On the set of James Corden, the famous interpreter of Captain Picard in the saga “Star Trek” revealed in what surprising circumstances he had accepted the role, at the end of the 80s.
Famous for having played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men saga, but especially for the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, which he has held for nearly 40 years now in the Star Trek saga, British comedian Patrick Stewart almost never put on the suit of the illustrious Starfleet officer.
Indeed, as he recently recounted on the set of James Cordenin the mid-1980s, when he was offered to play the character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stewart was very reluctant to sign a 6-year contract for a series he did not know. , while his ambitions as an actor carried him more towards the theater and major Shakespearean plays.
If he finally accepted the role, it is thanks to his agent. The latter had indeed assured him that the series could not work:
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“I said I couldn’t do this”said Stewart, “and my agent was like, ‘Look, you can’t revive an iconic show. It’s impossible. It won’t work. So you come, you do a dozen episodes, maybe less, you make some money for the first time in your life, and you go home.’ That was what he predicted. Six months, no more.”
As we all know, things obviously did not go as planned. The Star Trek: The Next Generation series was finally extended for 7 seasons, until 1994, followed by several feature films. Patrick Stewart has therefore played Jean-Luc Picard four times on the big screen. More recently, he once again took on the captaincy in the new Star Trek: Picard series, which airs from 2020 to 2023.
(Re)discover the trailer for this latest series…