Patrick Stewart, who died on October 28 at the age of 86, will be remembered first as Captain Picard and Professor Xavier. Both roles deserve it. But the best way to learn from an actor is to watch the work closely, and his range was wider than the two parts that made him famous.
Here are five Patrick Stewart performances every filmmaker should study, across classic television, Shakespeare, a superhero film and an independent thriller. For each one: what it is, what to watch for, and what it can teach writers, directors and actors.
1. Sejanus in I, Claudius (1976)
What it is. The BBC’s adaptation of Robert Graves’s novels about the Roman imperial family. Stewart plays Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, who uses the trust of the emperor Tiberius to climb toward power.
What to watch for. Ambition kept under a calm, loyal surface. Sejanus is a servant who believes he should be the master, and Stewart plays both men at once.
The lesson. A supporting villain in an ensemble does not need big scenes to be memorable. For writers, it means letting the scheme live in what a character leaves unsaid. For actors, it means playing the hidden objective underneath the obedient one.
2. Picard in “The Inner Light” (1992)
What it is. Episode 25 of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, first aired on June 1, 1992. An alien probe knocks Picard unconscious, and in his mind he lives an entire life as Kamin, a man on a dying planet, with a wife and children. The story is by Morgan Gendel, the teleplay by Gendel and Peter Allan Fields. It won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and Stewart named it more than once as his favourite episode of the series.
What to watch for. How a starship captain becomes, over decades, a domestic man who no longer wants to leave. Watch the scene with his grown son Batai, played by Stewart’s own son, Daniel. And watch the flute, which starts as a hobby and ends as the only proof that the life was real.
The lesson. A single object can carry an entire life if the story gives it time to gather meaning. The episode also shows how far a familiar format can be pushed: a whole lifetime inside 45 minutes of an action series. Much of its power works through subtext, which we cover in Text, Context and Subtext in Screenwriting Explained.
3. Macbeth (2010)
What it is. Rupert Goold’s film of his own stage production, which opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2007 and moved to the West End and then Broadway, where Stewart was nominated for a Tony. Goold shot the film for the BBC and PBS entirely on location at Welbeck Abbey, setting the play in a nameless twentieth century military state with Soviet-style uniforms. It won a Peabody Award.
What to watch for. A stage performance recalibrated for the camera. The verse is spoken as thought rather than declaimed, and the corridors, kitchens and service rooms of a real house replace the theatre’s single set.
The lesson. For directors, this is a model of adaptation: keep the text, change the world around it, and let a real location do work that sets and dialogue cannot. For actors, it shows how much of a big stage performance survives when you take the volume away.
4. Charles Xavier in Logan (2017)
What it is. James Mangold’s 2017 film, made as Hugh Jackman’s farewell to Wolverine. Xavier, once the most powerful mind on the planet, is now in his nineties, frail and failing, hidden in an abandoned smelting plant in Mexico, his seizures a danger to everyone near him.
What to watch for. Dignity, anger and humour inside one decline. The relationship with Logan has turned around: the mentor is now the one who needs looking after, and both men resent it and need it at once.
The lesson. One of the strongest ways to end a famous character is to take away the thing that made him famous. Audiences already knew Xavier as the calm, all-seeing teacher. Logan uses that knowledge against them. If you are writing a character with a long history, ask what the audience expects, then build the story on its loss.
5. Darcy Banker in Green Room (2015)
What it is. Jeremy Saulnier’s thriller, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2015 and was released in the US by A24 in 2016. A young punk band witnesses a murder at a remote club in the Pacific Northwest. Stewart plays the club’s owner, the leader of a white supremacist gang, who sets out to make the problem disappear.
What to watch for. A villain who behaves like a manager. Darcy never raises his voice. He gives instructions, weighs options and handles a massacre as if it were a staffing issue.
The lesson. Understatement can be more frightening than rage, especially when the actor carries decades of goodwill with the audience. For directors, it is a reminder that casting against type can do half the work of a scene before a line is spoken.
Where to start
If you only have one evening, watch “The Inner Light” and Green Room back to back. One is the warmest thing he ever played, the other the coldest, and the same restraint drives both.
Tomorrow we look at where that restraint came from: what his years at the Royal Shakespeare Company brought to the screen.
Which performance would you add to the list? Tell us in the comments.
Leave a Reply