It’s been a rough week for Star Trek fans, with the passing of Walter Koenig and then Mon Capitaine, Patrick Stewart. Personally, I learned of Sir Pat’s passing yesterday afternoon and cried more than a little, especially after seeing Wil Wheaton post on Instagram…
My first remembrance of Patrick Stewart comes from a Saturday night in 1987 at my grandparents’ house. That night, our local NBC affiliate, WAVE 3, would show the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’d seen the ads for some time and was more excited than any 10-year-old should be about a TV show. But I’d grown up on reruns of the original Star Trek and had seen all the movies (I’m pretty sure I saw Star Trek IV in theatres. You know, the funny, time travel one with the whales). That night, I sat next to my grandfather in their bed, propped up on pillows. To this day, I have no idea if my grandfather even liked watching Star Trek, but he knew I did. He’d record later episodes for me in case I’d missed them.
We watched as the title screen appeared, and we caught our first look at the new Enterprise (my god, did it seem huge) and a tight zoom on the new captain, Jean-Luc Picard. First, I wasn’t crazy about a bald guy being the captain. He looked really, really old. What happened to having a guy like James Tiberius Kirk running the show? Oh, what a journey I was about to go on... This first episode was long, shown later as two episodes, but that gave us a chance to see a lot of Picard doing his thing. Of course, I had no clue who the actor was, or that he was one of the finest Shakespearean actors of our age. No clue that his baritone voice could carry such compassion in one moment and then raise the roof of a room the next. I was in awe of this character.
Over the years, as we got to know the character better, I learned his love of exploration and discovery, his diplomacy above all, and that he only acted when absolutely necessary, but always made sure the outcome was in his favor. I still didn’t know much about Patrick Stewart until the X-Men movies came out. Then, I began learning about the man behind the characters. His views of the world influenced me as I grew older: always looking for the best in everyone and believing the world is a better place if we all learn to love each other.
What kind of influence did he have on me? In high school French class, we had to choose French names. Another Mike in my class (a good friend) got to pick before I did, and he, of course, chose the French Michel. We didn’t want to have two of those in class, so I picked... Jean-Luc.
Looking back, Picard taught me more about what strength looks like than anyone else. It wasn't physical force. It was standing firm for a value or a conviction, and then using that strength to shield people who had less of it. He made curiosity look like a virtue and intelligence look powerful, and he wasn't afraid to change his mind. He led with kindness, too, encouraging the people around him to be better than the sum of their parts. Those are qualities I try to practice whenever I can. It means even more to me knowing that Stewart himself grew up around domestic violence, later stood against it, and publicly advocated for people less fortunate than himself. From where I sit, the line between Picard and Patrick is pretty blurry.
Three years ago, when his memoir “Making It So” hit bookstores, I got to see Patrick Stewart in person in Cincinnati. I was on the second row, almost right in front of him. It’s a night I’ll never forget and one I’ve thought much about since learning of his death. He was a giant of a man whose influence will be felt for many years to come. This week’s 10 Things celebrates him.
Born in 1940 in a Yorkshire mill town, in a house with no hot water, the boy who would become Captain Picard used the family’s stall in the communal outhouse as a reading nook, one of many details in the Times obituary that make the rest of the story land harder.
A teacher handed out scripts for The Merchant of Venice and told twelve-year-old Patrick to read Shylock, and Cecil Dormand kept going from there: insisting Shakespeare be read aloud because it was drama, casting him in his first adult play, and quietly helping cover the fees for an acting course. Stewart called him on his 90th birthday.
Skipping the 11-plus to walk in the hills, leaving school at fifteen for a newspaper job, and still naming an English teacher as the biggest influence on his career: that’s what Stewart told sixth-formers in west London in 2009.
He didn’t talk about his father’s violence until later in life, but when he did, writing in the Guardian, he described learning as a small child to place himself between his father’s fist and his mother’s face.
Long before the Enterprise, he worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company alongside Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, and Glenda Jackson, and later won Olivier Awards for Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra and for Claudius opposite David Tennant’s Hamlet.
Some of his theater peers treated the move to Hollywood as slumming, which Stewart called snobbery in a 2003 interview, adding that he’d always be Jean-Luc Picard to a lot of people, and that was fine with him because he believed the character was an admirable one.
What did seven seasons of Picard teach the man who played him? How to listen, he said, a lesson that carried into his late-career turn with the Improvised Shakespeare Company, where listening to everything said is the whole game.
He almost didn’t take the part: a friend, an important English actor, told him to stay on the stage, and the six-year contract was expected to last a single season, so his memoir interview with NPR is a good reminder of how much came from a decision he nearly made the other way. He also described the cast as a kind of ministry and said playing Picard showed him how he might become a better person.
Amy Imhoff was seven when “Yesterday’s Enterprise” introduced her to Picard, and her essay for StarTrek.com praises the captain who listened to Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi, along with the authority of that voice, and Stewart’s advocacy off screen.
Dune’s Gurney Halleck, Professor X in the X-Men films and again in Logan, a return to the bridge at eighty: the Enterprise wasn’t his first science-fiction home or his last, and the tributes from Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, William Shatner, George Takei and others are still coming in, with Avengers: Doomsday waiting to show his final performance.
Enjoy a cup of Yorkshire Gold (not Earl Grey) this weekend, gang. See you next week.