At one point, when I was pregnant many years ago, we discussed naming the child Picard. Perhaps the middle name. We also discussed Duncan and Morgan, two characters from a book series, and Janeway for a girl. Our eldest was named Kelson, after a character from said book, and the youngest has a middle name from Babylon 5. (The youngest now goes by a different first name, and the eldest on social media uses his middle name first and some other random name … names sort of don’t really matter, so parents should’t obsess too much over it).
Who didn’t love Jean-Luc? However, when Patrick Stewart, who died yesterday, was first announced in 1987 to be the new captain on the new series The Next Generation, I had a hard time seeing him as a good guy. At the time, the American press called him an “unknown British actor,” but if you watched PBS or films made by British directors, he was very much known indeed.
In the obits that are circulating, none of them mention five performances that are my favorites, most of which preceded “Make it so.” So let me tell you about them.
The Henchman Who Would Be Emperor
“I Claudius” appeared on PBS Masterpiece Theater when I was high school, but it remains the most compelling and relatively accurate portrayal of ancient Rome I’ve seen (HBO‘s Rome comes close). My fascination with ancient history and history in general started with that series. The novel and TV show covers the turbulent decades between the rise of Augustus after the death of Julius Caesar and the eventual crowning of Emperor Nero, during which there are palace coups, assassinations, mad emperors (more than one), and poisonings too numerous to count. Emperor Augustus names his son Tiberius as successor, only after his wife arranges for mysterious deaths to all the other rivals (according to the story where there is some historical accuracy). But Tiberius is a grumpy Scrooge who doesn’t want to run things and prefers hanging out in Capri and fiddling with servants of all genders and ages (ew). He puts his captain of the guard, Lucius Aelius Sejanus in charge.
Enter Patrick Stewart #1.
Sejanus is the embodiment of ambition. He’s not quite a patrician (aristocratic) but as the head of the Emperor’s Praetorian Guard, he maintains the peace and carries out Tiberius’ orders, many of which were cruel and miserly. Tiberius squeezed everyone for taxes and refused to spend much on public works.
But Sejanus wants more and takes up with Livilla, the emperor’s daughter-in-law. In their affair, they scheme to push the emperor aside and take up the reins themselves. Livilla in the show is played by Patricia Quinn who was Magenta in Rocky Horror, a movie that circulated about the same time as reruns of the show. Sejanus and Livilla’s scenes together in bed are so steamy that I can’t describe them, and I would have sworn they showed a bit of butt or nipple, except it was the BBC, and they didn’t do that, so the show excels at making you SEE things without SHOWING them to you.
Meanwhile, Sejanus is clearing out all those who oppose the emperor or himself with trumped-up warrants and no-trial verdicts:
Sejanus: Sign it.
Gallus: What is it?
Sejanus: A confession.
Gallus: To what?
Sejanus: Your conspiracy with Drusus to subvert the armies of the Rhine. Sign it.
Gallus: You wrote it, you sign it.
What makes Patrick Stewart’s performance so interesting–aside from his having that curly hair–is his ability simultaneously to smile and stick in the blade at the same time. He is the most charming bully, the essence of nearly all his characters. Stewart went bald at age 17, so he looked old when young, placid when at his most dangerous, weak when he was steel inside. All of his later performances in Star Trek, X Men, and so forth had that duality to it. He was never old, placid, or weak.
Of all people, Claudius’ noble mother Antonia is the one who warns Tiberius out in Capri, in a message brought by Tiberius’ nephew, Caligula. Tiberius realizes the danger he’s in and starts to panic, so teenage Caligula gives him some advice. I can’t even begin to talk about the brilliant performances of all these people, but John Hurt as Caligula wheedles, in that gravelly voice, “Find a dog who’ll eat a dog.” If you want to take out someone dangerous, find someone equally so. Mobsters do this, though the trick is to control all the dogs, which is not easy. The end of Sejanus is also not simple.
The Deliciously Oily Strongman
Someone on social media describes Stewart as turning kindness into a superpower. That may have been true of him as a person, but he was often cast early as villains and for good reason. In an even earlier BBC incarnation, 1974’s Fall of Eagles, Stewart becomes the Russian icon: Vladimir Ilych Lenin.
Just as I Claudius is a masterclass on ancient Rome, this series is THE best explanation I’ve ever seen about the causes of World War I. It’s about Victoria’s grandchildren and in-laws who are all running countries in Europe at the turn of the 20th century, and their attempt to outmaneuver each other in land grabs. As the second cousins Willy (Kaiser Wilhelm) and Nicky (Czar Nicholas) try to elbow each other out of the way, Russia’s situation becomes precarious.
Enter Patrick Stewart #2, as Lenin.
Here, Stewart’s hereditary alopecia is perfect casting for such a well-known face. Stalin’s behavior made Lenin seem a bit mild or saintly in comparison, but this story shows Lenin’s rise to the top. Not unlike Sejanus, this Lenin is conniving, ruthless, and ambitious, using political savvy to stack meetings with his friends and to send bullies to eliminate adversaries. If you ever want to understand how politburo and lengthy discussions about the merits of the proletariat can be manipulated to put you in charge of the largest country in the world, Stewart’s oily charm will explain it to you. He stabs his friends in the back as he climbs to the top, grasping power with a smile and a wave.
