To Whom... The Robots???
Happy birthday today, Patrick!
Anyone see Patrick profiled on A&E's Biography tonight? It was quite interesting.
The BBC interviewed Patrick Stewart to ask what he thinks of manned exploration of mars. (Never mind it is American tax money, not British. Never mind the quip that they should interview astrophysicists about the feasibility of another Star Trek series. For some unexplained reason the BBC is on a manned exploration of mars kick.)
Oddly enough Patrick Stewart was against it and had a good argument. If 50% of robotic probes fail but they are 50% cheaper than sending manned craft, what is the incentive. Robots are safer.
"Robots are safer."
To Whom... The Robots???
2 comments about Patrick Stewart.
1st, he is rumoured to be dating a 24 year old girl. (He's doing better in the romance depatment than I.)
2nd, next year is the 300th pre-anniversary of Captain Picard's birth. (Picard was born in 2305, and next year is 2005.) Paramount really should plan something spacial for next year. (A new Trek movie would be nice. I volunteer for the red shirt that gets killed to prove the situation is really serious.)
Does anyone know anything about Patrick Stewart originally starting out as a journalist?
I heard on Letterman a few years ago he tried to report on a city council meeting he didn't really go to. He failed to mention the fire next door to "city hall". He was sacked soon after.
On a talk show last night, he revealed that he began losing hair at the age of 19 (in the last year of drama school), and for a while tried to hide it with a comb-over until a mad Hungarian with a black belt in judgo strapped him into a chair and cut it off without him asking. No, really!
And apparently when he was asked to do the X-Men films he was shown a front cover of one of the comics and demanded to know what he was doing in a comic (looking at Professor Xavier and being unfamiliar with the X-Men comics)!
I first read that he lost his hair at a very young age in a magazine years ago, and that it was very traumatic for him.
That should have been judo, not judgo.
He also mentioned some of the Yorkshire dialect from his childhood (which even I don't understand and I'm from roughly the same area) such as 'Athha lairkin aat?' (='are you coming out to play?')
(To which the talk show host said 'What is that? Japanese?!')
Irony of ironies!
http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/article.aspx?news=167644
Well, it would be if heart problems were uncommon.
True. But it still seems ironic that both Stewart & Picard both had heart surgery of some kind.
Yep, Luigi, Patrick was just knighted! That's cool!
Besides the legendary Jean-Luc Picard, he plays a gay man very well. See the movie "Jeffrey" and a last-season episode of "Frasier".
Also, he hosted SNL back in 1994, and had a lot of funny sketches, including one that merged TNG with "The Love Boat".
He did a movie called "Masterminds" the same year as First Contact. It was a major bomb.
And I favorited the videos on YouTube of him on Sesame Street. There are two that I know of, maybe more.
This is definetly off-topic, but Stewart is said to be one of the most well-hung men in Hollywood!
Not that it matters. Anyway, he also played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men trilogy to perfection, no other actor could have done that role as well as he did!
One of my favorite Picard episodes is the underrated "Devil's Due". He managed to completely resist the advances of a treacherous con-woman, who, for some reason, was extremely attracted to him. He, of course, exposed her for the flim-flam artist and total fraud she really was.
Of course, I like many other episodes that primarily feature Picard, like "The Best Of Both Worlds" and "Chain Of Command". And Patrick proves what a good actor he is in eps. like "Sarek" and "Timescape".
I wonder what he will do next!
I wonder what he will do next!
Do voice-overs count? Sir Patrick Stewart now does the voice-over for National Car Rental commercials. (I'd do a lame wisecrack based on a line of his from the ads, but I can't remember any of them.)
I wonder what he will do next!
Patrick Stewart voices the director of the CIA in Fox's "American Dad".
Many of you here may be aware that Stewart guest-starred in one of the funniest episodes of Fraiser's final season, as a gay opera singer. And Frasier is thought to have been outed as a result of the many misunderstandings that occur throughout. And Stewart has already played a gay character, in the 1995 film "Jeffrey". It was all right, I thought.
Also, David Hyde Pierce, who played Niles, came out as gay after Fraiser ended. Many people speculated that Niles was gay during the series' run. He wasn't, but Pierce is. I just find that interesting, that's all.
I also recall Stewart having done "Conspiracy Theory" around the same time as "First Contact" and "Masterminds". Apparently he didn't want to become typecast either, just like Brent Spiner! But I'm not gonna beat that dead horse any more, believe me!
