Stewart: Going Beyond Typecasting
2 min read
Sir Patrick Stewart wants roles different than those which made him famous.
The actor, best-known for his roles as Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier, was drawn to a role that was very different from those two characters.
“The perception has grown and grown that Patrick Stewart is these two guys, and I’m not,” said Stewart. “I’m always on the lookout for something that is very different from what I’m mostly known for.”
This is why Stewart was very interested in the role of a “vicious neo-Nazi club owner” in Green Room. His character in that film “holds a punk band captive in the backstage of his club after they witness a grisly murder. Armed with a few weapons and sheer determination, the young rockers try to escape alive, but run into many setbacks along the way.”
But that doesn’t mean that Stewart doesn’t appreciate being in his two hit franchises. “I was forty-six when I was cast in Star Trek, which is what changed my life,” he said.
The actor is glad that his fame began in middle age and not when he was younger. “I was always very grateful it happened to me when I was that age because I’d been around a long time and I knew a lot about the territory.”
Stewart is thoroughly enjoying his career now and he feels “very blessed…I keep telling people that I’m having my teenage years now.”
About The Author
A few years back I had gotten the distinct impression from various interviews and what-not that he was getting a little fed up with being recognized purely as Picard. He seems to have come around since that time and have made peace with that, and whatever he’s in these days, he seems to be having fun. If he goes so far as to say that he’s “having his teenage years now”, then good on him – we should all be so lucky to feel that way at his age.