20 Questions: Patrick Stewart

So how does a 25-year veteran of Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company end up in command of the 24th Century's most advanced Federation starship? For Patrick Stewart, the intermediate steps included such BBC productions as "Smiley's People" and "I, Claudius"--in which he donned a curly hairpiece to play the ambitious outlander Sejanus--and the films "Dune" and "Excalibur." But none of those gave Stewart the lead, and when he auditioned for "Star Trek: The Next Generation," he thought it was to play some "token Englishman" on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Today, as the series successfully sails into its sixth season, it's difficult to see him as anything other than Jean-Luc Picard--the stern superman of a captain who reads classic English literature, speaks fluent Klingon and enjoys recreational fantasies as a Forties detective on the holodeck (the ship's computer-controlled rumpus room). And the series in turn has opened new doors for the 52-year-old Shakespearean: last season's critically revered one-man adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" on Broadway, plenty of commercial work (making his voice more recognizable than his face to non-trekkies) and a role in the hilarious coffee-ordering scene from Steve Martin's "L.A. Story." Neil Tesser, who met Stewart on one of his rare days away from the "Star Trek" set, reports: "Stewart shares some qualities with Picard: He's very focused, rather passionate and given to occasional speechifying. But he's also gregarious, a delightful storyteller and pleased to laugh at himself. In fact, he seems just pleased, period."

1.

[Q] Playboy: If you didn't have to go through channels, whom would you fire from the starship Enterprise?

[A] Stewart: I would fire Commander Riker because he perpetually reminds Captain Picard of his mortality, certainly as far as sexual matters are concerned. I would fire Commander Data because he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word concise. I would fire Geordi LaForge because his technical terminology invariably goes right over the captain's head and, therefore, I have to take recourse in simply saying "Make it so" when it's perfectly clear that the captain hasn't understood a word. I'd fire Lieutenant Worf simply for being Lieutenant Worf. I'd fire Dr. Crusher because she has a look that is capable of suggesting not just two things but a dozen things--most of which the captain feels inadequate to cope with. And I would certainly fire Counselor Troi because her costume reminds me of how unattractive I feel mine is.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Star Trek conventions are infamous for their unalloyed adulation. Can you bring yourself to appear at more than one or two a year?

[A] Stewart: I do about six a year now. I enjoy them. It gets me back on the stage. It's like doing stand-up in front of the most adoring audience one could ever wish for. I get to be Sting and Bob Hope and Billy Connolly all rolled into one just for an hour, and it's a great workout. It also takes me out of Los Angeles, a place where I wouldn't choose to live.

3.

[Q] Playboy: What is it that keeps the trekkies so wildly enthusiastic--even obsessive--about this program?

[A] Stewart: People have written academic theses on this subject, and you want a short answer. There is a mystery at the heart of Star Trek that touches people. It's composed of elements like hope, optimism, companionship, comradeship and courtesy, legitimacy and boldness. It lies in this assurance, which can only be a theoretical assurance, that we're going to survive--that some of us will make it. I've never forgotten what Whoopi Goldberg said the first year she appeared on the show. The reason she gave for inviting herself--a movie star--onto a syndicated TV series was that as a child in New York she watched the original Star Trek. And there she would see a black woman in an authority position on the ship, and she said to herself, "Well, one of us made it." I think many people watch our show and say, even though it may be subliminal, "Some of us made it."

4.

[Q] Playboy: What role do you covet more than any other, and why?

[A] Stewart: Falstaff. For me, everything universal in Shakespeare is contained in that character. He is simultaneously funny, unspeakable and tragic. He is the ultimate creation of Shakespeare--a monstrous, selfish, wicked, devilishly comic, damned, sad man--and I've always been very moved by him. If I were at least twenty years younger, I would say Hamlet. I never wanted to play Hamlet when I was the right age. Now I do and it's too late, so I will direct the play instead.

5.

[Q] Playboy: In the grand tradition of Yul Brynner, Telly Savalas and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you seem to have made hairlessness sexy for a new generation. Was this deliberate?

[A] Stewart: This is the last time that I will ever discuss my hair--ever, at any time, with any journalist. I can never understand it. What if I were to say to you, "You have an extraordinarily hooked and pointed nose that looks as though somebody got hold of the end of it and dragged it downward; what are your feelings about that?" You see, I was brought up to believe you do not make personal comments about someone's appearance. It's bad manners. And yet, with baldness it's open season--always. If I had a huge wart, you wouldn't refer to it. You might keep looking at it, but you wouldn't refer to it. I lost almost all of my hair between the ages of nineteen and twenty. It was absolutely traumatic. I did a number of things to try to prevent it and then, when I saw it was unpreventable, to hide it. But now I have actually been cutting my hair closer and closer. And I think that is the product of beginning to feel now, in my fifties, that it's all right--that I don't have to duck my head.

6.

[Q] Playboy: On the Enterprise, sexism would seem to have been eliminated. What's your personal stand?

