Sir Patrick Stewart - Actor HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it is time for HARDtalk.

My guest will be instantly recognisable to millions around

the world as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise,

or as Professor Charles Xavier of X-Men.

But, after 17 years in Hollywood, Patrick Stewart turned his back

on it, to return to England and to venues like this,

London's Young Vic, to his first love,

In his latest role, he is even playing Shakespeare.

So why choose small audiences in venues like this over

Sir Patrick Stewart, welcome to HARDtalk.

Now, in this latest role of yours, which is a production

of Edward Bond's play Bingo, you are playing Shakespeare himself.

It is the third time in 20 years you have played this role.

It's technically, I think, the fourth time.

I saw it when it was first done at the Royal Court Theatre.

And, even though I was much too young, I fancied

And then the Royal Shakespeare mounted it in 1979, and I played

a much too juvenile - that's a flattering term,

Then we brought it to London, to the Warehouse, as it then was.

And there are some projects that never leave your system.

It's like a virus that you can't get rid of.

And Bingo was one of those, in the very best sense.

It is not a flattering portrait of Shakespeare,

in the final years of his life.

And one presumes that he is a hero of yours.

Well, the fact is, if he had not lived, I would have been out of work

for most of my life.

All of the time I spent playing him, I have done 28 out of the 30 plays,

I have an instinct about bits that I think are not Shakespeare.

It's like a chemical reaction, this isn't him.

It is like act one of Titus Andronicus,

So you said it's not a flattering portrait,

because Edward is asking the question, what must it have been

like for the man who had had eventually in his career phenomenal

success, including considerable wealth coming his way,

to become in his lifetime a national figure,

and who had written the Sonnets, As You Like It, King Lear,

He went back to this market town in Warwickshire,

to live in the big house that he bought

One of the facts that we know about Shakespeare, he signed

And this is one detail that Edward has constructed a view

of who Shakespeare might have been at that time,

And the significance of the document, it protected

Shakespeare's wealth, and it was damaging

to those who were poor around him.

Each audience member will have to make their mind up.

"Your looped and windowed raggedness protect you from seasons such

as these," signed a document that brought misery,

poverty, deprivation to large numbers of people in Stratford-upon-

And Edward Bond carries in the play, on the one hand, the great humanist

poet, and on the other hand, the selfish Tory.

That I supposed goes to the heart of it.

It is theatre, it is Shakespeare, and it is political,

Where I grew up, how I grew up, what my parents were subject to,

our living conditions, my father's history and background.

Two years ago, during the election, when I was working in Chichester,

it was pre-election, because I could not be campaigning

in my own constituency, I offered myself to the local Labour

constituencies along the south coast of England, to campaign.

Well, you can imagine the nature of that campaigning

And one of the Tory candidates, I'm sure intentionally pejoratively,

It was meant to be rude, and I took it as a great compliment.

Because it was my experience of the world, and the experience

of my parents in that world, that made me

And you've said when you are in a room full of Conservatives

you feel uncomfortable, you do not

It's like Republicans in the United States,

Many people watching and listening to this will know you not

as the Shakespearean actor, for which you have been remarkably

When you made the decision to give up what you were doing in the UK,

go to Hollywood, take on a role which, if you think about it

at the time, American television was not

as good as it is now, Star Trek was rather old-fashioned

You decided to take this role.

I wonder if a little bit of you, if a bit of you felt

I'd never taken the prospect of this job seriously.

I'd been auditioning for it for six months,

and finally it came down to myself and an unknown other actor.

Never for one moment did I think they would cast me.

I got these free trips to California every now and again.

I was in this space when I went to do my second audition.

We were going to do a production on the West End.

My agent in California, who had never negotiated a job

I was not an actor looking for Hollywood work.

I think today it's a little bit different for a lot of actors.

The focus is on film and television, and not theatre actors.

But my agent, and everyone else I consulted in Hollywood,

reassured me that I need not fear the six-year contract I had to sign,

because not only would the series not make it to six years,

it would be unlikely to make it through the first season.

Because you cannot revive an iconic series, it is impossible.

Make some money for the first time in your life, get

So in a sense you were selling out, because you did not expect

it to be any good, you didn't

That does not sound like selling out to me.

I made my commitment on the back of the fact

Then I could come back here and do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

One of my producers, one of my champions,

not everyone in Paramount wanted this bald middle aged Shakespearean

actor, said to me, this weekend more people will see you act than have

seen you in your entire career to date.

And boy did they like you - you were suddenly voted the sexiest

I hate to sound rude, but was it surprising to you?

Not only that, but I was put on the cover of TV Guide with Cindy

It seemed to me absurd, it still does.

I will not deny that it was pleasant, and I won't deny that it

attracted some attention that I never attracted before.

You said you never expected to be the lead, you had grown up not

And of course, all you've had since is lead roles.

Yes, I was the wrong shape, the wrong background,

the way I talked, I lost my hair when I was 19.

I had none of the obvious qualifications to be a leading man.

And even today, it occasionally takes me by surprise.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a leading man,

and more than anything else, I love leading a company.

To help manage, design and support the way a group of creative people

work has become a real pleasure for me.

