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PASADENA, Calif. — Patrick Stewart had an undeniable command presence as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard. But now he’s a newly announced Knight of the Realm, joining the ranks of fellow Sirs and thespians Anthony Hopkins, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley and Ian McKellen among others.
Stewart, 69, will be appearing this year in PBS Great Performances productions of Macbeth and Hamlet. He didn’t act the least bit regal during a convivial session with TV critcs Wednesday morning.
“I can tell you it got me an upgrade on British Airways,” he says of knighthood. “And with my American girlfriend (31-year-old jazz singer Sunny Ozell) fast-tracked through immigration. Which she was grateful for.”
Otherwise “it’s dazzling to me and I’m deeply grateful,” he says of being knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Made public this month, the official honor won’t be bestowed until later in 2010. Stewart says he was bound to secrecy when he received a letter informing him of the honor during the second day of filming on Macbeth.
“I just grinned stupidly and inexplicably all day,” he recalls.
Stewart says he’s coming off “perhaps the grandest year of my life” after co-starring with McKellen in a stage version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and also putting Hamlet and Macbeth on film.
He’s been performing for 52 years, “and all I ever wanted to do was acting in Shakespeare,” Stewart says.
Of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation intervened, with Stewart becoming world famous as Picard. He played the role on television from 1987 to 1994 and also has been in several Star Trek feature films.
One of his “great delights” was experiencing commercial success as Picard, he says. Countless people since have seen him in Shakespearean productions only because of that attendant fame. The X-Men movies don’t hurt either.
“I don’t care why people go to the theater,” he said. “Just get ‘em in there. Get their bums in the seats and leave the rest to us.”
Still, he yearns to devour Shakespeare’s repertoire before it’s too late.
“I don’t regret a moment of my years in Hollywood. Not a moment of it,” Stewart says. “But I fell behind.”
Nearing 70, it takes him longer to master the scripts. He no longer can hit the pubs at night, have a few pints and memorize a full act the following morning.
“That’s the only downside, that the brain works slower,” he says. But on the other hand he gets much closer to the characters by having to study their words for longer periods.
Not surprisingly, Stewart loathes the “huge influx of reality shows,” which he finds “deeply dismaying.”
Still, he succumbed to one a while back, describing it as “the most popular show in the U.K.” while declining to be more specific.
“I thought to myself, ‘This would be a really good time to die . . . I wouldn’t mind leaving this earth right at this moment,” Stewart says.
No such luck. And the mortal coil remains better for it.
