Patrick Stewart’s acting career (yes, I’m serious about the headline, and no, there’s no bait and switch: this intro is merely a “to be sure” throat-clearing aside, so bear with me) was far of course larger and more accomplished than the two enduring pop-culture roles to which he owed his household-name celebrity. Like many great British actors who became stars on U.S. screens, Stewart was a classically trained stage actor: Well before donning a Starfleet uniform in 1986, he spent 16 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, winning a Laurence Olivier Award; and, well after the last Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Stewart’s acclaimed turn in Macbeth earned him a Tony nomination and a second Olivier Award in 2008. His collaborators included David Lynch, David Mamet, Ben Kingsley, John Boorman, and his close friend (and X-Men co-star) Ian McKellen. He also did a fair bit of animation voicework, most recently playing an absurdly dignified sheep in the lovely pastoral murder-mystery family film The Sheep Detectives (featuring Hugh Jackman, another friend and X-Men co-star).
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