Patrick Stewart Quotes

Quotes by and about Patrick Stewart

(Continued from his main entry on the site.)

Stewart: "I've always been fascinated by power and how it's used - by what authority is and how it's exerted."

Stewart: "Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world."

Stewart: "An unswerving commitment to one thing is always fascinating."

Stewart: "[William Shatner and I] have completely contrasting personalities. We're very good friends ... but we're very different people, so [the Star Trek writers] were smart enough to write characters that reflected that."

Stewart: "Crudely what attracted me [to taking the role of Picard] was the fact that he was the captain. I had thought originally that I was being cast as some token Englishman on the crew. Nobody said anything to me about captain until I think I went back for my last audition interview at Paramount and that piqued my interest much more when I realized that it was the head guy on the ship. It was perfectly clear that as the captain I was going to be having the dominant role in most of the episodes and that was appealing."

Stewart: "[The Captain] was ultimately the best role. It is good to be king; it is also good to be captain. ... You get to sit in the chair a great deal - a lot of people have to stand - which is the same thing as being king too, you know - and also I didn't have to do all that technobabble that [LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner] had to do. I could simply say to Mr. Data: 'Analyze!' and they had to learn the technobabble."

Stewart: "The truth of the matter is, all of those guys on 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' actually want to be me. These impersonations they do are just some way of trying to feel what it must be like to be me. And I understand that. Because it feels really good to be Patrick Stewart."

Stewart: "I find myself talking a lot about Picard and one of the things that I've come to understand is that as I talk a lot about Picard what I find is I'm talking about myself."

Stewart: "It embarrasses me a little to say it, but I truly no longer know where I begin and [Picard] leaves off. A lot of me has gone into this man."

[On why he walked out on a spoof where 'Good Morning America' was going to do a segment on the Star Trek sets:]
Stewart: "I objected to it because I thought that it was undignified."

Brent Spiner: "In the beginning [Stewart] approached [Star Trek] as you would a serious Shakespeare role."

New York Times: "On set [during the first season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'] he had difficulty fitting in and took offense at the way he felt his castmates tended to horse around. So he called a meeting and 'lectured them about having to be more serious.' ... That did not go over very well. 'It was really awful, being dressed down by the captain,' said Mr. Spiner, who played Data, the android, and is still close to Mr. Stewart. 'We really thought, 'Well, please, get over it.'"

Brenden Gallagher: "[He] brings an aura of dignity to [his roles]. ... [How] Stewart comes by his aura of authority ... we'll never know, but one thing is for sure: When [he] says something, you believe it."