Stewart Felt Like An Alien In Los Angeles

After many years in Los Angeles, Patrick Stewart (Picard) says he is very happy to be back in London, though he worried for awhile when he was not cast in any roles after the move.

"I could not work for the first six months and I began to think: 'Maybe this is not so smart. I’m seeing friends, going to the theatre, but I haven’t got a job,'" Stewart told The Sunday Times. "My agent kept telling me to be patient." Now he is about to return to the Royal Shakespeare Company for more than a year and to appear on ITV, "and slip in a $200m movie." He said that homesickness brought him back to England, something that not even his ex-wife understood.

"I remember driving down Beverly Boulevard listening to the classical music channel — it was Vaughan Williams. I could not drive as the emotion washed over me," he explained. "From my house I could see the ocean, the canyons and the Santa Monica hills, but it was the English landscape I ached for." His current apartment overlooks Tower Bridge in London. "I'm happy to be a Londoner. I can’t think of another city that offers such diversity...after LA it is almost frustrating, as there is so much I want to do and see. I am wallowing in that."

Stewart declares that his first love is theatre, but said that most actors want to work in film, which is more lucrative as well as more visible. "When I teach in workshops I find actors expect employment on TV and hope for film. Who wants to work in the obscurity of regional theatre? Actors don't want to miss out on a TV role." Despite his commitment to the stage, he will play a scientist in ITV's Eleventh Hour, which he insists is "science, not science-fiction." He even gets to demonstrate cloning in the series, which premieres the week after next.

Stewart hinted that he was finished with Star Trek and said he felt like he was from another planet while he lived in Hollywood. "I never took citizenship so all the time I was a resident alien. Increasingly that is what I seemed to be — an alien." He said he was increasingly uncomfortable "paying taxes with George Bush in the White House and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sacramento." He remained active with the Labour party in the UK and said, "It begged the question: 'If you care so much, why aren’t you here?'"

The full interview is here.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!