Patrick Stewart

Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor. With a career spanning over seven decades of stage and screen, he has received various accolades, including two Olivier Awards and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for a Tony Award, three Golden Globe Awards, four Emmy Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama in 2010.

In 1966, Stewart became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He made his Broadway theatre debut in 1971 in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1979, he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Antony and Cleopatra in the West End. His first television role was in Coronation Street in 1967. His first major screen roles were in Fall of Eagles (1974), I, Claudius (1976) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979). In 2008 he reprised his role as King Claudius in Hamlet and received his second Olivier Award and his first Tony Award nomination for respectively the West End and Broadway theatre productions.

Stewart gained international stardom for his leading role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), a role he reprised in a series of films and Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023). He starred as Captain Ahab in the USA Network miniseries Moby Dick (1998), Ebenezer Scrooge in TNT television film A Christmas Carol (1999) and King Henry II in the Showtime film The Lion in Winter (2003). He was Primetime Emmy Award-nominated for his comedic roles in the NBC sitcoms Frasier (2003) and BBC comedy series Extras (2005). He also starred as the lead of the Starz comedy series Blunt Talk (2015–2016). He voices CIA executive Avery Bullock on American Dad! (2005–present).

On film, he gained stardom portraying Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men film series from 2000 to 2017, reprising the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also acted in Hedda (1975), Excalibur (1981), Dune (1984), L.A. Story (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Jeffrey (1995) and The Kid Who Would Be King (2019). He has also voiced roles in The Pagemaster (1994), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), Chicken Little (2005), Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), and Ted (2012).

Early life and education

Patrick Stewart was born in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire on 13 July 1940, the son of Gladys (née Barrowclough), a weaver and textile worker, and Alfred Stewart (1905–1980), a regimental sergeant major in the British Army Parachute Regiment during the Second World War who later worked as a general labourer and postman. He has two older brothers named Geoffrey (born 1925) and Trevor (born 1935). He spent much of his childhood in a poor household in Mirfield, where he experienced domestic violence at the hands of his father. As a result of wartime service during the Dunkirk evacuation, his father suffered from combat fatigue, which is now known as PTSD. Stewart said in 2008, "My father was a very potent individual, a very powerful man, who got what he wanted. It was said that when he strode onto the parade ground, birds stopped singing. It was many, many years before I realised how my father inserted himself into my work. I've grown a moustache for Macbeth. My father didn't have one, but when I looked in the mirror just before I went on stage I saw my father's face staring straight back at me."

Stewart attended Crowlees Junior and Infant School, a Church of England–affiliated school in Mirfield. He later attributed his acting career to his English teacher there, Cecil Dormand, who "put a copy of Shakespeare in [Stewart's] hand" and told him to get up and perform. He entered Mirfield Secondary Modern School in 1951, aged 11, and continued to study drama there. Around the same time, he met and befriended fellow actor Brian Blessed on a drama course in Mytholmroyd. At the age of 15, he left school and increased his participation in local theatre. He supported himself with work as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer for the local newspaper, Stewart left after one year when his boss gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism. According to one of his brothers, Stewart would attend theatre rehearsals when he was supposed to be in work and then invent the stories he was reporting on, or persuade other reporters to cover for him. Stewart got a job in a furniture store, that not only allowed him to attend rehearsals with little scheduling conflict, but he also found that his thespian talent was applicable, resulting him in becoming productive in sales while practising his acting technique by tailoring his sales pitch for each customer. He also trained in boxing. He has said that acting served as a means of self-expression in his youth. Stewart and Blessed later received grants to attend the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Stewart was the first person who was neither a graduate of Oxford nor Cambridge to receive a grant from West Riding Council.

Career

Early acting career (1959–1987)

Stewart's first professional stage appearance was on 19 May 1959 at the Theatre Royal, Bristol (for the Bristol Old Vic Company), playing Cutpurse (a thief among the audience for the play-within-a-play) in Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by John Hale. Following a period with Manchester's Library Theatre, Stewart became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, remaining with them until 1982. He was an associate artist of the company in 1967. He appeared with actors such as Ben Kingsley and Ian Richardson. In January 1967, he made his debut TV appearance on Coronation Street as a fire officer. In 1969, he had a brief TV cameo role as Horatio, opposite Ian Richardson's Hamlet, in a performance of the gravedigger scene as part of episode six of Sir Kenneth Clark's Civilisation television series. During the early 1970s, UCSB professor Homer Swander recruited him to help teach American university students about Shakespeare, which led to his breakthrough into Hollywood. He made his Broadway debut as Snout in Peter Brook's legendary 1970 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, then 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 Vladimir 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 took the romantic male lead in the 1975 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. He also took the lead, as psychiatric consultant Dr Edward Roebuck, in BBC's Maybury in 1981. He continued to play minor roles in films, such as King Leondegrance in John Boorman's Excalibur (1981), the character Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's Dune (1984), Dr. Armstrong in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985) and Henry Grey in Lady Jane (1986), the story of English Queen Lady Jane Grey.

Stewart preferred classical theatre to other genres, asking Doctor Who actress Lalla Ward why she would work in science fiction or on television. In 1987, he nonetheless agreed to work in Hollywood on a revival of Star Trek, after Robert H. Justman saw him while attending a literary reading at UCLA. Stewart knew nothing about the cultural influence of Star Trek or its iconic status in American culture. He was reluctant to sign the standard contract of six years, but did so as he, his agent, and others with whom Stewart consulted, all believed the new show would quickly fail, and that he would return to his London stage career after making some money. Regardless, Stewart's trusted colleague, Ian McKellen, was particularly vocal in advising Stewart not to throw away his theatrical career for this foray into television, which Stewart had to disregard considering the opportunity. While in Hollywood, he spent 18 months using the professional name "Patrick Hewes Stewart" while negotiating the rights to his original name from an American actor who had already registered it with the Screen Actors Guild.

Film and TV career (1987–present)

Star Trek: The Next Generation

When Stewart was picked for the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), the Los Angeles Times called him an "unknown British Shakespearean actor". Still living out of his suitcase because of his scepticism that the show would succeed, he was unprepared for the long schedule of television production that began at 4:45 am each day. He initially experienced difficulty fitting in with his less-disciplined castmates. In interviews, he recalled with embarrassment a time when he scolded the main cast for being unprofessional in his opinion, by saying "We're not here... to have fun!" Furthermore, Stewart has stated that his "spirits used to sink" whenever he was required to memorise and recite technobabble. He eventually came to better understand the cultural differences between the stage and television and relaxed to a degree at work, and his favourite technical line became "spacetime continuum".