Gandalf will officiate Captain Picard's wedding.
(Or Magneto will officiate Professor X's).
The Daily News has an article about Patrick Stewart having his first slice of pizza at age 72. More here.
I was in my twenties before I tried a slice of pizza, but 72?
I had my first slice at 41 
And, here's Stewart's response, along with a picture of him, together with his fiancee. (Or as the cynic in me would say, his next ex-wife. How many times has Sir Patrick been married?)
I believe this will be three. Could be the charm.
Stewart is also getting some attention for some great comments he made about domestic violence at a convention this week.
Sir Patrick has just gotten married for the third time! The 73 year old Hollywood legend (at least I think he is) married Sunny Ozell, a New York City-based jazz singer and songwriter. She is quite a bit younger than him, but they are obviously happy together, so it matters not.
Stewart also cameoed as Professer Xavier in "The Wolverine" and will be appearing in the role again in the upcoming "X-Men: Days Of Future Past". And Ian Mckellan, Patrick's co-star from the X-Men films, performed his and Ozell's wedding ceremony. That's Magneto and Gandalf both at once, baby!
Back in June I attended the Wizard World New York Experience, where Patrick Stewart was in attendance. I really wanted to meet him, because I’ve loved his work for some time, and was crestfallen when I wasn’t able to. His autograph table was restricted to those who purchased a special ticket, in addition to the convention entrance fee, and they declined to make an exception for people with a press pass, which I had. At least I got to take copious photos of him during the Q&A panel featuring him, facilitated by the zoom lens that came with my then-newly acquired DLSR camera.
Then, two nights ago, my friend Aaron Sagers, a journalist for MTV and CNN whom I met at Wizard World, and who used one of the photos I took at that convention of Stan Lee in his MTV.com story on Lee, sends me a Facebook message:
---"Would you be interested in covering a Waiting for Godot press thing tomorrow at 10 am w/ Patrick Stewart?"
I'm blown away by this. This would be the first time a reporter asked me to shoot an event he was covering, and it's a guy whose work I've liked for some time, and have always wanted to meet. These would also be among the biggest stars I've ever photographed. I’m thinking, “Hell friggin’ YEAH!”, but I don’t say that. Gotta play it cool.
---"Where?"
(After all, I can’t very well do it if it's in LA.)
---"Manhattan. I think midtown".
(This sounds great to me, since I have easy access to Midtown Manhattan. But I still play it cool.)
---"What time?"
(After all, I have a 3:30pm haircut, and can't just reschedule that for just ANYONE. Sure, he had said "at 10 am", but who could've seen that amid the blinding light of the part where he said "Patrick Stewart"??)
---"10 am".
(This sounds perfect to me, so I figure I can let down my guard a bit.)
---"HELL YEAH!!!!"
At first Aaron thought I'd be able to shoot his interview with Stewart, though he later learned that a row of photographers would simply shoot Stewart at what's called a press line, and then the photographers would be booted out of the place so the interviews can take place. Not as awesome as being able to shoot the interview, but awesome nonetheless.
And to add to the coolness, it's going to be at Sardi's Restaurant, which is that restaurant you always seen in films and TV shows that has rows and rows of celebrity caricatures lining the walls above the tables. My earliest memory of seeing that restaurant was in The Muppets Take Manhattan when Kermit the Frog, donning a beret and fake mustache in pretending to be a famous producer, tries to create a whisper campaign for his show by going to Sardi's, sitting below the caricature of Liza Minnelli, and replacing it with his own portrait, only to have Minnelli herself show up and ask Vincent Sardi, Jr. why her portrait was taken down.
So I get to the restaurant at 9:30, and greet Aaron, who's at the top of the stairs on the second floor. To the right is a podium up against a wall, above which is the portrait of Kermit! I crack up, seeing how the restaurant made that movie drawing a part of their real-life collection.
