A lot of these changes we do on stage. So the Apollo audience, whether it's to their taste or not, will have to tolerate the sight of Josh and myself taking our clothes on and off.
As the captain, I was going to be having the dominant role in most of the episodes, and that was appealing. I wasn't interested in coming to Hollywood to sit around.
As time went on, I did campaign to lighten the character a little bit, to introduce some romance into the episodes, outside activities, horse riding and fencing and mountaineering.
Before long there was another series, Deep Space Nine, then Voyager, now there is Enterprise. Bill was still filling Captain Kirk's shoes, and I was building shoes of my own.
Bill has one style. We have completely contrasting personalities. We're very good friends. I adore him, but we're very different people, so they were smart enough to write characters that reflected that.
Creating a believable world on the ship was very important, and technically they got better and better and better at showing the ship too.
During my time we had two chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, at different times of course, on the bridge, both of whom asked my permission to sit on the captain's chair.
During the course of the seven years I played scenes with an oil slick, I played a scene with a grain of rice. Sometimes with indescribable creatures. I remember having a conversation with something which was simply a smell, that's all. It was part of our job.
Encouraging people to believe in it was the most important thing of all. It's one of the reasons I was always uncomfortable whenever film crews came on the set to shoot things. I didn't want our make-believe to be exposed.
For seven years I did very little theatre, and I have to make up some time.
I always loved saying, space time condominium... Space time continuum, yes sorry. Well you see the problems that are raised when you have to deal with this kind of dialogue.
I am not the archetypal leading man. This is mainly for one reason: as you may have noticed, I have no hair.
I am told that there have been over the years a number of experiments taking place in places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been entirely based on concepts raised by Star Trek.
I began directing episodes, which was a great light every couple of months. We never short-changed our audience, but it became something that you had to work at rather than something that was a pleasure.
I got into trouble once with the studio for walking off a set when I think it was Good Morning America was going to shoot their segment from our sets and I had been very reluctant to participate in this. I didn't want to have newsreaders sitting around on our sets.
I know that Star Trek works, and I know that we have a huge following out there who will come and see the movie anyway. But I want our movie to reach others, who might otherwise simply dismiss i.
I know this is a lottery, this business of ours.
I made a promise to myself that I would try to introduce something unexpected in every single episode of the series. It was largely to amuse myself as much as anything. I didn't ever want the audience to feel that they knew everything.
I said that we must make the best possible movie, which also happens to be a Star Trek movie. That Star Trek element is critical.
I think all of us feel that if there were an opportunity to revisit the show again, we might take that opportunity. My sense is that it's passed in every possible way. All of us, all of you, we're now moving on to other things.
I was interested in contributing to the scripts as much as possible.
I was just excited by the whole prospect of working in a television series in Hollywood. I had never anticipated that as an actor I would ever end up here. It may be some sort of fantasy I'd thought about from time to time, but it was completely unrealistic.
I wasn't campaigning for a role in a Hollywood television series, it was a fluke. So you've got to have a measure of good luck, you really have, being in the right place at the right time.
I wouldn't know a space-time continuum or warp core breach if they got into bed with me.
I'm in the very blessed position of looking at continuous employment from now until about April 2007. I'm a very lucky man.
I've met actors where you think, if only you could just clean up your act and get it together, people would want to work with you. Some people are so difficult, it's just not worth working with them.
In the first couple of years I spent my weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, preparing for the next week, because otherwise you would never catch up.
It is what you do from now on that will either move our civilization forward a few tiny steps, or else... begin to march us steadily backward.
It still frightens me a little bit to think that so much of my life was totally devoted to Star Trek and almost nothing else.
It was a long time before any of us realised that we were very slowly becoming well known as actors. That was a very, very slow process, largely brought about by the fact that we were too busy working to lift up our heads and pay attention to what was happening.
It wasn't until the first season ended that I went to my first Star Trek convention. It was in Denver. There were two and a half thousand people there.
My character has been in the theatre, as the title A Life in the Theatre suggests, all his life.
Now, we've gotten rid of the spandex, we've gotten rid of the bridge, we've got a new ship. But I still think that most of the principal actors in this series have those roles because of our stage background.
One of the things that I've come to understand is that as I talk a lot about Picard, what I find is that I'm talking about myself.
So far as education is concerned, it has had a significant impact on a lot of young people who turn to science as a much more exciting and interesting study than they otherwise might have found, entirely as a result of becoming involved with Star Trek.
