It's a bizarre sight. Trekkers are used to seeing Stewart's Star Trek: The Next Generation alter-ego, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, whisking about in the U.S.S. Enterprise or beaming from one place to another via the transporter. But on this day , even though Stewart sports full Starfleet Regalia, he is pedalling into the distance on a rather ordinary 20th Century bicycle, and that Manhattan skyline is nothing but a giant set, the streets of the Big Apple as seen on the Paramount Pictures backlot in Hollywood. And Stewart, after an interview in his trailer, is returning to the set of Star Trek: First Contact.
Such a great, ironically appropriate coda to the Stewart interview is his exit by bike that it makes perfect sense to start an article about Stewart with the anecdote. In moments, Stewart will be back before the camera, taking his cues from Director Jonathan Frakes, just as he was bout an hour earlier. It was then that Stewart shared the set6 with Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Frakes, Brent Spiner and Gates McFaddon on one of the rate Star Trek: First Contact production days in which almost the entire cast was working at the same time. It was moments after Frakes called "Cut" on a scene in which Worf arrives on the U.S.S. Enterprise from an embattled U.S.S. Defiant that Stewart strode over to his trailer to talk. "This is proving to be as good an experience as I hoped it would be and an even better on in one particular instance, and that is the work we are all doing here with Jonathan as our director," Stewart says earnestly as he juggles lunch, an interview and some paternal concern about his cat, Bela, who is a bit under the weather. "It's been very nice so far to be back here with everyone, to be playing Picard once again, but I am most pleased that Jonathan earned the job and that he has so heartily embraced the task."
"He is bringing everything he learned while he was acting in and directing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to Star Trek: First Contact, and it is paying off, for us and for Jonathan. One can see that, given the scale of this movie, a director - and a first-time director at that might have been overwhelmed by it all. On the contrary, Jonathan stands so tall while he's directing, literally and figuratively. I had a visitor on the set the other day and they said, 'This is amazing. I have never seen the director of a movie this complicated appear to be as relaxed and at ease as Jonathan is.' He's really doing a wonderful job of it. Its thrilling to be here - as we were when Jonathan directed his first episode of the television series - for what I think is going to be a very grand directing career for Jonathan."
Stewart I equally enthusiastic about Star Trek: First Contact as a whole. While he ultimately liked Star Trek Generations and felt the David Carson-directed film did a reasonably good job of passing the torch from the original Star Trek crew to that of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he feels it was a dark film, on in which too much time was spent focusing on a Picard who was noticeably distracted and brooding. The captain was that way, understandably so, because he was surrounded by death. After all, we learnt that his brother and nephew had died senselessly in the opening reels. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) perished while fighting Soran (Malcolm McDowell) with him. And the U.S.S. Enterprise went down in a blazing ball of flames.
Although battling the dreaded Borg, as Picard and his compatriots do in Star Trek: First Contact, can't exactly be called the foundation of a celebratory Star Trek outing, Stewart promises that the film's tone and his character's demeanour are very different from those on view in Star Trek Generations. "We have a wonderful story, a different kind of story from the first film. It's a great adventure. It uses most of the principal characters effectively," Stewart notes. "The film's actually quite dark at times, and that is necessarily so, it being a story featuring the Borg. I feel especially pleased with it in terms of what we do with Picard this time. Here, despite the Borg connection, we see him being very much the Captain. We see him on the U.S.S. Enterprise, on the Bridge and in command, which is where he should be and what he should be doing."
Much of Picard's lighter side will be reflected in his relationship with Lily Sloane, the scientist played in Star Trek: First Contact by Alfre Woodard. Sloane is the associate of Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell), and it is she who winds up on the U.S.S. Enterprise like Alice in Wonderland. Stewart won't go so far as to describe their relationship as a romance, but he reveals that there is a "definite attraction and appeal that grows out of the experiences they share together." It was Stewart who initially suggested to the film's producers that a black actress be cast as Sloane, determined to counter present day racism with some 24th Century-style acceptance. "Racism is a reality, I suppose. But it is not a part of my universe," he insists. "This was one of my reasons, from the beginning, for suggesting a black actress for Lily: It's absolutely at the heart of what Star Trek is all about, because I don't see it as an issue. I see in Lily a tremendously attractive, intelligent woman being played by a tremendously attractive, intelligent woman and a brilliant actress."
