Photo: Sarah Coulter/Paramount+
LeVar Burtonlearned a profound lesson last year when he lost out on his dream of being named the new permanent host ofJeopardy!
“Your failures are more important than your successes because you learn more from them,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “Everything happens for a reason, and it’s all purposeful and perfect. So where’s the perfection in ‘I didn’t get what I wanted’? I discovered that [it] wasn’t supposed to be mine, but the process that I went through led me to exactly where I needed to be.”
CAROL KAELSON/JEOPARDY PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Had Burton landed the demanding game-show gig, the actor realizes he might not be in the place of “absolute bliss” that he’s in today: reprising one of his most beloved roles,Star Trek: The Next Generation’sGeordi La Forge, for the third and final season ofStar Trek: Picardon Paramount+.
A big part of the thrill of returning to the franchise for the first time sinceStar Trek: Nemesisin 2002 is the chance to work alongside his daughter Mica. The 28-year-old actress (her mom is Burton’s wife of 30 years, Hollywood makeup artist Stephanie Cozart Burton) was cast to play one of Geordi’s daughters.
Also,Picardreunites Burton with hisStar Trek: The Next GenerationcastmatesPatrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis. More than friends, the original crew from the ’80s and ’90s sci-fi hit are like family — and that’s not a platitude.
“Mica’s grown up with them all,” Burton says, pointing out that Spiner served as best man at his 1992 wedding, while Dorn, Frakes and Stewart were groomsmen. “We have spent so much of our lives with each other,” he says.
Being back on-set, he adds, “was effortless — like the old days.”
Trae Patton/Paramount+
Before he launched into space onscreen, Burton became a star, figuratively speaking, with his Emmy-nominated performance as the young Kunta Kinte in the 1977 ABC miniseriesRoots.
BetweenRainbowandNext Generation, on which he appeared from 1987 to 1994, he remained a household name and face, but his family was his priority.
“My wife, she taught me what love looks like, sounds like, tastes like, smells like,” says the father of two. (He has a son, Eian, born in 1980 from a previous relationship.) “Then when Mica came, I was transitioning from making my living as an actor to making my living as a director. And in those early days, I was gone all the time.”
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For Mica, working with her father and her “aunts and uncles” has been a “whirlwind,” she says. “My agent told me that I was cast, and my dad didn’t know, so I got to tell him.”
On her first day, she recalls, “my dad drove me to work, and it was just my family on-set, myStar Trekfamily.” But despite her joy over joining the series' sci-fi universe, Mica admits she wasn’t always a Trekkie: “I didn’t want to be ‘LeVar Burton’s daughter.’ I wanted to be myself, my own person. And so I purposefully was anti-Star Trekfor a long time.”
Sarah Coulter/Paramount+
“We’re in a different business now,” says Burton, who, in addition to acting, has directed episodes ofStar Trek,CharmedandJAG. “There are so many more people of color and women and other marginalized groups that are in front of [the camera] and behind the scenes. Are we finished? Not even close, but we have made significant strides, real strides.”
The formerReading Rainbowhost recently partnered with the educational games company Osmo to “do what I’ve always done — using the prevailing technology to give children a tool that will help them crack the code.”
He’s also an executive producer of the 2023 documentaryThe Right to Read, which, he explains, “frames early childhood literacy as a civil rights issue. That’s whatReading Rainbowwas all about: fostering a love of the written word. I’m focusing my attention now on giving kids the tools they need to learn how to read.”
Between that bold mission and the one he’s embarked on with his daughter and closest friends onPicard, Burton says life is just as it should be: “I’m ecstatic that things have worked out the way they have.”
For more on LeVar Burton, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
source: people.com
