Making It So: Patrick Stewart, the Master of the Universe, is guileless. His memoir makes it so, but we do not know how

Let me just be honest: Patrick Stewart brings out my daddy issues. That keen gaze, alternately steely and compassionate. The warrior-monk profile was disciplined and ascetic. And, of course, the Shakespearean cadences that wash over your mind and soul like a lullaby. For more than three decades, as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard and the X-Men’s Charles Xavier, Stewart has embodied a sort of kind and courtly Master of the Universe, trusted by all to wield awesome power exclusively for good. What more could you want in a father?

Well, perhaps it’s more complicated than that. Stewart, who is 83, has just published his memoir, Making It So. The title, from Picard’s signature command, is a nod to the starship captain’s primacy in his life, and also a tease, a hint that could explain the creation of that galactic sense of empathy.

To be honest once more: As a piece of writing, the book is disappointingly guileless. There are moments of introspection and vulnerability, particularly around the impacts of witnessing his father repeatedly beating his mother and the breakdown of Stewart’s first two marriages, but these are brief. He has a lot of things to say about legendary stars he has met. The people he’s clashed with are dealt tactfully. Roddenberry was the only one he clashed with that never took a shine to him. Reading it, I was tempted to conclude that Stewart is just Englishly guarded about showing his true feelings, or is even trying to disguise an ambivalence about having become a household name for sci-fi and fantasy instead of for Macbeth, Lear, or Hamlet.

I had suspicions until I met him in the kitchen of his house in Los Angeles. The guilelessness is genuine: Stewart in person is Picard and Xavier in their kindliest, most compassionate moments. He seems by now truly happy with where life has led him. The house is filled with art and with mementos that give one a sense of a man deeply loved by his friends, including hand-drawn illustrations showing him and soulmate Ian McKellen as bowler-hatted Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot.

Stewart is also keenly aware of how few good years he has left. During our discussion, he apologized more than once for his bad voice and tendency to rant, as well as for wanting to explore other roles and take Picard for one last spin.

A Strange Place: The First Job in the Motion of Starship: The Next Generation, Inc. – Sir Patrick Stewart’s Interaction with the Theater

You may find comfort in strange places. I lived in Japan in 1997 and was teaching English to kids. I lived in a tiny village, and in those early days especially, I was pretty lonely. Except for my good friends Jean Luc and Data.

The teacher who had lived in my apartment before had left a huge box of VHS tapes – there were enough episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to keep me company for the duration of my time there. Don’t worry, I made real life friends in Japan, but that show – those characters navigating the galaxy – were an important touchstone as I explored my own new world.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is a show that touches on many different topics for the most devoted of fans. Sir Patrick Stewart, who played the captain of the StarshipEnterprise on The Next Generation for seven seasons and four feature films and is now starring in a TV iteration of the franchise, Picard, is not lost on this.

“The Next Generation’s impact on so many people has been extraordinary,” Stewart told me. When people said that it was their English language education, someone told them that they couldn’t because they couldn’t watch Star Trek anymore.

I think it was your first job but you were an assistant stage manager, you have a bit in the book. I was wondering if you would read the beautiful description that you wrote for my first job in the industry.

I waited until after each performance for the last actor and staff to leave the theater before I shut off the lights and went to sleep. The tradition is that a single bare bulb is left over the center of the stage.

I took a moment in the auditorium to see the audience that had just left the theater, and I stood under the light every night. The set was only recently populated by our company of actors. I was part of all this now. Indeed, I had responsibilities to fulfill, even if they were as a lowly assistant stage manager. This is the home of me, I thought.

The person is Martin: Maybe I am projecting, but there is, I think, a sacred quality to how you describe that space. Is that correct? Did you sense that kind of reverence or sacredness about the theater?

Stewart: Yes, that’s right. I felt like I was at home in the empty theater, standing in the middle of an empty stage. It took me a long time to get there.

Martin: You were not Gene Roddenberry’s first pick to play Jean Luc Picard. Taking this role was also going to take you really far from your wife and kids who lived back in England. Why did you take it?

Stewart: I wasn’t going to take it. Indeed, a dear friend of mine and a very important English actor had said to me, “Don’t do this, Patrick. It is not what you need to do. You are an excellent stage actor. That’s where you should be. Don’t do it.

I had learned that the contract that I was being offered was for six years, but I was told we would be lucky to make it through the first season. I remember one actor saying to me, “Sign up for this. Six months of work is what you have to do. Make some money for the first time in your life. Get well known, get a suntan and go home.”

I thought that was true. That sounds like it wouldn’t be bad. I could live with that.” And, of course, our first series lasted seven seasons. We made four feature films.

Source: Patrick Stewart says his time on ‘Star Trek’ felt like a ministry

Star Trek: A Spiritual Community. A Memories of Jean Luc Picard, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis

When people who have the same values gather together and have similar experiences, it’s known as a spiritual community. Star Trek is an example of that to a lot of fans. It is a spiritual world. They treat it with religious reverence. Are you familiar with that? Do you get it?

Stewart: Yes. I see it very, very clearly. It was about truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, no matter who they were or what strange alien creature they looked like. That was immaterial. They were alive. And if they needed help, Jean Luc Picard and his crew, his team, were there to give it.

We were ministers in a way. I have received many honest and brave individuals who told me about their mental and physical health as well as their life’s other details. And how it was all saved and improved by watching every week.

Martin: How did it linger with you? That’s an awful lot of responsibility to be that. You are a moral compass for them, as an actor you are in the show and people ascribe to you this wisdom.

Stewart: I was proud of it and what we did. I talked to many people including Levar Burton, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis. We talked about it a lot. And it’s a glorious feeling because we were just having a good time. We loved our jobs.

Stewart: No. It didn’t feel at all incongruous. Particularly given the role I was playing. This was a man of such profound understanding and empathy. It made us feel like a reward for what we were doing because we were happy at work, but also changing people’s lives.

Stewart: It gave me an idea of how I might become a better person, yes. I made those feelings a part of my life because I was able to absorb that.