“We are not here to have fun”

Although he is now one of the most important and well-known faces in the Star Trek franchise, Patrick Stewart had a very difficult start. After being cast as Picard against Gene Roddenberry’s wishes, he had to assert himself as a stage actor in a television format – and took the matter a little too seriously.

Patrick Stewart didn’t like the relaxed atmosphere of a TV shoot

In his memoir Making it so * he shares his first experiences on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Before that he had spent years as an actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company With this theatre ensemble he mainly performed classical Shakespeare plays.

The Television was a completely new experience for the actor. He wanted to prove himself and took his role and the work just as seriously as he did at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The rest of the cast, however, liked to joke around and improvise.

My experiences at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre were intense and serious. On the TNG set, I got angry at the behavior of my colleagues, and I called this meeting where I reprimanded the cast for their silliness and responded to Denise Crosby’s comment ‘We have to have fun sometimes, Patrick’ with these words: ‘We’re not here to have fun, Denise.’

His serious and pompous acting style caused the cast to laugh at him more than once, which only made Stewart angrier and he stormed off the set.

His co-stars were able to calm Stewart down again. In his memoirs, he describes how Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner later visited him in his trailer. The two assured him that that Stewart was taken seriously and respected. And they also agreed that things had gotten a little too relaxed on set.

Stewart can now laugh about this situation just as much as his colleagues. Jonathan Frakes in particular helped him a lot in the early days of TNG and gave him great support.

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