Patrick Stewart passed away 10/28–to say that had a role in my life, is an immense understatement. I had passively absorbed Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 1990s as a child, which motivated me to rent Star Trek VI (as a 6 year old at Blockbuster), and by 8 years old, I had become a deep Star trek fan and started watching TNG it as it aired.
I remember imagining being aboard the Enterprise for Captain Picard Day (TNG-S7: Pegasus), and as a kid, I imagined with my few trekkie friends) playing make-believe Star Trek irl. I dove deep–made friends that shared this nerdy love, wrote fan-fic stories and posted them, made personal lore, imagining a future that I could help build!
As I became an adult, I felt a personal mission and calling to “build the Star Trek universe” which was a bit of personal mantra in my professional life too.
Making it so…
In the lore of Commander Xela, I was aboard the USS Enterprise-D as a child (mirroring my IRL), where Picard was a larger than life figure that influenced my core values. In so many ways, Picard became by conscience, a voice of reason and greater principle in a world of compromise and pseudo-values and my stories became where I got to explore, question, challenge, and grow my thoughts at the speed of imagination.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Patrick Stewart, though, I’ve often been careful not to project my imagined ideals of a character onto a person performing a role, from what I’ve heard and read from people that do know him, he is one that does deserve the honor. Perhaps now, in 2026, we need a figure like this more than ever.
Ian McKellen’s post particularly moved me, as he truly did know Stewart, so will leave with this here:
SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026)
Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek’. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”. Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.
His farewell performance in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is yet to be seen.
Ian McKellen 29 October 2026
Photo: University of Huddersfield
— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) October 30, 2026
To boldly go…
Jean-Luc Picard, you were my first captain, always inspiring me to believe in my role in building a better tomorrow. The future you believed in, we will boldly, make it so… 