Patrick Stewart

Playing Jean-Luc for all those years had a real impact on me.

Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (13 July 1940 – 28 October 2026) was an English actor who had a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games, who first gained international stardom for his portrayal of Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. He was nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 16 December 1996. In 2010, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama.

Quotes

• I know that if it were all to end this evening, everything, I would be largely known for my work on Star Trek. I would be Captain Picard. Not Macbeth, King Lear, not Shakespeare, not any of those things, but Captain Picard. And I am absolutely fine with that.
  • As quoted in The Captains, a series of interviews conducted by William Shatner, 1 October 2011

• Sir Patrick Stewart was more than just an actor. He was the greatest actor... ever.
  • "Sir Patrick Stewart wants his eulogy done right", Just for Laughs Festival, Montreal (2015)

• I happened to be seeing my doctor the next day for a check-up so while he was down there I said, "By the way, my wife and I have had a little disagreement, I am circumcised, aren't I?"
  He took a closer look and said, "Not! I am Jewish, and definitely know the difference!"
  • As quoted in "Patrick Stewart Didn't Realize He Was Uncircumcised Until Late in Life" by Francesca Bacardi, eonline.com (23 February 2017)

• Jean-Luc? He is not that different than me. He is smarter than me. But the time came as it does with any role if you do it long enough that the dividing line between the actor and the character just disappears. I knew him so well. I didn’t… at the start of every day, I didn’t sit in my trailer thinking, "Jean-Luc Picard, you know, who am I, who is he, where does he come from, what’s he like?" No, I could walk onto the set confident that I knew how he would respond to almost any situation. Because I had absorbed him, he became me. And that was one of the things that was kind of hard about it, that he was … as was Charles Xavier. Both of them were characters I immensely admired for their morality, for their kindness, for their sensitivity, for their compassion. Even for their intellectual capacities. And so to get that close, playing Jean-Luc for all those years had a real impact on me.
  • As quoted in "Patrick Stewart On Logan, His Career and a Vertigo Diagnosis: 'They Have All Said That It Will Go Away'" by Stephen Galloway, The Hollywood Reporter (15 November 2017)

• In the last 40 years the European union has brought economic success to our nation. It has brought open borders where our European families can move backwards and forwards and it has created a peaceful Europe, but now utterly misguided and self-interested politicians have taken us out of Europe because they think we should be on our own. It's going to be calamitous.
  • In response to the question: "What has Europe done for us? ", in "Patrick Stewart Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions", WIRED magazine (25 February 2020)

External links

• Patrick Stewart on IMDb