While Lenin’s story is not the main arc, it was prominent enough to earn him a top of poster position. Interestingly, more recent sales of the DVDs put his name first!!! which must have irked the guys playing Franz Josef and Bismarck and the other mains. When I first saw the cover, I didn’t recognize Stewart, but in the role, he is unforgettable. (The DVDs may be available in your library; that’s where I ran across the battered box of episodes.)
Small But Pivotal Roles
There are a couple of other secondary roles and one cameo worth seeing that show Stewart’s remarkable range. The secondary roles still predate Jean-Luc Picard, but they demonstrate why he was not an unknown in the U.K.
The 1981 film Excalibur is also a classic. This telling of the Arthurian legend is both grainy, and mist-covered, a realistic portrayal of fantasy and magic that still resonates almost fifty years later.John Boorman shot his version with lights that highlighted the green gel of the forest and makes the film look as if you’re peering through the mist. Knockout performances across the board, with highlights from Uther (Gabriel Byrne) and Merlin (Nicol Williamson). The secondary cast of Uther and Arthur’s buddies includes Liam Neeson and Ciaran Hinds. It’s really Helen Mirren’s BIG first movie role, as she chews scenery so completely as Arthur’s sister Morgana that I’ve remembered her spell casting to this day… Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha.
Anyway, the film has flaws, and sometimes is slow, but those performances! Patrick Stewart plays Guinevere’s father, Leodegrance. He tries his hand at pulling out the sword and also sees Arthur looking at his daughter across the banquet table. The marriage solidifies the alliance because it was Leodegrance who persuades the other knights to accept teenage Arthur after pulling Excalibur from the stone, when no other could do it. No small parts, and here Stewart is an ally, not a villain.
On the opposite extreme, Stewart has only one scene in the 1979 BBC series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a tour de force for Alec Guinness. Guinness is the deputy head of MI6, George Smiley, tasked with finding which of his peers is a Russian mole. The Russian mole plot has become standard now, but this book was written only a few years after a real Russian agent had penetrated British Intelligence. It’s a version of how spies work with thought and craft, very little shooting, but danger around every corner. The entire Russian scheme is masterminded by one of Smiley’s oldest enemies, Karla.
Enter Stewart #4.
Guinness was 25 years older than Stewart, but both found common ground in their ability to appear something other, both as actors playing characters who needed to appear less than they were: nimble-minded, devious, capable of running blinds and double-blinds. But if you want to see Stewart, don’t blink, because he’s in one scene (he also is in one scene in the sequel, Smiley’s People). And he doesn’t even speak. He doesn’t have to. It’s Patrick Stewart.
Knickers
The British TV show The Extras only ran for 12 episodes, and the main plot, of Ricky Gervais trying to climb from being an “extra” to getting full acting jobs, is take or leave it. Gervais was co-creator of The Office, and it’s a bit hard to watch his blank stare without thinking of his other characters–he has a harder time than Patrick Stewart does getting out from under the roles.
But what Extras did was bring out the funniest cameos from some of the greatest British actors playing themselves. Kate Winslet dressed as a nun making sexually explicit gestures. Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from Harry Potter, trying to prove his adult swagger by unrolling a condom, then playing with it like a rubber band until he hits Diana Rigg in the back of the head. Sir Ian McKellen…well… you just have to see his take on playing himself playing Gandalf.
Enter Patrick Stewart #5, possibly the best of the cameos.
Apparently, the scene was so absurd that they had to stop and retake it dozens of times, filling the blooper reels because Ricky Gervais couldn’t stop laughing. Stewart plays himself taking a film turn at Prospero in The Tempest. But when Gervais comes in to humbly ask for acting advice, Stewart shows him a script he wants to promote.
In the script, Patrick Stewart describes how his character would be wandering through town, walking in a park or on a bicycle, approaching a woman whose clothes would fly off. The script is simply a series of vignettes–not pornographic, oh no!–but tastefully done, with him either watching women bend over, so he could “spy their knickers” or seeing their clothes mysteriously slip off.
If you think back to Sejanus and Livilla, thirty years earlier, rolling around nearly naked and telling each other the most salacious sexually explicit fantasies… cut to Stewart here describing his great new script which simply involves women showing an extra bit of butt or oops, a nipple. And all Stewart wants to do is be a Peeping Tom.
I can’t hear the words “and you can see everything…” without remembering that scene, and Gervais’ take on it, which is to wonder if there’s some deeper metaphor that grand Royal Shakespearean actor Sir Patrick Stewart is trying to impart. But, nope. Just peeping at women’s bottoms and tops like any tweener with Playboys between the mattresses… though I don’t know if Internet sites have made that obsolete.
If you really want to see the range of Sir Patrick Stewart, you have to go see everything.