Picard’s Patrick Stewart Credits Star Trek As The Most Important Thing In His Life – Looper

It’s safe to assume that those who have pledged allegiance to the “Star Trek” franchise believe not only that Sir Patrick Stewart was an amazing casting choice but also that the talented actor was born to play the part of Jean-Luc Picard, so much so that trying to conceive of anyone else in the role feels like an exercise in futility.

But someone didn’t believe the actor was right to headline the show, and that person just happened to be Gene Roddenberry, the franchise’s creator. “Gene had been very reluctant to cast me from the beginning, from the first day that I was rushed over to his house to meet with him. The meeting lasted about seven minutes,” the actor said during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “But he made it clear that I was not what he was looking for.” Stewart also mentioned that after he was cast, Roddenberry still wasn’t thrilled, which became apparent when the creator visited the set. Stewart said, “Occasionally I would catch him looking at me, and I know that he was thinking, ‘What the hell is this guy doing in my show?'” 

And then he revealed an interesting piece of Star Trek trivia regarding a possible Paramount artifact that could be worth searching out, saying, “I am told that somewhere in the archives, somewhere in the cellars of Paramount, there is a memo which came from Gene to everybody on the production that he never wanted to hear my name mentioned again.”

While Roddenberry was right about a lot of “Star Trek” things, it seems pretty obvious after so many years that he was wrong to resist Stewart sitting in the captain’s chair as Picard.