Beyond the podium is a vacant floor that's large enough to be used as a dance floor, and beyond that, up against the opposite wall, a backdrop has been set up across, which has the names of two plays, No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot. I understand from Aaron that it’s a double-production, like maybe they’re being shown back-to-back, perhaps because they’re short plays, or something. Near a table to the right, a few other photographers are near a, all of them with DSLRS like mine, except that most of them have those big flash attachments on top of the cameras shaped like periscopes. One of them has a big, square flash atop his camera, which looks like it could blind God. I remember being self-conscious when I used to use a little dinky digital camera when photographing public figures at events, being just an amateur volunteer photographer for Wikipedia. But after seeing the beautiful photos that some of my fellow WP editors and photographers use, and being the perfectionist that I am, I eventually got a DSLR camera like the professionals use, and used it at a public event for the first time at Wizard World. Now, though, I'm wondering if I need one of those big flashes. Are the ones that come with the camera not enough? Will mine not be enough? (Dear God, I have camera envy!)
I see Patrick Stewart across the room in the seating area by the windows looking out onto 44th Street, and later, Ian McKellen, though I figure it’s not considered appropriate to shoot them from where we’re all standing, which Aaron confirms.
Aaron gets a copy of the tip sheet they’re passing around, and then hands his to me. It lists the five people we’re shooting: actors Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Billy Crudup, Shuler Hensley and director Sean Mathias.
At about 10am or so, a woman says we can go to the press line, several feet from the backdrop, in between two columns. The woman in charge of the photographers explains that the photographers will stand in a single file, and each will be given a turn to photograph the subjects. I’m second in line, and when the five subjects walk in front of the backdrop, the guy in front of me begins shooting them. As he does so, I learn to the right and take some myself from a slight angle, including some group shots and then a close up of portrait of each one. That way, after I take those I can take when I’m given my turn at the line, I’ll have a nice collection of redundant pics to choose from, some taken at an angle, and some straight on.
The guy in front of me finishes in short order, so I step up. It just seems so impersonal and impolite to me to just shoot someone from a few feet away without saying anything, perhaps because I’m so used to asking subjects at book signings and comics conventions for permission to shoot them up close, so as I shoot them, I say, “Sir Patrick, congratulations on your recent nuptials.” When I turn to Ian McKellen, I saw, “Sir Ian, congratulations on The Hobbit”. Then, realizing I don’t want to leave the others out, but not knowing of any recent work by Crudup, and not having heard of Matthias or Hensley at all (and not being able to recall what I read on the tip sheet), I say in closing, “And to the rest of you, congratulations on your resumes, which are far too lengthy for me to recite from memory.” As I turn to walk off the line, I hear that this has gotten a positive reaction from the group, including one of them (It might’ve been Stewart, it might’ve been McKellen) who says, “Well done!” Hearing that, I takea bow, and do one of those arm-twirly things that people sometimes do when they bow, which gets a laugh from one of them, but keep walking away, not turning to see which one of them laugh. I’m glad that my attempt to address my awkward feeling of photographing someone without saying anything to them with politeness has gotten a positive response. It also means that while I haven’t exactly shaken hands with McKellen and Stewart, I can at least say that I have spoken to them, which kinda makes up for not being able to do so back in June.
When I get home, I'm frustrated and angry as hell that most of my close-up shots show some bizarre-looking shadow that's cast vertically down one side of each subject, which I can't explain. That shadow wasn't there at the shoot, so it might be the camera, even though it hasn't given me problems before. But at least I got some other decent shots, enough to add a photo to Sean Mathias' Wikipedia article, which lacked one, and enabling me to change the pic atop Crudup's article, which was a long-shot, and therefore more appropriate for further down in the article. Because none of the pics I took of Stewart, McKellen and Hensley are necessarily better than the ones at the top of their articles, I don't change them, but I put one of the group shots further down in those articles, in the case of Stewart and McKellen, in the sections that talk about their recent stage work.
All in all, not bad for a few minutes of photography.
The photos are here.
Well done indeed good sir 
Patrick and Ian are two people I would certainly like to meet as well!
According to this, it was Bob Justman who pushed to cast Stewart; Roddenberry didn't want him.
Mr. Stewart has another series coming up, for the Starz chanel. It's titled Blunt Talk and will premiere on August 22, 2015. The series is produced by Seth MacFarlane; I wonder if "Ted" will make an appearance. 
And, here's more to Gene Roddenberry not wanting to cast Stewart. His first choice was... well, you'll have to read the article.
A new commercial for Uber Eats; It's Patrick Stewart Vs. Mark Hamill!
Here's a funny commercial with Patrick Stewart VS Mark Hamill...
https://youtu.be/1jtkuAVLdtA
Are there awards for commercials? Because whoever made this one deserves one.
Clio awards.