The Shakespearean actor who brought gravitas to Star Trek

For generations of fans, Patrick Stewart was the voice of authority. Over more than 60 years on stage and screen, Stewart took command as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Claudius, Prospero, and even Othello, and embodied intelligence and compassion as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, leader of Marvel’s X-Men. He delighted in subverting that stately image by playing against type, including as a vicious neo-Nazi in 2015’s Green Room and the poop emoji in 2017’s The Emoji Movie, and by goofing off on red carpets and talk shows with his lifelong friend Ian McKellen. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished British actors of his era, Stewart escaped a tormented childhood to attend the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School at age 17 and spent the rest of his life as a performer. “Acting was my only means of self- expression,” Stewart said in 2003. “The first time someone put me on a proper stage, I experienced the safest environment I had ever been in.”

Despite his regal bearing, Stewart “was born into poverty,” said The Times (U.K.). Raised in a West Yorkshire household without an indoor toilet or hot water, he had an “emotionally distant” father, an alcoholic who often violently assaulted Stewart’s mother. Stewart did poorly at school until age 12, when his teacher Cecil Dormand had the class read The Merchant of Venice aloud; Stewart was Shylock. “I barely understood a word,” Stewart said later, “but I loved the feel of the words and sounds in my mouth.” Dormand began casting him in plays, secretly paid for him to take an Easter-break drama course, and encouraged him to pursue acting as a career. In 2021, Stewart called him “the most significant person in my life,” saying, “he saved me.

Stewart soon “shed his Yorkshire dialect” and developed a “commanding baritone voice,” said The New York Times. Already bald by age 19 from hereditary alopecia, he sometimes donned wigs onstage but was also able to play roles older than his years. Joining the Royal Shakespeare Company at age 25, he appeared in Hamlet, King Lear, and The Taming of the Shrew, and by the 1970s, he was also moonlighting with “substantial roles” in British TV series such as Fall of Eagles and I, Claudius. In 1979, he won an Olivier Award for his performance as Enobarbus in an RSC production of Antony and Cleopatra.

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Despite steady work in the U.K., Stewart “was unfamiliar in America when he was given command of the USS Enterprise,” said The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles Times described him at the time as an “unknown British Shakespearean actor,” and even Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had doubts that fans would accept a middle-aged Brit playing the French captain. But Stewart imbued Picard with such moral power that the role ended up having global resonance. The Next Generation ran for seven seasons, from 1987 to 1994, earning 58 Emmy nominations and winning 19. Leadership courses now use Picard as a model to aspire to.

“It is hard to emphasize enough how dramatically Stewart’s life changed” after Star Trek, said Variety. He became a major Hollywood star, playing Professor X in eight Marvel blockbusters and reprising Picard in four feature films. Still, “his best dramatic performances” in this later period came “on the stage,” said The Guardian. He played Macbeth on Broadway, won another Olivier Award for playing Claudius in a 2008 RSC production of Hamlet, and starred with McKellen in a touring production of Waiting for Godot. Though his final stage performance was in 2016, he will appear as Professor X in next month’s Avengers: Doomsday. “I can’t imagine ever officially retiring,” Stewart said earlier this year. “I’ll always and forever be an actor.