STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Sir Patrick Stewart has died. He was an actor who moved easily from Shakespeare to sci-fi.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MACBETH")
PATRICK STEWART: (As Macbeth) I thought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more. Macbeth does murder sleep. Oh, the innocent sleep.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION")
STEWART: (As Jean-Luc Picard) To seek out new life and new civilizations - to boldly go where no one has gone before.
INSKEEP: Patrick Stewart talked about his "Star Trek" role on NPR. He played Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
STEWART: A man of such profound understanding and empathy. And to feel like that as a person was such a reward for what we were doing because we were enjoying our work, our job, but at the same time, we were changing people's lives.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Stewart also became Professor Charles Xavier for the "X-Men" movies, where he mentored young mutants such as Wolverine.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "X-MEN")
STEWART: (As Charles Xavier) You're not the only one with gifts.
MARTÍNEZ: Stewart discovered his own gift for acting as a teenager in Yorkshire, England, after a teacher gave him a book of Shakespeare and encouraged him to perform.
INSKEEP: He dropped out of school at age 15. He briefly became a newspaper reporter and then landed a scholarship for a prestigious theater school. In 2023, he told our former co-host Rachel Martin that theater helped him to escape a working-class upbringing and a violent father.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
STEWART: I was part of all this now. Indeed, I had responsibilities to fulfil, even if they were as a lowly assistant stage manager. This, I thought, is now my home.
MARTÍNEZ: Stewart debuted with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, then on Broadway in 1970. By the '80s, he was offered a part in a "Star Trek" revival show and almost turned it down.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
STEWART: A dear, very dear friend of mine, and a very important English actor, had said to me, don't do this, Patrick. It's not what you need to do. You're a very good stage actor. That's where you ought to be. Don't do it.
MARTÍNEZ: That dear friend was Sir Ian McKellen, who later played Stewart's "X-Men" rival Magneto.
INSKEEP: Stewart did return to Shakespeare, and he had a riff on Hamlet for "Sesame Street" in full Elizabethan period dress.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SESAME STREET")
STEWART: B or not a B - that is the question. Whether tis the second letter of the alphabet or some other merry letter, B...
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: That is so great.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: Now, Stewart on NPR said it was his work on Star Trek that fans ultimately treated with religious reverence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
STEWART: It was about truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, no matter who they were or what strange alien creature they looked like. That was immaterial. They were alive, and if they needed help, Jean-Luc Picard and his crew were there to give it. So yes. In a sense, we were ministers.
MARTÍNEZ: Patrick Stewart was 86. Captain Picard, take us out.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION")
STEWART: (As Jean-Luc Picard) Make it so.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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