[A] Stewart: If something demeans women, it demeans me. One of the areas of our show about which I still feel much discomfort is its treatment of women. Our series clearly indicates that the glass ceiling has been shattered: We see women occupying the most senior positions of command. But the stereotyping of female behavior in our series, and the male attitude toward females, still remains trapped where it was thirty years ago. I think it stinks.

7.

[Q] Playboy: You were not a trekkie when The Next Generation was taking shape. What sold you--with your background in classical theater--on enlisting?

[A] Stewart: I'm told that when Marlon Brando arrived in Hollywood and a journalist asked him why he had abandoned the New York stage for the glamour of Hollywood, he said, "Because I didn't have the moral fiber to resist." There's a large element of that in me, too. But what made the decision for me--and the cynical among your readers will at this point curl their lips and scoff--was that it smacked so much of sheer outrageous adventure that I couldn't resist it. Every aspect of it--working in Hollywood, being in a TV series, being in a science-fiction series, trying to revive something that had been successful before--was irresistible. I knew if I said no, I would never know if I might have been able to pull it off. Also, I've played a lot of leaders, and I like it. I'm fascinated by power and the use and misuse of power.

8.

[Q] Playboy: You've done some riding in your time, even in one or two Star Trek episodes. What is essential to ensure male comfort while riding a horse?

[A] Stewart: I've never quite made up my mind whether what's best for riding is the tightest pair of jeans or the loosest, sloppiest pair of jodhpurs. Or maybe a little minor surgery.

9.

[Q] Playboy: You've worked in large ensembles with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Did any of those experiences prepare you for the challenge of presenting a one-man version of A Christmas Carol?

[A] Stewart: A Christmas Carol presents a whole different set of problems. One of the reasons I became an actor was that I was permitted, in an approved context, to indulge my fantasies, to enter into a world of make-believe--and whatever world I entered was a damn sight more pleasant than the world I was living in. In A Christmas Carol, I found a format where my imagination could be indulged to the ultimate. There are no boundaries to this make-believe world. When I say, "And in that moment all vanished, the ruddy glow, the fire, the night, and Scrooge found himself on an open country lane on Christmas morning with clean white snow all around"--boom. It's like a cut in a movie. What pleased me about A Christmas Carol was finding that this imaginative world that Dickens created can have the same impact on twelve hundred people in a New York theater. When I was preparing the show, somebody asked, "How do you think your show can compete with The Phantom of the Opera?" My show has no huge effects, no massive chorus, no huge costume changes. It has nothing at all. And listening to Dickens is hard. But the big production numbers of my show lie in the language--in the breathtaking, heart-stopping, dazzling kaleidoscope of words that pour out. And I feel their effect on an audience. You can hear them gasp at hearing language.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What was it about your childhood that made the make-believe world of theater so compelling?

[A] Stewart: I was brought up in a very poor and very violent household. I spent much of my childhood being afraid. And therefore the world of the amphitheater gave me a legitimate excuse to go out at night: I could say, "I'm going to rehearsal" when they asked where I was going. It cauterized the fear and the hurt and the pain. Being able to go somewhere else and say "What if?" or "Once upon a time" was comforting.

11.

[Q] Playboy: You regularly work ten-and twelve-hour days on Star Trek. How do you keep things loose on the set?

[A] Stewart: At the end of a scene that has gone particularly well, I'll say, "Grownup men doing make-believe in silly costumes," which is how it often seems. We have come to write alternative versions of almost every scene that we do. My favorite one is that Captain Picard is an unequivocal, mouth-foaming, ass-paralyzing coward who at the slightest mention of any trouble will leap into Number One's arms and howl that he doesn't want to die, please, he doesn't want to die.

12.

[Q] Playboy: The BBC features a famous program called Desert Island Discs, in which people are asked what recordings they would take to a desert island. Which five would you choose, and why?

[A] Stewart: Elgar's cello concerto, with Jacqueline Du Pré, and Sir John Barbirolli conducting. It's a wonderful illustration of how the supposedly cold-blooded English can be deeply passionate and emotional. Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, with Sir Peter Pears singing--not anybody else--because it's quintessential English music. Britten's choice of poems for this setting is very evocative of an English landscape that I miss. The entire original New York cast album of Sweeney Todd, because it's one of the most outstanding pieces of musical theater of all time. The performances of Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury are a great inspiration to me as an actor. I would settle for several, if not all, of the Mozart piano concertos, which were my introduction to Mozart--and among my earliest introductions to music. I still find something new in them. And the album by Brent Spiner [Star Trek's Commander Data], Old Yellow Eyes Is Back, because it would remind me of one of the best nights of my life, when several of us from the cast laid down backup vocals for one tune.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Your predecessor in the role of a starship commander, William Shatner, has suffered from what may be called Kirkization--he'll always be primarily identified as the character he played. What are your rules for avoiding this condition?

