Star Trek: The Next Generation's Patrick Stewart - make it so

June 1, 6:36 PMActing ExaminerDeborah Smith Ford

Previous Next

4 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Acting Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Angelina Jolie, Signourney Weaver, Mel Gibson, Natalie Portman, Harrison Ford, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishbourne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Val Kilmer, Farrah Fawcett, Sean Austin...

The list of actors who have been a part of sci-fi one way or another, appears to be endless - from the moment film or television was invented to current day, movie goers have not seemed to grow tired of science fiction or the fantasy thereof.

Patrick Stewart is the actor who will be "engaged" at this time.  Interesting to see what background and acting training each actor has and how they got to where they are today.  But Stewart's life of acting will no doubt be enough to transport us to another realm.

Patrick Hewes Stewart is an English film, television and stage actor. He has had a distinguished career in theatre for nearly fifty years, including performances as various characters in Shakespearean productions. However, he is perhaps most widely known for his television and film roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Professor Xavier in the X-Men films.

Throughout childhood, Stewart endured great poverty. This disadvantage in early years influenced his later years not only in politics but was cause enough for him to make a short video for Amnesty International, against violence (due to his father's physical attacks on his mother, thus effecting him as a child).  At age 11,  Stewart entered Mirfield Secondary Modern School where he studied drama.

At age 15, Stewart dropped out of school and increased his participation in local theatre. He acquired a job as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer, but after a year, his employer suggested he choose between the two, acting or journalism. He quit reporting as he would attend rehearsals during work time and then invent the stories he reported. 

At the age of 17, Stewart embarked on a two-year acting course at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He lost most of his hair by the age of 19 but he successfully sold himself to theatre producers after performing an audition with and without a wig, heralding his performance as "two actors for the price of one!"

By the mid-60s the Manchester Library Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company were "homes" to Patrick Stewart for a while.  It was here that he worked, on stage, with Ben Kingsley and Ian Richardson. His Broadway debut was as Snout in Peter Brook's legendary production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, then he moved to the Royal National Theatre in the early 1980s.

Over the years, Stewart took roles in many major television series without ever becoming a household name. He appeared as Lenin in Fall of Eagles; Sejanus in I, Claudius; Karla in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People; Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of Hamlet. He even took the romantic male lead in the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's North and South (wearing a hairpiece). He also appeared in Sir Kenneth Clark's Civilisation: A Personal View series (Episode 6), as Horatio.

As the captain, I was going to be having the dominant role in most of the episodes, and that was appealing. I wasn't interested in coming to Hollywood to sit around.
Patrick Stewart

Stewart also had many minor film roles throughout the 1980s. In 1987, after attending a Shakespeare Seminar, Stewart went to Los Angeles to star as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), for which he received a 1995 Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series."

Stewart also portrayed Picard in the movie spin-offs Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek Nemesis (2002); and in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's pilot episode "Emissary".

Stewart has said that he is very proud of his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, for its social message and educational impact on young viewers. On being questioned about the significance of his role compared to his distinguished Shakespearean career, Stewart has said,

The fact is all of those years in Royal Shakespeare Company -- playing all those kings, emperors, princes and tragic heroes -- were nothing but preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise."

The accolades Stewart has received include "Sexiest Man on Television" (TV Guide, 1992), which he considered an unusual distinction considering his age and his baldness.  Energize ~Star Trek - acting in an alternate timeline ~ The Star Trek Movie Awards ~ New Star Trek film will be everywhere ~Star Trek Acting - the final frontier ~

In an interview with Michael Parkinson, Stewart expressed gratitude for Gene Roddenberry's comment to a reporter who said,

Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century."

to which Roddenberry replied,

In the 24th Century, they wouldn't care."

Patrick Stewart has lent his voice to numerous projects, including many animated films, computer games and commercials.  It appears that whatever Stewart is asked to do in the areas of entertainment, he can make it so.