'Captain Picard' Patrick Stewart turns 80

Beginning in 1987, British stage actor Patrick Stewart followed William Shatner as the commander of the Starship Enterprise in the revival of the legendary Star Trek science fiction series. For seven years, he commanded his crew through the endless expanses of space, entering regions no human had ever seen before and taking his career to unexpected heights. 

It was a long away from the small English town of Mirfield in Yorkshire where Patrick Hewes Stewart was born on July 13, 1940. To this day he remembers how helpless he felt as a child when he saw his father, an officer in the British Army traumatized by the war, beat up his mother.

Patrick Stewart's Shakespearean origins

Stewart began acting at the age of 12. He dropped out of school at age 16, studied acting in Bristol on a scholarship and had a job as a reporter. In 1965 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and worked there for a quarter of a century. The theater world and bloodthirsty Shakespearean dramas were his salvation from the real violence at his family home. 

Read more: The inexhaustible, always contemporary Shakespeare

In 1979, Stewart's performance in Anthony and Cleopatra won him the Laurence Olivier Award. By then he had started to perform in BBC TV drama productions such as I, Claudius.

His one-person stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was a theater sensation: Stewart played more than 30 roles himself. After its 1987 premiere in Stewart's hometown, the show became a critic's favorite and a fixture on Broadway in New York.

Off to Hollywood for Star Trek

It was also in 1987 that the relatively unknown stage actor was beamed onto television screens, taking on the role of Commander Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Hesitant to join the show, Stewart agreed after his agent assured him it would be a one-off. But in fact, Stewart ended up steering the USS Enterprise through its galactic adventures for a total of 178 episodes over the next seven years, as well as four full-length feature films. Unlike the miniseries he performed for the BBC, Star Trek's relentless filming schedule proved a struggle. 

Back on Planet Earth, the series had a brief but astronomical success. The producers were initially at odds as to whether Stewart's British accent could really fit the commander of a US spaceship in the 24th millennium. Over time, the character's subtle diplomatic maneuvering became an integral part of the series, especially when he would quote Shakespeare in the starship's cockpit. Continuing the tradition, Stewart quoted sonnets by Shakespeare on his 80th birthday.

When the cult series ended in 1994, the most successful of the Star Trek franchise ever aired, Stewart ruled out ever returning to the command bridge of the Enterprise.

The return of Captain Picard 

But 25 years later, he was back. In the new Amazon Prime series Star Trek Picard, we see Captain Jean-Luc Picard spending his retirement in a vineyard in France in 2399.

Having stressed in many interviews that he had said everything he could about his beloved intergalactic character, Stewart decided to reprise the role only after being given the freedom to recreate a whole new look and feel for the series as an executive producer. 

The series reflects much of the present, says Stewart, an avowed leftist who makes no secret of his contempt for US President Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and is concerned about the rise of nationalism and growing economic inequality. 

In 2010, the actor was knighted by the British Royal Family, putting him in league with other great character actors like Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Alec Guinness.

In an interview in June 2020, shortly before his 80th birthday, Playboy magazine asked him whether he had thought of quitting acting soon. "Never, because I would be quitting my life," he said. "When I was acting as a child, I wasn’t 'Patrick Stewart.' I was living somebody else’s life, one that was better than mine. I have always felt safe onstage."