I, Claudius

I was looking at before Star Trek and he did have a pretty good television career before then.

So Tinka Taylor, as we've just mentioned, iClaudius, as we've just mentioned, but he also had strong parts in Anthony and Cleopatra and Hamlet, a version of Hamlet in 1980.

And he was in a film called Pope John Paul II as well.

just before he got the Star Trek gig.

In addition to Picard, he iconically played Professor X in 2000's X-Men and returned to the role in many of the film series' hit sequels, including a powerful turn as an elderly Xavier in 2017's Logan.

His innumerable films include Green Room, 1984's Dune, Conspiracy Theory, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Kid Who Would Be King, I, Claudius, Robin Hood Mennatites, The King of Texas, and Excalibur.

He also did work on the American Dad, Family Guy, and Sim Sim shows and films The Pagemaster, The English Dub of Nosca, The Value of the Wing, The Shoe Detectives, which was released in May, Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, and The Prince of Egypt.

In his honor, I'll be talking about one of his most famous films that I just mentioned later on in the break.

It's like, yeah, there's going to be boobs, but stick around because it's a good story, too.

And so I just, you know, I remember seeing him in I, Claudius.

I remember seeing him in other films too.

I mean, he was in Dune, that early version of Dune, right? Which is weird, but he was in it.

John Castle, not also not like a big actor.

Um, I know him weirdly from, I think he's in I Claudius maybe, but he's also, um, He's one of the bad guys in Robocop 3.

A nearly unwatchable movie.

This was another situation.

And you could tell that Stewart was Shakespearean trained from the jump.

And I even probably saw him in iClaudius.

I watched iClaudius before I'd watched the next generation Star Trek.

I probably saw him in that as in iClaudius' Sejanus.

But between Derek Jacoby, John Hurt, Brian Blessed, and most of all, Cyan Phillips, even a great actor could get lost in that cast.

Do I love original Star Trek or Next Generation more? It is like choosing between Haagen-Dazs caramel cone or cookies and cream.

The actor made his first cinematic forays into fantasy and science fiction with John Borman's take on the Arthurian legend in 1981's Excalibur, in which he played Leon de Granci, and director David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, in which he played Gurney Halleck, the top officer of the Atreides household, who becomes the trusted lieutenant to Paul.

And on British television, he starred in the 1975 BBC miniseries North and South, and then played Sejanus on I, Claudius, and in the BBC's Mayberry from 1981 to 1983, starred as a psychiatrist at a hospital.

Patrick

Hughes Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, acting as a youth in various amateur drama societies in the region, and he left school at 15.