Stewart: Inspiration From The Sky
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Sir Patrick Stewart became interested in space beginning in World War II courtesy of the Germans.
At the recent Emerald City Comicon, Stewart explained how a long-ago event during his early childhood inspired him to do Star Trek years later.
The young boy was with his brother during an air raid in 1944, when something caught his brother’s attention. “My eldest brother Geoffrey, who was in his Royal Air Force uniform turned around – and this is actually my earliest memory – turned and said ‘Patrick, look’ and he pointed up into the night sky,” said Stewart. “I saw the flame of a V2 rocket going overhead. And that’s why I got into Star Trek.
But as an adult, it took several visits for Stewart to land the role of Jean Luc Picard, and a special delivery to make it happen. “It’s not well known, I think,” he said, “that I read wearing a hair piece.”
The hair piece had to be delivered from the U.K. “At Paramount’s expense, that toupee was hand-delivered from West London where I lived,” said Stewart. “I went to some distant far corner of LAX and it was put into my hands.” Stewart got the role, sans hairpiece.
Stewart may be in his seventies now, but for the actor, it’s never too late to learn something new about acting. “I’m trying to learn to be funny,” he said. “I was never funny, really. The Star Trek people taught me about sense of humor. I thought you had to be serious all the time. They taught me you can have fun and do good work at the same time, and actually, chances are you do better work if you’re having fun.”
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Hah… I’d love to see that audition 😀
Indeed! It would be a hoot. Stewart with hair always looks just odd to me, even in Excalibur or I, Claudius. I’m glad he forewent the rug for the series. He made women everywhere realize that bald men are dead sexxay.