[A] Stewart: From the beginning I have refused to appear outside the set in my costume. I have refused to use any jargon from Star Trek on any kind of commercials or voice-overs--and you wouldn't believe how many times the phrases "Make it so" or "Engage" have appeared in commercial scripts that I've done. My work on Star Trek is a self-contained thing. Beyond that, I have no responsibility to it whatsoever. I went into Star Trek very aware of its albatross nature. That was why, by the start of Star Trek's second season, I began to adapt A Christmas Carol. I knew I had to find some means of waving a white flag and saying to the world, "Hey, I do something else as well." Since then, there have been other projects; it's how I've kept my creative juices alive. And I promised myself early on that I would try to find one new thing in every episode, whether it was a way of saying a line, a physical gesture, a look--something that would cause the audience to say, "Oops, we've never seen that before."

14.

[Q] Playboy: Most actors hold a variety of jobs before and between career moves. What was the most interesting for you?

(continued on page 179)Patrick Stewart(continued on page 140)

[A] Stewart: I was a journalist for nearly two years. It was my first job when I left school at fifteen, having completed the minimum education that the state required at that time. Although my education is unremarkable, with the help of one teacher I developed a flair for language, and the local newspaper took me on as a beat reporter. I had a specific geographic area that was mine until something important happened in it, and then one of the senior reporters would come in and cover it. I then sold furniture for a year. And I was significantly better at that than I was as a journalist because I would, as an acting exercise, simply become whatever sort of salesman that I thought each customer wanted me to be.

15.

[Q] Playboy: What finally turned you to acting as a profession?

[A] Stewart: My editor at the newspaper wanted me to abandon all of the amateur acting I was doing because it interfered with my journalism commitments. I would get people to deputize for me when I had rehearsals, or I would try to cover events in advance or afterward by making phone calls. More than once I just made up the copy. And it led to a showdown with the editor, who insisted that I give up all these "absurd amateur theatricals," as he termed them, or get off his newspaper. I was seventeen, and I left out of spite. I objected to being told how I should lead my life. I went home and told my parents I'd left and they were very upset. They asked what I was going to do, and I said, "I'm going to become an actor." I made that decision only to annoy the editor of the newspaper.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Your voice may be even better known than your face, thanks to your work in TV commercials for RCA and General Motors, to name just two. Describe the joys and challenges of commercial acting.

[A] Stewart: In the case of the Pontiac commercials, it was a terrific contract financially. And actually, I really enjoyed doing them. I got more direction as an actor in fifteen minutes in that sound studio, in a satellite hookup to Detroit with people I have never met--detailed, acute, intelligent, sensitive direction--than I might get in six months of doing Star Trek. These guys are paying a lot of money and they want it exactly right, in twenty different ways. So in a thirty-second commercial they will say, "We would like you to shave two tenths of a second off this take." I love that. I love saying, "Right."

17.

[Q] Playboy: What's your most memorable encounter with a fan?

[A] Stewart: Leaving the studio very late one night, I went to a nearby bank to get some cash from an automated teller. It's always risky doing that late at night, so I take precautions. While I was standing at the machine, a car cruised into the parking lot and stopped, and so I kept one eye on it while I was punching in my numbers. And the guy looked out of his window and watched me. I got my money and began to walk briskly toward my car, and the door of his car opened in the path between my car and his car. He stood up and he said, "You're Patrick Stewart," and I said, "That's right." And he said, 'Jean-Luc Picard," and I said, "Yes," and he lifted up his arms and shouted, "I love L.A.!"

18.

[Q] Playboy: Was there any single event that changed your life?

[A] Stewart: In 1953 I went to my local cinema, on a Monday night, to see a film I'd never heard of. I went to the movies obsessively. I'd been utterly seduced by Technicolor, and I remember when the titles came up feeling irritably disappointed to see that the film was black and white. It was On the Waterfront. Until then I had imagined myself in a world populated by people like Debbie Reynolds and Doris Day. My friends would be Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson. All the lawns were green and freshly mowed. All the houses were painted white, everybody looked wholesome and nice and everybody had a car and a telephone--and then bang. Everything changed from that people made movies about me. I lived in an industrial town in northern England. It was a million miles away from the Brooklyn waterfront, but nevertheless, all those values and conditions--the things that people were doing to one another--were recognizable, particularly, of course, in Brando's character. I went back four times. I even took my poor mother, who didn't understand what the hell was going on. It was overwhelming. Still is. I've now met three of the stars of that movie. Brando is the only remaining star I have never met.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Does Patrick Stewart share Captain Picard's oft-stated discomfort around children?

[A] Stewart: For somebody who says he can't be with children, he actually does extraordinarily well. Because when he's with them, he does the very best thing you can do with children, which is to treat them as adults--overestimate what they will understand and what they can do. And it goes down just great with most kids.

20.

[Q] Playboy: The 24th Century seems pretty inviting: We can think of several fully consummated interspecies affairs that have taken place on The Next Generation. Are there more opportunities on the new Enterprise than on the old?

[A] Stewart: It's always amused me, the extent to which people will complain of any one period being more wicked, licentious or libertine than another. Generally speaking, I think those who are looking for fun will invariably find it--no matter what the era.

The joys of intergalactic dating, the challenges of a classically trained actor gone hollywood--Star trek's jeanluc picard baldly goes where no man has gone before

"'You're Patrick Stewart. Jean-Luc Picard.' And I said, 'Yes,' and he shouted, 'I love L.A.!'"