Since Star Trek, Stewart has been fortunate enough to play a massive variety of roles, from Charles Xavier, to playing opposite his close friend Ian McKellen in Waiting For Godot. Right now, he is about to lend his voice to the poop emoji for the upcoming Emoji movie. Certainly no one can accuse Stewart of always playing the same role. Talking to The Independent, Stewart says he always seeks to play someone different, and strives for diversity in his work.
“Diversity and contrast have been important to me from the very start. When I graduated from drama school in Bristol, I didn’t have a job, an agent or anything. It seemed to be everyone else did except me, but after a month of signing on at the Labour Exchange in Dewsbury, I suddenly got an offer out of nowhere. I was introduced to variety from the beginning, so it’s stayed with me. I’ve never been interested in finding a Patrick Stewart persona and simply regurgitating it – and anyway, who’d be interested in Patrick Stewart? Very few people. It’s always for me been about performance and trying to produce the unexpected.”
“I feel incredibly fortunate because aspects of my career, not only did I never anticipate any of it, they weren’t looked for. I was a stage actor and the fact that somebody would employ me to work on the stage was enough for me. I did a bit of TV, but movies, Hollywood, it was la la land and a lot of it was accident – being at UCLA illustrating a friend’s academic lecture on Shakespeare; a producer of Star Trek signed up to the course of lectures. I say to my son who is also an actor, it’s a lottery, it really is. Always do the best work you can do, but don’t expect that it will lead to the next thing.”
(via)