So you have picked up these other Hollywood roles,

the likes of Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men,

another hugely phenomenal film series.

And yet you have given up, after 17 years.

Friends and families were horrified when they found out I was leaving

because I had become a cheap vacation touch for all of them.

But I could not do the work, in my heart, I'd always

wanted to do, which was

really, English classical theatre with the best group

of actors I could find with some clever directors.

That's all I ever wanted to do, right at the very beginning.

For years I satisfactorily met that dream working

I'd never even seen myself as a leading actor.

Although I'd done some interesting theatre work in New York,

in Washington, in Los Angeles, it was not in a context that

The context was here, in London, in the UK.

So I sold up, burnt my boat and came back.

And nothing happened for quite a long time,

Then the Royal Shakespeare Company opened their doors.

I was asked to play Antony in Antony and Cleopatra.

Press nights always start late, because we cannot get

I was the first person, I came on first.

So I was standing in the wings for what seemed like 20 minutes,

waiting for the show to begin.

What I started to do is write the reviews in my head.

Basically the reviews were, who the hell does he think he is?

Coming back after 17 years and walking into a leading role?

Those were the kind of reviews I was thinking about.

So, when you saw the actual reviews, that must have been a moment?

The great thrill was to be working on the stage of the Swan Theatre.

Then the reviews were a lovely icing on that cake.

You have since been knighted for your services to acting.

You are a knight of the British Empire,

and you are still a lifelong socialist,

You do not think the 'sir' sets you apart?

I look upon it as an acknowledgement of my work and of British theatre.

I got an OBE and it was the same with that.

I am joining a group of artists and performers who I have admired

all of my life, some of them are friends.

It not only enhances me but it enhances the acting profession.

It sounds like a line, but it is true.

I want to ask you - you were campaigning for the Labour

You spend a lot of time in the States.

Al Gore said that if he had listened to your advice,

he perhaps would have ended up in the White House.

You have said in the past that if Gordon Brown had asked you,

What advice would you give to Ed Milliband?

I am not a citizen of the US so I could not vote for Al,

and I could not even actively campaign on his behalf.

It would have been suspect to have a resident alien doing that.

But the result of the 2000 election was devastating.

Yes, if asked, I would be very happy to give any advice that I could give

to any politician who I admire and respect.

I campaigned for his brother during the leadership campaign.

David was somebody I actively supported.

Could you give advice on presentation that

Look how successful it was for Maggie Thatcher.

You have spoken about your support for the charity Refuge.

It campaigns against domestic violence and supports its victims.

You have written very movingly about why you did that.

You have written about your own experiences when you were young.

You were in a home with your mother, father and brother, and you said

"I knew exactly when the shouting was done and when a hand

I also knew when to insert a small body between a fist and her face -

a skill no child should have to learn."

It was the reality of some of the time when I was growing up.

And so, when I was invited by Refuge to become a patron,

I could do it without hesitation.

Because I could not help her very much then.

Now I am able to, I can give some support and encouragement to women

because domestic violence continues to be a massive unspoken of problem

Here, in all societies, and all classes, and all economic

People think of domestic violence as happening in council estates.

It is this silent crime because people are ashamed

I was ashamed every Monday morning when I went to school because I knew

They knew because of the noise coming from your house?

Did you really insert yourself between your mother and your father

My father was an extraordinary man, 1945 Regimental Sargeant Major

a superstar, and he came out of the war and the military

And he was frustrated and angry and bitter.

And it was the alcohol that made the difference.

You are talking about it now in your campaign,

but you have said that experiences are destructive.

You said you have struggled to overcome the bad lessons

"This corrosive example of male responsibility."

I can best answer that by making a metaphor.

As an actor, there was a one set - a set of emotions that

And for years and years and years, I faked it.

I knew so well how much of it lay inside me.

And I knew that it could, with little provocation, emerge.

And so, as an actor, I kept that side of me sealed, lidded.

One of the nice things about California was that I got

It took years and years of working with therapists.

And I found it was possible to express a murderous

rage, fury, hostility on stage.

But in my own life, I have had to restrain myself, sometimes.

Because the response of violence - which is a choice that men make -

It was always a choice for me and I was always able to make

Have the feelings and do nothing about them.

You also said that one oppressive aspect was

You mentioned it a few times in the comments you've made.

Even though neighbours would at times help,

and my brother, who was five years older than me,

I felt utterly isolated, especially during those minutes,

sometimes as long as an hour, of monitoring the temperature

I think I felt lonely then, because there was nobody else

It is ghastly that any child should be in that position,

Talking about it is the only thing to do.

Campaigning as well, to get domestic violence taken seriously.

In my house, I heard a policeman say, it makes two

If you are an unhappy, violent man...

The other great thing about my father is that I finally

came to acknowledge that he is in everything I do.

When I played Macbeth, for a year, just three years ago,

would be to put on my military cap, take my gun, and look in the mirror

Because there he was, looking straight back at me.

It was a long time before I understood why I wore the moustache.

Why should Macbeth have a moustache?

For some of us, Wednesday looks set to bring a major cooldown.

On Tuesday, parts of south-east England had temperatures