Somebody asked me what it felt like to be stepping into Captain Kirk's shoes, but as I pointed out he was filling those shoes very satisfactorily still, because they made two feature films during the time that we were shooting the series. So the life of the original Star Trek was continuing.
The Enterprise is a very, very important symbol and it's interesting that the new series which is shooting its pilot as we speak, I believe is to be called Enterprise. That's how important it is.
The studio have always claimed that the ship is the star of the show, especially when they're renegotiating contracts.
There are several books that I have-the Physics of Star Trek, Star Trek and Business, there are manuals on command style and countless scholarly papers that have been written about the significance of Next Generation.
There were interesting challenges about suspending one's disbelief when talking to aliens or scenes with people on the view screen and so forth.
To be connected with a role for over a period of years meant you had a choice really, either the character stood still and you kind of stagnated and repeated the same things, or as all of us determined we would try to let these characters develop and grow.
Tom Hanks knows the name of all the episodes.
We had some very distinguished fans: I know one chancellor of a major university who used to schedule his meetings around Star Trek. We were thrilled to discover that Frank Sinatra was a big fan.
We were well into our second season before all of us got that look in our eyes that maybe the predictions had been wrong and that it wasn't going to end after two years or three. The fact that it was to go on for seven-if I had known that I would never have been part of it in the first place.
We've heard from many teachers that they used episodes of Star Trek and concepts of Star Trek in their science classrooms in order to engage the students.
When I'm meant to be standing in the wings, the only way to go is the ladies' toilets. It's the only time I've ever acted in the toilets.
Whenever the lion fish in the fish tank in the captain's ready room died it was always a sad moment.
Where can I go that would give me the same level of satisfaction as an actor?
You get all of your neuroses worked out on stage. I haven't actually played very many nice characters, certainly not on stage. It's not a quality that attracts me.
Patrick will lend his voice to the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, TMNT. The movie will be released in March 2007.
Has played two Kings of England (Richard Lionheart in 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights' (1993) and Henry II in 'The Lion in Winter' (2003)).
Even though his character has a British accent, Patrick Stewart has told fans Jean-Luc Picard was raised by an English nanny. An in-joke; as William Shatner's (Capt. Kirk) Quebec French accent can sometimes be heard.
Stewart was considered for the role of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
Along with Colm Meaney and Armin Shimerman, he is one of only three actors to appear in the pilots of two different 'Star Trek' series. ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987), and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993))
Patrick voices 'The Great Prince' in the direct-to-DVD sequel, Bambi II (2006).
Patrick lent his voice to the character of King Goobot V in Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - (so far) in two episodes: The Eggpire Strikes Back and The League of Villains .
Patrick narrated on Rick Wakeman's (formerly of the rockband Yes) collaborative music project: Return to the Center of the Earth. He was praised by Rick Wakeman on the album insert for his "Input, Skill and 'Voice to die for.'"
For Christmas 2003, Patrick appeared in a commercial for Marks and Spencers.
Patrick played Othello in the 1997 Winter Production of Othello by the Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC. This was a reverse play where Othello (Patrick Stewart) was the only white player. The director of the production was Michael Kahn.
Patrick was the voice of 'King Richard' in Westwood Studio's Lands of Lore CD-ROM.
Patrick did the voice overs for the Pontiac TV commercials in 1996.
Patrick was the original narrator at the beginning of the animated feature, The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, director Tim Burton decided to cut most of the narration, and also changed the voice. Stewart's original recording can be heard in Danny Elfman's soundtrack. Elfman liked Stewart's reading better.
Patrick's character always referred to Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) as 'Number One.' When he guest-starred on an episode of The Simpsons (1989), he played a character named 'Number One.'
In episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), when Patrick sat down, he had a habit of tugging on the uniform where it was not smooth but creased. Jonathan Frakes jokingly called this "The Picard Maneuver."
Patrick has a human rights scholarship named after him from Amnesty International.
Patrick was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire in January 2001.
Patrick won the New York Theater Critics Drama Desk Award for Best Solo Performance in 1993, for A Christmas Carol at the Broadhurst.
Patrick was awarded his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the 16th of December, 1996.
Patrick became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966.
Patrick is approximately 6'(1.8 m) tall.
Patrick has appeared with Kelsey Grammer in three different productions: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Frasier, and X-Men 3.
Patrick did the voice of Professor Charles Xavier in the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube videogame, X-Men Legends.
Patrick is reportedly a huge fan of the comic: Transmetropolitan.
Patrick is a life-long supporter of Huddersfield Town Football Club.
During the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick reportedly refused to unpack hs bags for six weeks because he was convinced that he would be fired from the show.
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