Star Trek Interviews (10) - Profile of/Interview with
                             Patrick Stewart/Jean-Luc Picard
       Taken from the Public Domain

Part One

1. Profile of Patrick Stewart/Jean-Luc Picard

The Captaincy of one of Starfleet's newest Galaxy Class starships,
indeed the flagship of the Federation fleet, is a demanding post -
but one which is ably filled by the presence of Captain Jean-Luc
Picard (portrayed in inimitable style by British Shakespearian
actor Patrick Stewart).

Born in Paris some fifty years ago,  Jean-Luc Picard still retains
much of his European background - including a love of both French
and English language and culture, and particularly their
literature.  He can often be found spending a few off-duty hours
reading a Shakespearian play from an ancient leather-bound tome

which takes pride of place in his Ready Room, just off the main
Bridge.

Captain Picard is a very different man from James T. Kirk; where
Kirk was impulsive, Picard is reflective, where Kirk would charge
into danger with all phasers firing, Picard prefers to weigh up
the situation and attempt to find a peaceful solution.  He
actually practices the Prime Directive of which Kirk often spoke,
and on more than one occasion he has been torn between his duty to
the Federation and his feelings on matters of injustice among
other worlds.  Much of this attitude must stem from the fact that
Picard is more experienced and mature captain than Kirk, having
previously commanded an incredible 22 year voyage of the legendary
Deep Space charting vessel, the Stargazer.  He has strong moral
beliefs and rates honour and loyalty most highly, views which have
occasionally been at odds with other members of his crew who are
less inclined to trust the unknown so readily.

Picard is very highly regarded by Starfleet, perhaps somewhat
ironically for his tactical combat skills - he even has a standard
text-book manoeuvre of his devising named in his honour.  Early
in the series we get a chance to see the 'Picard Manoeuvre'
executed in battle, much to the consternation of the enemy ship!
However, hostilities aside, his diplomatic abilities and
negotiation skills probably carried far more weight at the time of
his appointment as captain of the Enterprise - her mission is
predominantly to make peaceful contact with new life and new
civilisations, not to bombard them with Photon torpedoes!

Picard, like Kirk before him, commands great respect from his
crew, and he feels responsible for each and every one of them.
Although he can sometimes seem a little aloof and unapproachable
to those who do not know him, after a while you start to realise
that this is partly a front to maintain discipline and avoid
over-familiarity.

His responsibility of the safety of the civilian portion of the
ship's complement often weighs heavily upon his shoulders, and he
is frequently led to question the wisdom of their inclusion in the
mission.  Not being a family man himself, Picard finds it very
difficult to relate to the children aboard his ship - especially
to young Wesley Crusher, with whom he will have regular dealings
as the series progresses.

Picard's strength of character (ably supported by Patrick
Stewart's fine acting abilities) will often take a pivotal role in
the resolution of tricky situations, although he rarely leaves the
ship except on purely diplomatic missions.  This is not entirely
to his liking, and he often complains of missing out on all the
excitement, but his first officer (Commander Will Riker) believes
very strongly that a captain's primary duty is to the ship and its
crew - a fact with which Picard reluctantly agrees.

2. Interview with Patrick Stewart/Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Before The Next Generation I had always remembered Patrick Stewart
for his role as Karla, the head of the KGB, in the BBC productions
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy and Smiley's People.  I was
particularly fascinated that it was a non-speaking part and yet
dominated the entire action.

"It's ironic, and says a great deal about what the power of a role
can be, that for a long time those two series brought me more
notoriety, in the United States, until of course this (Star
Trek).  I was perpetually being identified when I was there as
Karla, and yet there are just two scenes; one scene in the first
series, and one scene in the second.  Admittedly the one in the
first was a long scene, a 15, 20 minute scene.  And I know,
ironically, a lot of actors turned the part down.  I was by no
means first choice, except Robert Redford.  It was a non speaking
role, but when I saw it it was irresistible, the combination of
having to play a long scene, remain silent, and yet to be the
dominant force in the scene.  And at that stage I had never worked
with Alec Guiness.  I don't understand how any actor could deny
himself the opportunity of playing to Alec Guiness like that.  The
role interested me, and I'd been a Le Carre fan for years, and
because Karla is a presence that never leaves you throughout both
series.  The man broods over the whole thing, and the next best
thing to being on stage all the time is to have people talking
about you all the time.  And then of course two years later we did
Smiley's People, and I appear only in the last minute and a half.
The final scene of the crossing over, the walk across the bridge,
is one of the best realised bits of television I've ever seen.
I'm glad you remember that.  They were favourites of mine."

Patrick Stewart is not new to the worlds of Science Fiction and
fantasy.  Before The Next Generation he had appeared in Lifeforce,
Excalibur and Dune.  Was this a deliberate choice?

"Accidental, entirely accidental.  The fantasy part less so
because John Boorman knew my work as a stage actor.  Getting
involved in Dune was almost as big an accident as getting involved
in Star Trek.  I replaced an actor, and the director, David Lynch,
who I think is one of the very very finest Directors we have - he
has made two of the best films of the second half of the 80s, of
the 20th Century, Elephant Man and Blue Velvet, which I think is
probably a masterpiece.  I actually knew nothing at all of Frank
Herbert's work.  I picked up the script and the novel at the
airport as I was flying out to Mexico City, and it wasn't until I

was sitting on my Pan-Am jumbo that I first came into contact
with the world of the Dune planet."

