It was a huge surprise when Sir Patrick Stewart announced he was returning to the role of Jean-Luc Picard a year ago, as the actor had previously gone on record saying he was done with Star Trek. Since then, Stewart’s clarified that it took some convincing to get him back in the fold as he was keen to do something interesting with the character and not just rehash the past.
Now, the star has explained that his aim for Star Trek: Picard was for it to be like his final X-Men movie Logan. Speaking at Destination Star Trek in Birmingham, Stewart opened up about what went down at his second meeting with Picard‘s producers. Having already been pitched the idea of coming back, Stewart took the lead of the meeting and challenged the EPs to come up with something similar to Logan, which offered a more mature, very different slant on the X-Men universe.
“I asked to meet them all again and at the second meeting, I had specific terms and conditions that I said would allow me to think about reviving this world. Much of it was about what the world would be that you were going back to. I referenced X-Men and particularly the final movie that Hugh Jackman and myself did, Logan, as [to] what I had in mind. Logan was nothing like any of the other X-Men movies that had come before. It was very, very different. The world had changed. And so, I challenged Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman to come up with ideas for a completely different world than the one that we had known 17 or 18 years earlier.”
It seems the writers and producers of the show rose to his challenge, as Stewart can now reflect on the experience of reprising his role as a fulfilling one as it felt just as “brand new” as he had hoped.
“[Star Trek: Picard is] better than being a return to Jean Luc, a return to the franchise. It felt like a brand new project. And I was fascinated because, in those 18 years, Picard had grown older and Patrick, myself, had grown older. My life, in many respects, is very different. And I felt if we could bring all of those elements into a new series about Picard then I would be content. And this is the end result of that.”
We’ve seen from the trailers so far just how different Picard is from TNG. The former Starfleet officer himself is a much changed man, and the tone seems much more modern and contemporary. That said, it’ll still honor Jean-Luc’s past and will also bring back many of his old friends. William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Data (Brent Spiner) are all returning, with possibly more to come.
Star Trek: Picard arrives on CBS All Access from January 23rd. Let’s hope it’s just as well received as Logan was.