Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are best known together for being on opposite sides in the X-Men movie franchise. But in reality, the two are very good friends and have been for a very long time. They’ve known each other since the ‘70s when they worked in the theater together. When Stewart decided to make the jump to television to star in Star Trek: The Next Generation, he told his friend McKellen, who apparently tried to talk him out of it.
In Patrick Steward’s new memoir Making It So (via Insider), he reveals that when he told his friend Ian McKellen about his plan to sign the contract to star in the new Star Trek series, McKellen was dead set against the idea, believing that Stewart was throwing away his theater career to do TV. Stewart writes…
When I told him I was going to sign the contract, he almost bodily prevented me from doing so. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No, you must not do that. You must not. You have too much important theater work to do. You can’t throw that away to do TV. You can’t. No!
Acting seems to have become more democratized in recent years, with even major names shifting between movies, TV, and the stage fairly easily. But back in the late ‘80s, there were still stronger distinctions between the mediums. Television was definitely seen, by both stage and film actors, as being lesser, so it’s not surprising that McKellen reacted this way.
It’s even possible that Stewart could have listened to his friend and decided not to do it. Stewart would have certainly been a star in the theater, but we might have been robbed of not just his future TV work, but film appearances as well.
It’s basically impossible to imagine Star Trek: The Next Generation without Patrick Stewart. Picard is iconic and one of the roles for which Stewart will always be associated. The role was big enough that it spawned its own follow-up, Star Trek: Picard, which ended recently after a three-season run.
Luckily, Stewart had already decided he was going to do Star Trek. He explained to McKellen that he felt he would always be able to go back to the theater if the show didn’t work out, but he didn’t want to pass on an opportunity that he wasn’t sure he’d have again. Stewart continued…
There are few people, particularly with regard to acting, whose counsel I trust more than Ian’s. But this time I had to tell him that I felt theater would return to my life whenever I was ready for it, whereas an offer of the lead role in an American TV series might never come again.
For his part, Ian McKellen, who would go on to his own successful career on the screen as well as the stage, has since admitted that he was wrong to try and talk his friend out of the TV show. Stewart says he enjoys making McKellen admit he was wrong often.