Making It So

November 15, 2023
A charming memoir of a long life onstage and onscreen. Before Stewart (b. 1940) captained a starship on Star Trek: The Next Generation, he was a fixture on the London stage. Before he was an acclaimed Shakespearean actor, he was a struggling drama student, and before that a working-class child of Yorkshire. He became a voracious reader to escape an unhappy childhood, and, he writes, "the stage would prove to be a safe space, a refuge from real life in which I could inhabit another person, living in another place and time." He skipped the equivalent of high school because he couldn't afford the uniform, but, placed in a less traditional school, he fell into acting classes, followed by apprenticeships, during which one adviser told him that he would one day be a famed character actor--in 20 years' time. Those two decades passed, and Stewart was taking roles in theatrical productions and films such as David Lynch's Dune, where he admits to a faux pas with another Yorkshireman: Sting, whose band The Police he'd never heard of. Indeed, part of Stewart's appeal is his admission that, while grave and commanding behind the persona, he scarcely paid attention to pop-culture phenomena such as the Beatles, even though he became friends with Paul McCartney (who once exclaimed, over drinks with Stewart and a bandmate, "Sir Ringo. Sir Patrick. Sir Paul. Hey--we've got the Knights of the bloody Round Table!"). Funny and self-effacing, Stewart is gracious as he describes the talented players--Vivien Leigh, Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, and yes, the cast of Star Trek--he's worked with. One wants only for more notes on how an actor's work proceeds, for Stewart is a master, even if a humble one. A pleasure through and through--and you don't even have to be a Trekkie.

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