Patrick Stewart Reflects On The Beginning And End Of His Initial Stint As Picard
The twice-humbled not shy actor has a new autobiography
Legendary actor Patrick Stewart has written an autobiography, Making It So: A Memoir, which was released on Tuesday. It is packed with anecdotes and talks about his decades in British theater, his love life, his time on the X-Men franchise and his friendship with his co-star Ian McKellen. But of course, there’s a lot about his time on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Stewart starts off with the immense nervousness he had about playing a Star Trek captain, as he regarded the original series so highly that he was determined to take the part quite seriously. Industry insiders called the series, his first regular TV role coming off the Shakespearean stage, doomed to fail. He was being paid more money than he ever thought he could earn, feeling the need to prove critics wrong while respecting and upholding the first crew’s legacy. However, he’d find himself getting angry while shooting the first season when Denise Crosby, Jonathan Frakes, and Brent Spiner would tease him or ad-lib a joke or laugh when they messed up on their lines.
He admitted “I could be a severe bastard. My experiences at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre had been intense and serious… On the TNG set, I grew angry with the conduct of my peers, and that’s when I called that meeting in which I lectured the cast for goofing off and responded to Denise Crosby’s, 'We’ve got to have some fun sometimes, Patrick' comment by saying, 'We are not here, Denise, to have fun.'” He describes how that now everyone laughs about it in hindsight “But in the moment, when the cast erupted in hysterics at my pompous declaration, I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at. I stormed off the set and into my trailer, slamming the door.”
Frakes and Spiner would then come to his trailer to talk it over. “People respect you,” Spiner told him. “But I think you misjudged the situation here.” They came to the understanding that while the goofing around did need to be dialed back, applying Royal Shakespeare Company behavior and decorum to an episodic television set wasn’t quite appropriate either, especially trying to resolve the issue through lecturing and scolding.
Later on, he reminisces on filming Star Trek: Nemesis, which released in 2002 and was, until the greenlight of Star Trek: Picard in 2018, his final onscreen performance as Jean-Luc Picard. “And Nemesis, which came out in 2002, was particularly weak," Stewart laments, sharing a sentiment most fans and critics would agree on. "I didn't have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie's villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy." Yes, that Tom Hardy. The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant and Venom Tom Hardy. Shinzon is a botched clone of Picard the Romulans created to replace him; however, that doesn’t mean they were particularly close on set. "Tom wouldn't engage with any of us on a social level," Stewart wrote. He goes on to elaborate Hardy didn’t give hellos and goodbyes and apparently spent a lot of time in his trailer when he wasn’t needed on set with his “girlfriend” who is most likely his wife at the time, Sarah Ward, as they had married in 1999. Hardy wasn’t difficult to work with, just to gel with.
Further so, Stewart felt so off-put that he didn’t believe Hardy would amount to much as an actor, writing "On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door. As it closed, I said quietly to Brent and Jonathan, 'And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.' It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong."
Sources: Insider, The Hollywood Reporter