Patrick Stewart talks with Michele Manelis about his return to Star Trek
Was it easy to slip back into your role as Jean-Luc Picard?
Well, this was not the first time I've been asked about doing
Picard again. And I'd always passed because I was proud of all the work that we did in '87 to '94. I had moved on and I felt I had nothing more to say as Captain Picard. And then I met with all of these wonderful people in order to tell them why I wasn't going to accept their offer - and I did that at length. I left, saying, "Thank you very much but, no." But then we arranged a second meeting because they had incorporated my comments into their pitch. Well, it went so well that I felt myself being pulled without any resistance back into the role.
A lot has changed in the world since you were Picard.
Yes, it was 18 years since I was last Picard, in the film, Nemesis. In those years our world has changed, particularly, the United States and the UK. We are now days away from what I think to be a very, very tragic event, which is Brexit. I think it's going to be calamitous and I'm ashamed to even talk to Europeans.
You'll be turning 80 this year, how will you celebrate?
Well, I am pretty certain a lot of my year will be taken up with Star Trek: Picard. That feels perfectly appropriate to me and I'm happy to be doing that. There will be a party which my wife has been in the process of organising now for some time. The first party will be here in Los Angeles, because this has become very much the centre of a certain side of my life and then there will be one in London, too. That's where my good friend Ian McKellen is at the moment and he's got to come to my 80th birthday party, as I went to his.