Ultimately, Stewart sounds happy that he had returned to the character that has given him financial security, made him a star and allowed him to pursue any number of other exciting projects outside the Star Trek galaxy. Since Star Trek Generations, Stewart has hardly slowed down to catch his breath. He sashayed through a wonderful part as a gay man in the Paul Rudnick comedy,Jeffrey, gave Party of Five star Neve Caplbell the creeps in The Canterville Ghost, and played a dance instructor in a film entitled Let It Be Me, with Jennifer Beals, Leslie Caron and Campbell Scott. He has hosted a well-received evening of the famous US comedy show Saturday Night Live (in which, yes, he skewered ST:TNG to a nice crisp), lent his unmistakable voice to a wide variety of television commercials and educational CD-ROM games, and even turned up on the children's programme, Sesame Street, to promote the virtues of the letter 'B'.
The actor also took to the stage in the summer of 1995 as a fierce Prospero in a production of The Tempest. Initially a free, outdoor show in New York's famed Central Park (as part of its annual Shakespeare Festival), The Tempest proved so popular that it was transferred to Broadway for a sold-out run of several months. Clearly, Stewart is as proud of The Tempest as he could possibly be. "The experience was as good as any I've ever had," he enthuses. "It was simply an exhilarating experience. It was the first show to transfer from the Park to Broadway in, I think, 18 years. The show before it was The Pirates of Penzance. I don't know how long it had been since a Shakespeare production had transferred. Certainly, it was a number of years bef0re a US production had played on Broadway. I've actually been harassing (Tempest director) George C. Wolfe about another project. It's not Richard III, which if you look closely at Star Trek: First Contact, is in Picard's ready room (in a glass case). It would be one of the tragedies."
As if all that weren't enough, Stewart has a full slate of upcoming films on the way, including a thriller, Safe House, and a comedy, Smart Alec. "I play an ex-DIA agent in Safe House," Stewart reveals, "DIA being the Defence Intelligence Agency, who has barricaded himself inside his Hollywood Hills home using he latest security technology that can be found. He believes that his life has been threatened by a man who was once his boss, an admiral who is now running for President of the United States. The admiral is killing off all of the people who used to work for him and who may have dirt on him.
"And I have a lot of dirt on him for things he did while he was with the DIA. My character is the last guy alive, but no one believes him because he is in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Everyone thinks his paranoia is part of the disease. So, as the actual danger to his life gets closer, his ability to deal with the threat, with anything around him, gets worse and worse. We don't have a distributor for the film yet, but I think it came out very, very well."
Stewart has also completed principal photography on Smart Alec, a comedy that was shot on location in Canada immediately after Star Trek: First Contact wrapped up. "It's an action-comedy and I get to play a luminously unpleasant character," Stewart says, smiling broadly, "The major conflict of the story is between this super-criminal that I play and a teenager [played by Vincent Kartheiser], who was in the movie Alaska." The film was released in the states in August. "He's a wonderful young talent," Stewart continues. "The best way I can describe the film is to say that it will be a little like Home Alone in spirit and in its comedy."
These days, Stewart seems to be doing rather well for himself. He lives in Los Angeles most of the time, but he maintains a residence in London, and is romantically involved with Star Trek: Voyager producer Wendy Neuss. He recently sang at the Hollywood Bowl and will be taking to the stage come December in a limited-run Los Angeles production of his popular one-man show, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. He hopes to direct a small film version of The Merchant of Venice in the style of Sir Ian McKellen's Richard III.
So positive have Stewart's experiences away from Star Trek: The Next Generation been that he is actually looking forward to reprising his role as Jean-Luc Picard every few years in future films. Indeed, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Picard have not, as Stewart once feared like some fear the plague, stood in the way of his pursuing other opportunities, other roles that allow him to fully express himself as an actor.
"I was absolutely determined to be in a state of preparedness in my career as an actor to move on after Star Trek: The Next Generation went off air, and I was successful in doing that," Patrick Stewart says as the conversation comes to a close. "I have always said I would not mind coming back to Star Trek and to Picard as long as I had the opportunity to do other things.
"I still feel that way."
And with that, Stewart takes one last bite of his salad, pets his beloved Bela good-bye for now, and hops on that bicycle which will shuttle him back to the U.S.S. Enterprise bridge.
It really is quite a sight.
