A Quote by Patrick Stewart
I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say, 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well.
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I became a better listener than I ever had been as a result of playing Jean Luc Picard because it was one of the things that he does terrifically well.
Suddenly I had a call one day saying they'd like me to come to the office to see Jean-Luc Godard. 'He is preparing a film called 'Breathless.' Jean would like to see you.' I said yes. I thought he was pretty strange, because at that time nobody was wearing those kind of glasses where you couldn't see the eyes.
It was really important to try to reach a whole new audience so we had a lot of people in who not only had not seen the last film but were not Star Trek fans, or thought of themselves as not being Star Trek fans, or they had seen bits and pieces of Star Trek in the past and it was just not for them.
I was brought to Hollywood by Gene Roddenberry and Michael Eisner, chosen from 600 hopefuls to star in the original 'Star Trek' motion picture. The success of the film, coupled with the allure that I had shaved my head for the role, put a spotlight on me.
Jean-Luc didn't like me to say any bad words in real life, and I would always do it on purpose, just for fun. And he would go crazy! Then he had Brigitte Bardot do just that in 'Contempt.' And in that film she also has this line - 'I want red velvet curtains, or nothing at all in the apartment' - which was something I would always say.
With a director it's all about the work; I'd work with a great director over - you know, I'm not the kind of actor who that doesn't go, 'I want to play this role.' It's more like, 'I want to work with this director,' regardless of what the role is because if it's a good director, you'll probably find a good role because it's a decent film. But a mediocre director will always make a mediocre movie.
Of course, if you're going to enter the 'Star Trek' Universe, you want to work with Spock, you want to work with Kirk, you want to work with McCoy, and Scotty, and Sulu, and Uhura. The next one for me would have been Picard.
In some instances, I would say the writer does deserve equal billing with the director. In other instances the director - especially if he wrote part of the script himself - is clearly more the author of the movie.
For me, the greatest kind of success that I've had on a particular project or in exploring a role does come through collaboration. I wouldn't want to do a movie where everything I do the director just says, "Good job" and I'm under directed.
There's always that part of you, when you're sitting around going, 'That would be cool to try, to see what it would be like.' But I had never had that drive in me to say, 'Oh, I want to be a movie star one day.'
I really liked the Jean-Luc Godard movie, 'Film Socialisme.'
Realistically, it's the great truism that screenwriters are fungible, that at the end of the day a studio is not going to want to fire a movie star. And they're really not going to want to fire a star director because the director has the hand on the tiller of a ship.
There are people on the ratings board and so froth who don't want certain scenes in the film. There are people who come up and say, "What graphic love scenes. I think, How can a love scene be graphic? Have you seen Total Recall? In this R-rated movie you see a man who you've seen being in love with and sleeping with this fabulous woman shoot her right through the head. "Consider this a divorce" is supposed to be the funniest line in the movie.
I would love to say something really cool, because I did film studies. So, like, a Jean-Luc Goddard film - something like that. But I genuinely would love to be in 'Titanic.' I'm such a loser. That's, like, my childhood film. Like, I love it.
It was a fun film. I had a great time doing it. I was looking for a role just like that for my first movie role. I didn't want to have a starring role, because I wanted a chance to learn. I didn't want the whole thing riding on me.
I came up in this industry at a time where you had to be a journalist. You had to break stories. You had to break news to elevate your career, to get to a certain point and a certain level in this business, before you even had the license to give your opinion, especially if you were a black man.
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