The late Patrick Stewart was a legend of star and screen, best known for playing the roles of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Charles Xavier in Fox’s X-Men movies. But I confess that, for me—as for so many people I know in his beloved Yorkshire—he was far more than a movie star. I’m a Yorkshireman too, born and raised in the town next door to his birthplace of Mirfield. My parents live near Huddersfield, where he served as chancellor. I had the privilege of briefly meeting him when I was just a child, before I’d even watched The Next Generation.
All this means the sad news of Patrick Stewart’s death felt strangely personal to me. Tales of Patrick Stewart’s warmth and humor are commonplace in my neck of the woods; accounts of the love he had for Huddersfield, for the work he put in as chancellor of Huddersfield University, for the charities he supported. I’ve naturally found myself revisiting his career, remembering my delight when I heard he’d been perfectly cast as Professor X. As I relived these, rewatching in his honor, I couldn’t help remembering his first appearance as Professor X; which wasn’t actually on-screen at all.
Patrick Stewart Was Always Destined To Play Professor X
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Stewart admitted he knew nothing about the X-Men when he was approached for the part of Professor X in 1997. According to his autobiographer, producer Lauren Donner offered him the role and he gave an amusing answer: “Who on earth is that, Lauren?” She explained he was the leader of the X-Men, but that didn’t help. “This conversation made about as much sense to me as the one I’d had with Steve Dontanville all those years ago in which he asked me why Gene Roddenberry wanted to meet me,” he recalled. “Charles Xavier? The X-Men? I hadn’t a bloody clue what was going on.”
But the casting wasn’t new. At that very moment, as Patrick Stewart met with Lauren Donner, Paramount Comics was working on a crossover with Marvel. Popular author Michael Jan Friedman was offered the chance to write an X-Men / Next Generation crossover book, Planet X, in which Picard’s nemesis Q transported the X-Men from their reality to the bridge of the USS Enterprise. The book was eventually published in 1998, two years before Picard appeared on-screen as Professor X. And it serves as the perfect foreshadowing.
Professor X isn’t one of the X-Men team members to make the reality jump. But there’s a delightful scene where the weather-manipulating Storm marvels at how closely Captain Picard resembles the X-Men’s founder. As the book continues, the X-Men use the Enterprise’s holodeck to recreate Professor X. Friedman established Xavier as Picard’s doppelganger. I read the book in 1998 (and again this weekend), and it delighted me to remember. The truth is, even then, Patrick Stewart always seemed destined for the role of Professor X; and even Pocket Books recognized it. How truly, truly iconic.
You can buy the X-Men / TNG crossover Planet X Patrick Stewart's First Professor X Appearance.
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