Sir Patrick Stewart spills on Picard, the STNG boys in Vegas, and hanging with Beatles
Aux Features Clips
The universe may or may not deserve Sir Patrick Stewart, but we’ll take him anyway. Appearing on Tuesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, ostensibly to promote Charlie’s Angels, the latest Hollywood property he’s classed up just a bit, Stewart was his twinkly best, giving Kimmel ad everyone involved essentially everything they could have hoped for. To wit:
He and his Star Trek: The Next Generation guy pals Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, and LeVar Burton used to go all Rat Pack in Las Vegas during the show’s run. Telling Vegas transplant Kimmel that the five bridge officers were all “great buddies” who “love each other” is heartwarming enough, before Stewart explained his enthusiasm at the blackjack tables, conjuring images both of the STNG crew’s poker nights and the Star Trek: Ocean’s 11 movie we’re apparently never going to get. “There was a little bit of flipping going on,” admitted the smiling Stewart, adding, “Maybe a little bit of flapping too,” which is so inexplicable as to be essentially perfect where it is.
He’s never seen a single episode of the Charlie’s Angels TV series, a fact he was politely apologetic about, considering he’s playing a Bosley in Elizabeth Banks’ reboot of the remake of a 70s detective show. (Apparently, he was too bust rehearsing and performing Shakespeare six nights a week back then.) It’s okay, though—Kimmel’s going to send him the poster.
Stewart hates Donald Trump almost as much as the man he calls “our Donald Trump,’ Boris Johnson. Apart from his and his Tories’ policies, Stewart was blunt in asking incredulously, how “two of our leaders should have such shitty hair.” Seriously guys—Stewart’s been rocking the bald look for decades and his leadership has never been questioned.
Which brings us to next year’s Star Trek: Picard, where Sir Patrick is dusting off his most famous and beloved character (sorry, MacBeth) 18 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. After first offering up a flat, “No,” in response to Kimmel asking him for the top secret details, Stewart happily told us nothing but what we already know from the trailer—Picard’s running his vineyard, the world and Starfleet have changed, Picard, like Stewart, owns a pit bull. “What we have is something different, something new,” teased Stewart of the continuing voyages of Jean Luc Picard, adding unnecessarily, “I hope there won’t be too much disappointment.”
Oh, and he and fellow Sirs Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr all hung out recently at a Sunset Boulevard restaurant. No big deal. When you’re Sir Patrick Stewart. Plus, he told the enthusiastically obliging Kimmel he’s stealing some of the cool art deco furniture from his dressing room, because he’s Patrick goddamned Stewart.
31 Comments
still beautiful after all these years …
I was at an event where someone asked him what his secret was.His advice: “Moisturize!”
I think the secret is seeming much older than you actually are at your first big break (48 when TNG started).
There’s always the underrated season 2 episode of TNG called ‘The Royale’
I’ve watched that episode numerous times, and still can’t decide if I like or hate it. There’s a lot of quirky parts and oddities that make it interesting, but it also has that “let’s throw a bunch of weird, half-baked ideas at the wall and see what sticks” mentality that permeated the early seasons.
Leaving the dead astronaut thing in the air bugged me the most.
I love everything Patrick Stewart did on ST:TNG.I did not love everything the writers did. I am given to understand this is not a unique point of view.
In France they don’t have the Cochrane Scale so they call this episode “The Royale with Cheese.”
Nicely done.
That’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.
Downside: it’s from the Pulaski season AND she’s in it.Otherwise it’s great.
Man did anyone enjoy the Pulaski season?
Season 2 is the first season where you start to see glimmers of what the show could be. Unlike the first season, which only occasionally gets to “eh, that wasn’t terrible”, there’s two genuinely outstanding hours of television (“The Measure of a Man” and “Q Who”), and a lot of stuff that is at least creatively interesting and shows the writers are trying, when not hamstrung by Maurice Hurley and Gene Roddenberry.But Pulaski (or as SFDebris refers to her, “the Gorgon”) is a constant drag on the proceedings. The goal was clearly to hearken back to the Original Series, with the banter between McCoy and Spock being replicated by Pulaski and Data, respectively. The problem, however, is twofold. One, the banter between McCoy and Spock is the part of the show that has aged least well; seriously, McCoy would have been fired for half the things he says even twenty years ago. Two, at the very least Spock understood the context of what McCoy was saying, and could respond in kind. Data was a complete innocent when it came to social context. Which made Pulaski’s words and actions not banter, which you can still see in the Original Series even if McCoy frequently crosses every possible line and draws some new ones so he can step over them, too. It just makes her a bully. And while she does grow over the series to think of Data as a person, even at the end she’s still sticking Data in positions where he’s necessarily a fish out of water.
Measure of a Man — good call.I don’t remember if that was the first great Picard Speech, but it’s the first one I remember. Probably the one I always remember.
As a season, no I don’t know anyone who did. There are some good episodes though, at least as far as I am concerned.
My personal favorite episode, “The Emissary” is a part of Season 2. I love Kh’eylar as a character. And, I don’t remember Pulaski having a big part of that episode. It was toward the end of season 2—possibly she was starting to pull back because she knew she wasn’t returning for season 3?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emissary_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
You know who didn’t enjoy it? Pulaski .I always felt sorry for Diana Muldaur , it wasnt a great character , the dynamic with her and Data disnt work, and there was a tone of behind the scenes shit about how she replaced Gates McFadden that made the whole thing a nightmare.
Mcfadden supposedly left for Hunt for Red October, right? And she’s in one scene?
I genuinely love that episode. It’s got an old 1920s-1930s pulp sci-fi feeling to it. I don’t know if there’s another episode quite like it in the Star Trek universe (There might be a few. It’s hard to remember all of them).
How about Deep Space Nine’s Badda-Bing,?
I absolutely LOVE that one.
An absolute class act of a human being. Him and his best buddy McKellen…
Stewart’s been rocking the bald look for decades and his leadership has never been questioned.
It would have been much more clever to bring this up on a show with a different host named Jimmy.
It’s TNG. T stands for “The” not “Trek”
STNG
This is not a thing.
Wasn’t he the lead singer of the POLCE?
he’s so damn charming. stupid sexy picard.
Ihope Picard’s bulldog isn’t called Porthos.
Nope – he’s “Number One” – even after dropping “Number Two” on the hallway carpet.
i could watch him talk all night.
Something about how that blackjack table was one, long drawn out boring space meeting.