Patrick Stewart (‘Star Trek: Picard’) on reuniting the ‘TNG’ cast: ‘Should I really do this at all?’
“Oh I had many concerns,” admits Sir Patrick Stewart about the prospect of reuniting the the original crew of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” for the third and final season of “Star Trek: Picard.” As the actor confesses in a recent interview with Gold Derby (watch above), those concerns boiled down to a single central question: “Should I really do this at all?”
Ultimately, Stewart says, the decision to reprise the role of Jean-Luc Picard after so many years came down to the idea of change. Stewart realized that he had changed over the two decades since he had last played the role. “That’s exactly the situation that Picard is in,” he says. “He’s not the same person, and right away that was my cue to investigating what he might have become.
While the final season of “Picard” finds Jean-Luc in the comfort of working with his old crew, the admiral is far from comfortable. He deals with the sudden discovery that he has a grown son (Ed Speleers) with Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) that he must protect from Vadic (Amanda Plummer), a vengeance-seeking Changeling hell bent on capturing Picard’s son. The whole situation finds Picard in strange new emotional territory and, as Stewart explains, has Jean-Luc on unsure footing. “Indeed there were moments when Picard had no idea what to do, didn’t know what the hell he should be doing next,” he says. “It was elements like that that gave this adventurous new series it’s special quality.”
One of the emotional highlights of the series is the return to the bridge of the Enterprise-D, the flagship of the “Next Generation” series. Stewart recalls his feelings as he stepped back onto that set. “It was not a sentimental emotion, but it was pleasure being reminded what had been home for us,” he remembers. “I remember walking alone around the set. “I waited until people had gone off to do other things and I just walked around and sat in the captain’s chair and let myself drift back. And it was nothing but pleasant and satisfying.”
Despite the series ending, Stewart says he hasn’t yet closed the book on Jean-Luc Picard, saying that he’d like to do a full-length film. “I think everything we did the last season was a great launchpad for a possible Picard-style movie,” he says. “I think this is a good time to do it and it could have a really great impact worldwide.
