Patrick Stewart Had To Be Convinced To Play Picard Again In A New ‘Star Trek’ Series

For the first time since 2002’s Nemesis, Patrick Stewart is reprising his role as Jean-Luc Picard in a still-untitled Star Trek series for CBS All Access. And hopefully unlike Nemesis, it’s actually good. For that reason, Stewart was initially hesitant to return to the Enterprise, and it took some convincing from executive producer Alex Kurtzman, among others, to get him to sign aboard.

“We heard he was very reticent, for a million understandable reasons, to do it,” Kurtzman told Variety. “I think he just felt, ‘I don’t know what else there is to do’ We proposed it to him, he sat there and listening very thoughtfully as he does, said, ‘Thank you, let me think about it.’ We thought we failed. But on Monday his agent called and said, ‘He’s interested and he’d like to know more and can you write down what you had.'” What they had involved the rascally Romulans.

The Picard series will be the first onscreen Trek story set in the aftermath of [the dissolution of the Romulan Empire], which would have altered the balance of power in the galaxy. The destruction of Romulus would also have extra resonance for Picard, who has a long and complicated relationship with the Romulans, the alien race that split from Vulcan society thousands of years ago and founded a separate civilization. The Romulans went on to control a portion of the galaxy, and the empire was in opposition to the Federation for all of Picard’s career. (Via)

“What he understood at that point was that he was with people who desperately wanted to collaborate with him, that we weren’t trying to exploit him,” Kurtzman recalled. “He knew if he was going to go back to Picard, it needed to be for the greatest reason ever.” Like getting to tell Wesley to “shut up” one more time.

The series will debut on CBS All Access in late 2019.