Patrick Stewart felt like he was in a ministry when he was on ‘Star Trek’

Patrick Stewart: A Picard and a Xavier, from Star Trek to the Continuum, in Los Angeles, during his 35th birthday

Let me just be honest: Patrick Stewart brings out my daddy issues. That keen gaze, alternately steely and compassionate. That warrior-monk profile, disciplined and ascetic. The Shakespearean lines bring your mind and soul to sleep. For more than three decades, as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard and the X-Men’s Charles Xavier, Stewart has embodied a sort of kind and courtly Master of the Universe, trusted by all to wield awesome power exclusively for good. How much more could you want in a father?

Stewart has just released a memoir, Making It So, taking its title from a Picard catchphrase. We talked about his life on screen and stage, and why he considers those years on Star Trek as a kind of spiritual calling.

To be honest once more: As a piece of writing, the book is disappointingly guileless. There are moments of introspection and vulnerability, particularly around the impacts of witnessing his father repeatedly beating his mother and the breakdown of Stewart’s first two marriages, but these are brief. There’s a lot of what can only be called fanboying over legendary stars he’s met. Even the people he has clashed with, like Roddenberry, are dealt with fairly. I was tempted to conclude that Stewart was just English reticent about showing his true feelings, or he was trying to disguise an ambivalence about having become a household name for sci-fi and fantasy instead of Hamlet.

These suspicions started to evaporate the moment I met him in the kitchen of his house in Los Angeles. The guilelessness is genuine: Stewart in person is Picard and Xavier in their kindliest, most compassionate moments. He seems to be really happy with where he has gone. The house is full of art and artifacts that show a man who is loved by his friends and one who is very much wanted by them.

Stewart is also keenly aware of how few good years he has left. During our conversation, he apologized more than once for his “croaky” and “gravelly” voice (“So long as it doesn’t give offense”) and tendency to ramble (“Sometimes I lose my place”), and he swung between wanting to explore new roles and take Picard for one last spin.

Feeling Home in Strange Places: Sir Patrick Stewart’s Story of the Origins of Star Trek: The Next Generation Revisited

Sometimes you feel at home in strange places. It was 1997 and I was living in Japan, teaching English to middle school kids. I lived in a tiny village, and in those early days especially, I was pretty lonely. Except for my friends Jean Luc and Data.

The teacher who had lived in my apartment before had left a huge box of VHS tapes – there were enough episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to keep me company for the duration of my time there. I made friends in Japan, but it was the TV show that inspired me as I explored my own world.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is more than just a TV show for the most devoted of fans. Sir Patrick Stewart, who played the captain of The Next Generation in seven seasons, and starred in the latest TV version of the franchise, Picard, isn’t lost on this.

Stewart said that the impact of the Next Generation was extraordinary. The person said that he wouldn’t be able to watch Star Trek anymore because he was going to end his life, and that’s when it became their English language education.

Rachel Martin: There is a bit in the book, early in your career, I think it was your first job, but you were an assistant stage manager. It’s your first job in the industry and you write this beautiful description of what it felt like to be on the stage, and I wondered if you would read that for me.

After each performance, I waited for the actors to leave the theater and then switched on the lights and locked the theater up. The tradition of leaving a single light on in the center of the stage was that of an old theater tradition.

With the theater otherwise deserted, I stood beneath this light every night, taking a moment to breathe in the auditorium and the vibrations of the audience that had just left it. I looked at the set, which had recently been populated by our company of actors. I was part of all this now. Even if they had been a lowly assistant stage manager, I still had responsibilities to fulfill. I thought this was my home.

Martin: I think that it is a sacred quality to describe that space. Is that accurate? Was that kind of reverence about the theater in your opinion?

Stewart: Oh yes. To stand in the middle of an empty stage in an empty theater and feel that I was at home was everything. It took me a long time to get there.

Martin: You were not Gene Roddenberry’s first pick to play Jean Luc Picard. It was going to take you a long way from your family in England, since you were taking this role. Why did you take it?

Stewart: I wasn’t going to take it. Indeed, a dear friend of mine and a very important English actor had said to me, “Don’t do this, Patrick. It’s not what you need to do. You’re a great stage actor. That’s where you should be. Don’t do it.

I knew that the contract I was being offered was for six years, but I was told we would only make it through the first season. I remember one actor saying to me, “Sign up for this. It takes six months of work. Make some money for the first time in your life. Get well known, get a suntan, and go home.

And I thought, “Yeah. That doesn’t sound too bad. I could live with that.” And, of course, our first series lasted seven seasons. We made four feature films.

Source: Patrick Stewart says his time on ‘Star Trek’ felt like a ministry

Star Trek: A Spiritual Community, and What You Have Learned about LeVar Burton’s Work with Jean Luc Picard and His Crew

Martin: I talk to a lot of people about spirituality and about the value of spiritual communities, which I think are when people who have similar values gather together and have or seek transcendent experiences. Star Trek is the kind of show I think represents that to a lot of fans. It is a spiritual place. They have religious reverence for it. Have you encountered that? Do you understand?

Stewart: Yes. I see it very clearly and very strongly. It was about truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, no matter who they were or what strange alien creature they looked like. That was not important. They were alive and well. Jean Luc Picard and his crew were ready to assist them if they needed it.

We were ministers in a way. I have heard so many times from individuals who are honest enough and brave enough to tell me about their health and mental health. It was saved and improved by watching every week.

Martin asked how that sat with him. That is a lot of responsibility. You are a moral compass for them, you are an actor in a show and people ascribe to your wisdom.

Stewart was proud of what he did. I spoke to a group of people, including LeVar Burton, and I talked to some of them. This kind of thing is what we talked about a lot. We were having a good time, and it was a glorious feeling. We loved our jobs.

Stewart: No. It didn’t feel at all incongruous. Particularly given the role I was playing. This was a man of such profound understanding and empathy. To feel like that is a reward for the fact that we were changing people’s lives, even if we were not doing as well as we wanted.

It gave me an idea on how to become a better person. I was able to absorb that and make those feelings a strong and firm part of my life.