an outspoken ally for LGBTQ people. Why is the queer community so important to you?

I grew up in a home where I was treated less than a human being for absolutely no reason. Like I said, my dad was so mean and dismissive of me, and it hurts so much. I was just being myself, and who I was wasn’t good enough. It was contemptible and worthy of mockery. The way that I see homophobes treat people in the LGBTQ community, I feel something similar. I know I have this privilege of being a cis, hetero, white dude, but I want to use my privilege to move us closer to ending discrimination, homophobia, and transphobia. We need to move closer to acceptance and embrace everyone who doesn’t go out of their way to hurt people.

The younger version of me was quick to make homophobic jokes that came out of insecurity and fear, but the truth is, I’ve always felt safest, happiest, and most comfortable in a queer space. I’m, like, the straightest dude in the world, but queer spaces are where I want to be. I can just be me. I was so insecure and scared when I was young because of how I heard people talk, and I expressed that in this hurtful way. I’m so sorry about that, and I’m going to fight with my dying breath to protect this community because it means so much to me. People shouldn’t have to fight for themselves the way that they must. It’s fucked up.

Before we wrap up, do you have any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug?

Yes! We are currently in talks for the next round of Ready Room, which will be for Star Trek Lower Decks, and I’m real, real, real grateful to be talking to their cast and creatives. I also just booked, or rather signed, the contract to narrate an audiobook that I’m excited to do. When I saw that this book was being published, I hoped they would do an audiobook. I was like, please pick me! Pick me! And they did (laughs). Lastly, a good friend of mine whom I have collaborated frequently with, we are about to do something really cool together.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Wheaton by following him on Facebook @wilwheaton, Instagram @itswilwheaton, or visit his official website, wilwheaton.net. Still Just a Geek is available at all book retailers.

Photos courtesy of Tyler Shield, Kaelan Barowsky, and Wil Wheaton