Patrick Stewart On Saying Goodbye To Charles Xavier, Plus The Downside Of Playing A ‘Star Trek’ Icon – The Actor’s Side

It is a pleasure to launch the new season of The Actor’s Side with the inimitable Patrick Stewart, who has been stirring up awards talk since the March debut of Logan. In it, — for the final time, he says — he plays Charles Xavier aka Professor X, the character he made famous in a series of X-Men movies.

As he told me when we sat down recently at Craig’s restaurant, this time it is different as he and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine aka Logan are taking these characters in a very different kind of direction in a film that more resembles a classic Western like Shane than the Marvel comic book movies from which those characters emerged. It is a moving and elegiac performance from both, and there has been no better example of a Supporting performance this year than the one given by Stewart, who offers some closure after 17 years of the X-Men journey.

In the interview, we talk about his final spin as Xavier, the importance of the film, his stage beginnings with the Royal Shakespeare Company which he still calls home, and his original inspiration to be an actor. He also discusses his iconic role of Captain Picard in Star Trek: Next Generation — both on TV and the big screen — and how it cost him other roles.

Click above to watch the interview.