There followed two years of selling furniture. “I was better at selling furniture than I was at journalism,” Stewart observes good-naturedly. He also enrolled in drama school at the Bristol Old Vic to bring his skills up to the level of his enthusiasm.
The actor used to see his roles as a way of exploring other personalities and characteristics, but nowadays it has become more of a means of self-expression. “When I was younger, I used to think in terms of how I could disguise myself in roles. Now I want my work to say something about me, contain more of my experience of the world.”
A FAMOUS BRIT
Patrick Stewart has become a highly regarded actor in Great Britain from his roles in such BBC productions as I, Claudius, Smiley’s People, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, all of which have aired in America. His face is also known to American filmgoers from roles in a variety of motion pictures. In the David Lynch adaptation of Dune, he played Gurney Halek, one of the more prominent roles in the film. In Excalibur, he played Leondegrance.
More recently, he was seen in the strange science fiction film Lifeforce as the character Dr. Armstrong. On stage, he starred in London in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which garnered him the prestigious London Fringe Best Actor Award. As an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart is considered one of the leading talents of the British stage. His impressive list of stage credits includes Shylock, Henry IV, Leontes, King John, Titus Andronicus, and many others. In 1986, he played the title role in Peter Shaffer’s play Yonadab at the National Theatre of Great Britain.
Patrick Stewart moved up to directing in The Next Generation in the fifth season, and his work includes the excellent episode “Hero Worship,” as well as ‘In Theory.”
After supervising producer Robert Justman saw Stewart onstage at UCLA, the actor was cast as Captain Picard. “A friend of mine, an English professor, was lecturing and I was part of the stage presentation,” he recalls. A few days later he was called to audition for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since then, he has become a well-known face, although occasionally fans get confused. One woman accosted him at a party and racked her brains until she recognized him. “You fly the Endeavor,” she told him triumphantly, when her memory finally clicked, “and you play William Shatner!”
But Patrick Stewart got his biggest surprise when the July 18, 1992, issue of TV Guide revealed that in a poll of readers, he was voted the sexiest man on television with 54% of the votes, beating out Burt Reynolds, A. Martinez, John Corbett, and Luke Perry. He responded to the award by expressing, “Surprise … puzzlement … and pleasure.” He said that it would have been nice had it happened when he was nineteen, which is when he lost all his hair and thought no woman would ever look at him again. Stewart had worn a series of wigs over the years and even wore one when he tested for the part of Captain Picard. The producers decided he looked fine without it. Apparently a lot of female viewers agree with them.
Not since the first starship Enterprise 1701 was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike has the executive officer been called “Number One.” William Riker has been given this honor by his commander, Captain Picard, to whom he is responsible for vastly important duties. When a landing team, or Away Team, is assembled, Riker is generally in charge of the team. Although it is not strictly prohibited for the starship captain to head up the team, Riker correctly recognizes that too much depends on the captain remaining safe to guide and protect his vessel.
Sending the most experienced officer down into an unknown situation is deemed too dangerous by Number One until he checks out the status of the planet and its culture for himself. Picard isn’t entirely happy being forced to remain behind, but he understands and respects his executive officer’s viewpoint.
Riker is also in charge of overseeing the condition of the vessel and the crew. When a Federation propulsion expert came aboard in “Where No One Has Gone Before,” Riker would not allow him to run tests on the system until they had been fully outlined to him and approved by the ship’s chief engineer.
“Number One” is an expression whose meaning has not appreciably altered since Earth’s seventeenth century, when the second-in-command of a sailing ship was generally known as a “first lieutenant” (hence “Number One” is used in the sense of “first”). The term also implies executive officer and captain-in-training.
THE CAPTAIN IS NOT EXPENDABLE
In those bygone days, the executive officer was also generally in command of shore parties for the same reason Riker takes such tasks upon himself now—the life of a ship’s captain is not considered to be expendable. But even though Number One is in charge of the Away Team on the ground, Captain Picard retains final authority over their actions.
William Riker joined the Enterprise crew when it picked him up at the Farpoint Station, which is where he also met some other crew members for the first time, including Beverly and Wesley Crusher, and Geordi La Forge.
Riker regards his captain with a mixture of awe and affection, but is also privy to Picard’s self-doubts, such as his annoyance at having to deal with children and families in a starship setting. As time passes, Riker has seen the captain adjust to this new situation.
While Riker has a lively interest in women, he considers it a point of honor never to let it come between himself and his duty. He is intellectually committed to sexual equality and tries to live up to that. This was put to the test in “Justice,” in which the people on Edo proved to be extremely affectionate and greeted the opposite sex with deep hugs and kisses instead of a bow or a handshake. The whole truth is that, at thirty, Riker is still young and hasn’t learned yet how completely different the two sexes can be.
Number One was surprised to see Deanna Troi after beaming aboard the Enterprise. They had been in a previous relationship and had a strong attraction for one another. Riker is slightly uncomfortable thrown into a situation where he deals with Troi every day, but each treats the other with respect, and they seem to have put their past relationship behind them.
ACCEPTING DATA
While Riker can accept Troi, and even the Klingon Worf, Lt. Commander Data posed some problems at first, but Riker has come to accept the android as an equal. He agonized when he was obliged to act as prosecutor in “The Measure of a Man,” but carried out his duty, perhaps too well for his conscience. Data helped him cope with this by pointing out that if he had declined to fulfill that duty, the judge would have made a summary judgment against Data, but the full hearing gave Picard a chance to mount his most persuasive arguments.
While Riker is called Number One by the captain and crew alike, this distinction is reserved for starship personnel and not for people who are not a part of the ship’s complement.
JONATHAN FRAKES
“I knew this was a real part, a big one,” says Jonathan Frakes regarding the six weeks of auditions he went through for the role, “and I had to get it.”
The actor credits Gene Roddenberry with giving him the needed insight into the character that eventually became his.
“Gene was so very non-Hollywood and quite paternal. One of the things he said to me was, ‘You have a Machiavellian glint in your eye. Life is a bowl of cherries.’ I think Gene felt that way, which is why he wrote the way he did. He’s very positive and Commander Riker will reflect that,” states Frakes.
The actor sees Riker as, “strong, centered, honorable, and somewhat driven. His job is to provide Captain Picard with the most efficiently run ship and the best-prepared crew he can. Because of this he seems to maintain a more military bearing than the other characters in behavior,