Fans are remembering the late, great Patrick Stewart, who passed away on Thursday, October 29 at the age of 86.
Tributes have been flooding in, from co-stars throughout the “Star Trek” and Marvel universes, honoring his two most iconic characters, Starfleet Captain Jean-Luc Picard and X-Men leader Professor Charles Xavier.
One of Stewart’s co-stars, however, has shared his experience of working with the Shakespearean-trained actor in a project that predates both those roles, when Stewart made one of his earliest screen appearances in “Dune,” director David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of the iconic sci-fi novel.
‘Stately Confidence and Thoughtful Inquiry’
Prior to Stewart’s passing, “Dune” star Kyle MacLachlan wrote about his first time working with Stewart in his recently published memoir, “Fictional Selves.”
“The first thing I noticed when I met Patrick was his voice,” writes MacLachlan in the book, as excerpted by The Hollywood Reporter.
While Stewart was 20 years older than MacLachlan — who was just 24 — both were novices at making movies, with Stewart’s role as House Atreides warmaster Gurney Halleck representing the biggest Hollywood production he’d ever been involved with.
“I went to school for three years to learn how to speak onstage, but I’ll never sound like him,” MacLachlan wrote. “Coming from the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, Patrick has the most mellifluous tones, regal and elegant. No one can make the line ‘Behold, as a wild ass in the desert go I forth to my work’ sound correct except for him. He is Gurney Halleck, master swordsman and troubadour. And because he’s also Patrick Stewart, he’s suave and debonair about it. When he puts on the Atreides battle jacket or the Fremen stillsuit, it’s like he’s lived in it all his life. He also has the most marvelously shaped head of any human I’ve ever seen, and I tell him so. He gives me a ‘thank you, I think’ kind of look.”
Because MacLachlan was a fan of the book, Stewart utilized his knowledge to hone in on his character.
“Patrick is a mix of stately confidence and thoughtful inquiry. He regularly leans over and, sotto voce, asks me questions about what’s going on,” writes MacLachlan. “Though he presents a very cool and collected mien, he is just trying to figure [expletive] out like me. We connect on our theater background — I did Shakespeare the previous summer — and laugh at the exponential difference between simple theater productions and … whatever this is. The size and scope of the film often leave us speechless, and I feel less alone with him beside me.”
Memories of ‘Dune’
Per THR, the following excerpt from the book recounts MacLachlan’s experience working with rookie film actor.
On his first day of shooting, he and I took our seats in a half-built “ornithopter,” which is like a giant, multifaceted bee that flies over the desert. We were seated in front of a gigantic blue screen, where the landscape would be matted in later. I could feel Patrick’s nervousness as we prepared to “fly” over the shield wall and the Great Desert of Arrakis. He leaned forward and quietly asked, ‘Kyle, what are we looking at here?’
I leaned back and spoke in an undertone: “There’s a sandworm down there bigger than a tractor trailer.”
“Aha. And there?” he asked, pointing lower down. “It’s swallowing one of the harvesters.”
“Harvester?” he asked.
“It’s like a large metal factory on wheels.”
“Seems like a risky mission,” he said, a trace of somber gravitas. “Tremendous risk,” I said quietly.
Patrick’s key line in the scene is “The worm is eight minutes away, sire.” After the first take, he had a question. “Pardon, David?”
“YES, PATRICK,” David said in his distinctive honk.
“How exactly would I know how far out the worm is?” I’m impressed that Patrick exists deeply enough within his character to ask such a thing.
David stopped, re-calculating in his mind. “EXCELLENT QUESTION, PATRICK,” he said, like a supportive teacher. “THANK YOU.” He then dispatched a propman to construct a gauge, with analog hands to be inserted later.
‘Dune’ Co-Star Recalls How Patrick Stewart Raised the Bar for First Sci-Fi Role in 1984