"I was fascinated by it.  I have to confess I am not a Science
Fiction 'fan', not because I dislike it but I never think of
turning to that section of the bookshelves.  Reading is severely
limited anyway during the course of making Star Trek.  It took me
five months to wade through Spy Catcher, which of course I bought
and read in the United States.  I was, and I know this may be
offensive to many Science Fiction fans, but I felt very ambivalent
about Dune, and in fact I haven't read any of the subsequent ones.
We were due to make more than that film of course.  There was a
sequel which was all lined up but sadly never got made."

"I thought it took itself a little too seriously.  I would have
liked more irony in it, and more humour.  Curiously I enjoyed
filming it more than I'd enjoyed reading the book.  The young
actor who'd played the lead, Kyle MacLachlan, was a Frank Herbert
fan, so he knew all the detailed tapestry, and was the one source
of information we all had on the Dune background.  It was also one
of the most uncomfortable jobs I have ever had in my life.  I
spent 4 months in the heat of Mexico City in still-suits, you
know, those quilted rubber suits, in temperatures of over 140
degrees in the desert."

"The other was in Excalibur.  We were in armour, perpetually.  It
was made of metal, aluminium, so it was not heavy, but it was very
uncomfortable.  We lived through an Irish early-spring, through
some very cold and wet conditions.  Until you have sat in an oak
wood, waiting for the light to be right, on your horse, not able
to get off because as soon as the light changes they have to roll
the cameras, and you have to spur your horse forward, with the
rain dripping off the trees down the back of your helmet into your
armour, soaking the alleged chain-mail underneath, you don't know
what discomfort is."

So what had he seen of Star Trek before he was offered the part?

"I suppose I knew just about as much as your average Brit knows
about Star Trek.  I knew that there was a cult series.  Do you
know what, I always thought it was in black and white!  Isn't that
curious?  I saw it in black and white, I didn't have a colour
television set, and so I'd assumed it had been made in black and
white.  It wasn't until I saw it in living and livid colour that
I realised it was very different.  I didn't realise the T-shirts
were all different colours!"

"I suppose like many people here I regarded it as high camp
fantasy.  I watched it with my children mostly, and I enjoyed it.
Once watching an episode I would see it through to the end.  If I
wanted to get up and move away there was an element which kept me
in my seat to watch it through."

"It had been many years since I had given Star Trek a thought.
Although I was aware that the movies were being very successful,
increasingly successful.  And so when my agent was called in
California, and rang me with a bemused voice saying 'Listen, the
people from Star Trek have just been talking to me and they want
to meet you'.  Neither of us could quite understand it, because
the leading role in an American TV series was perhaps that last
thing I would expect to happen to my career at this stage, and
certainly not a TV series that was going to be re-explored; the
whole Star Trek legend.  So it was mystifying to me, and actually
remains so to this day.  I still feel that somehow all of us, the
producers, Gene Roddenberry, myself, are somehow still somewhat
puzzled that I'm actually there doing this job."

What of the Captain's character?  Is he perhaps based on a
Shakespearian character?

"Oh! Not at all, no, no.  There is nothing Shakespearian about
him, except that, and I mean it seriously, in many respects the
last 20 years have been an ideal preparation for flying the
Enterprise, having spent a lot of years sitting in thrones,
giving orders and assuming command.  It's true, apart from the
fact that I spent an awful lot of time acting in costumes which
don't have pockets in them.  Obviously I know how to act in a
pocketless space suit.  No, the Captain was created by Gene.  You
probably know about Hornblower, don't you?  The connection with
Captain Hornblower?"

Everything I did know flew out of the window at that point, so I
just acted dumb, which wasn't too difficult!

"Gene Roddenberry is a great Horatio Hornblower fan.  When we
first talked he gave me some of the Hornblower books to read and
said 'There's a lot of Picard in Hornblower'.  When at the
beginning all I had was the pilot script to work on, it gave me an
insight, although I don't directly use any details from Forester's
books.  That helped to enlarge the character for me, because in
many respects the Captain is rather remote and a somewhat
forbidding individual, and that was a conscious development."

Yes, the interplays we saw in the original series are not there in
the same way.  The Captain is very much one step above everyone
else.

"Yes.  Everyone has a slightly uneasy relationship with the
Captain, and in a sense that's part of the off-screen life too in
that I am older than any of the other principals.  I'm from a
different background, almost another generation older than anyone
else, although the way that I am treated, abused and teased
perpetually by my colleagues you would hardly think it.  And I
think that's worked very well for the show, nevertheless, as it
has turned out, three of the characters do seem to be carrying the
weight of most of the show, Riker, Data and myself.  So a kind of
trio of responsibility has grown up during all of that time."

I'd noticed in the few episodes I'd managed to see that the cast
was already becoming a unit.

"All that's going to get better.  There are many things I think we
could do better on the show, and I think freeing the relationships
between the characters on the ship is absolute number one.
Perhaps the most common criticism of the show when we first
aired, though strangely now that we are a success you hear this
more often, is that the series was a little stiff when it began,
and looking back at the pilot now with 25 episodes under our belt
I think they're right.  It does look stiff.  We all look as though
we're in our nicely pressed space suits and everyone's a little
formal.  There are things that we do now that I know we couldn't
have done 9 months ago, in terms of things that simply grow out of
relaxation on the set, familiarity with one another, respect and a
liking for one another, and confidence in what we're doing.  Mind
you of course there's nothing like being told you're a success to
boost your confidence, there's nothing like being told you had 30
million people watching you last week."

@~This long interview will be continued next issue










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