The Hollywood Masters: Patrick Stewart on Star Trek: The Next Generation

it's interesting because here you are when when the role comes along and you're in your mid forties and I think at that point said unknown British actor which brent spiner put on your dressing room to a horse was unknown British Shakespearean actor and yes Brent had a notice made and which had at the top of it in red bright red warnings unknown British Shakespearean actor like you know beware of the dog which and you then found the sign for sale at an auction I think I did yeah and I proved to them that it wasn't the original so that proof of Destiny receipt just oh my god coincidence how did you get this role you happened to be in LA or something how did it come about thanks to a professor of English a Shakespeare scholar at UCSB Santa Barbara I had become involved with him and his work as a bit of a teacher he knocked on my dressing room door one day when we were doing the Romans season at Stratford in 1972 and said you don't know me but I'm here with a group of American students and we have class every day and I'd like to invite you to our class tomorrow to talk about tonight's performance and I said I can't do that I don't do that I can't talk about it it's not it's not what I do no not possible and he said actually did say I've got a bottle of whiskey for me but so I went I mean you know bottle of whiskey is not yeah but in those days on a salary of about $50 a week it was pretty good and um I found I had something to say as you now discovered I had something to say and thanks to Homer D swanda known as Murph and may he be comfortable cuz he's ill and sick in a living in a hospice in Santa Barbara and I'm going to see him in a few he encouraged me to teach and so when I had when I wasn't working in the UK he would fly me over to Los Angeles and I would tour local colleges campuses I never came here I don't know why I never came here all over Southern California lecturing doing master classes holding workshops and so forth and I got to know through this work a professor at UCLA David Rhodes who had a spare room in his house and so whenever I came to LA I lived in his house and one night he said to me listen I'm doing the lecture it's part of a course of public lectures on campus and I'm lecturing about the changing face of comedy in dramatic literature said ho it's got to be so tiresome but if you and an actress friend of mine came along and read extracts illustrating my lecture will be so much more fun and there's a hundred dollars I remember the hundred dollars a lot very well and I said sure and we went along we did it and we had fun and we went out and spent a hundred dollars afterwards and the next morning I got a call from my agent who I'd never met or even spoken to because I didn't have an agent I mean there was an agent but he was not somebody was in my life and he said first of all I want to know what the hell were you doing at UCLA last night and why would Gene Roddenberry once see this more loud so I had to come clean and say well I was you're not a scholar and I said no I'm an actor please don't think I'm not an actor I'm an actor I signed up for the course of public lectures was a wonderful man called Robert justman who was one of the executive producers of the original series and had been brought out of retirement to help launch next generation and I got to know Robert and his wife very well over the years he was a dear friend and his wife confirmed that at some point during the evening he turned to her and said we found the captain well he told Gene Roddenberry that and I was called in I went to Jeanne's house the next morning and don't it took gene a few minutes to grasp that I was not the man he wanted in his new Star Trek and the meeting was opening under 10 minutes when I was out the door again all I can remember there was a lot of green shag pile carpet on the floor I think gene moved on to something shag carpet and why did he not want you for the very reason that you know Brent put that thing he apparently said some what would I want with a bra a bald British Shakespearean actor in this show it makes no sense forget him somewhere in the archives at Paramount Pictures there must be a memo which was written by Gene and sent to all the different departments saying I do not want to hear that actor's name again well people kept saying what about seeing Patrick Stewart again and you were hesitant about taking the part part you were hesitant about taking the part oh so hesitant well but although I treated it as a bit of a joke I didn't know what Star Trek was my chill children informed me what Star Trek was and then there were all kind of jobs laughs about beam me up Scotty and all that kind of which I didn't understand but they told me what it was about because they'd watched in his children and I went back for a couple of more it took about six months the whole process but I just opened in a wonderful production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Young Vic Theatre in London and I was loving that experience and there was talk about transferring in fact we were already in negotiations Billie Whitelaw was playing oh wow playing Martha transfer you were Jewish I was George I'd never been in the West End in a commercial production before when suddenly I got a call you've got to come back to LA the production had just ended this is the last audition it's down to you and another actor I have never been able to discover who the other actor was nobody would ever tell me they knew but they wouldn't tell me who it was I have an idea and I went back I did my audition for the studio and I wore a toupee I have these which they knew I had and they wanted me to wear it and then when I was taking it off in the joining room their producers the Hollywood the Paramount people all came in to say thank you very much the hairdresser is said to go after you know why they came in don't you they didn't want to say thank you they want to see what you look like without a hairpiece and I left this audition was at 8 o'clock in the morning a bit early for me to be auditioning and I left the studio and there was a coffee shop down there Rose Avenue that I was very fond of from you know my my day is just drifting around LA and I went to a shop and bought the English sundry newspapers and took it to the coffee shop he was before cellphones and I was always sat there for more than three hours reading the papers drinking coffee having a good breakfast while my agent who had been called by the studio I think before I was actually off the lot saying it's Patrick we want him was trying to find me Wow and I'd know I don't work and I was just happy to be there because I have a policy about auditioning when the audition is over forget it it raised that it ever happened otherwise you will drive yourself crazy just forget it if something good comes of it that's lovely if it doesn't doesn't matter you just move on to the next one and also you've got to remember about auditioning - that's and I didn't know this until I was in myself a director and sat and auditioned actors when you're waiting to go into the room where the producer or the director or whoever is don't be afraid don't be nervous don't feel intimidated or scared just know that the people in that room wants you to be the best thing that they have ever seen in their lives they want you to be it you have more enthusiasm going for you and hopefulness that you will give them exactly what they're looking for that that that they will want to work with you and cast you because that's I mean there are some you know types it don't think like that but for the most part people who are holding auditions and it's an exhausting procedure want everybody to be wonderful they're not sitting there being dismissive of you it's good thing to get you through the experience

Channel: LMU School of Film and Television

Views: 164,309

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Id: 0L2zwdjveaI

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2017