So how does a 25-year veteran of Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company end up in command of the 24th Century's most advanced Federation starship? For Patrick Stewart, the intermediate steps included such BBC production as Smiley's People and I, Claudius--in which he donned a curly hairpiece to play the ambitious outlander Sejanus--and the films Dune and Excalibur. But none of those gave Stewart the lead, and when he auditioned for Star Trek: The Next Generation, he thought it was to play some "token Englishman" on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Today, as the series successfully sails into its sixth season, it's difficult to see him as anything other than Jean-Luc Picard--the stern superman of a captain who reads classic English literature, speaks fluent Klingon and enjoys recreational fantasies as a Forties detective on the holodeck (the ship's computer-controlled rumpus room). And the series in turn has opened new doors for the 52-year-old Shakespearean: last season's critically revered one-man adaptation of A Christmas Carol on Broadway, plenty of commercial work (making his voice more recognizable than his face to non-trekkies) and a role in the hilarious coffee-ordering scene from Steve Martin's L.A. Story. Neil Tesser, who met Stewart on one of his rare days away from the Star Trek set, reports: "Stewart shares some qualities with Picard. He's very focused, rather passionate and given to occasional speechifying. But he's also gregarious, a delightful storyteller and pleased to laugh at himself. In fact, he seems just pleased, period."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: If you didn't have to go through channels, whom would you fire from the starship Enterprise?

Patrick Stewart: I would fire Commander Riker because he perpetually reminds Captain Picard of his mortality, certainly as far as sexual matters are concerned. I would fire Commander Data because he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word concise. I would fire Geordi LaForge because his technical terminology invariably goes right over the captain's head and, therefore, I have to take recourse in simply saying "Make it so" when it's perfectly clear that the captain hasn't understood a word. I'd fire Lieutenant Worf simply for being Lieutenant Worf. I'd fire Dr. Crusher because she has a look that is capable of suggesting not just two things but a dozen things--most of which the captain feels inadequate to cope with. And I would certainly fire Counselor Troi because her costume reminds me of how unattractive I feel mine is.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Star Trek conventions are infamous for their unalloyed adulation. Can you bring yourself to appear at more than one or two a year?

Patrick Stewart: I do about six a year now. I enjoy them. It gets me back on the stage. It's like doing stand-up in front of the most adoring audience one could ever wish for. I get to be Sting and Bob Hope and Billy Connolly all rolled into one just for an hour, and it's a great workout. It also takes me out of Los Angeles, a place where I wouldn't choose to live.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What is it that keeps the trekkies so wildly enthusiastic--even obsessive--about this program?

Patrick Stewart: People have written academic theses on this subject, and you want a short answer. There is a mystery at the heart of Star Trek that touches people. It's composed of elements like hope, optimism, companionship, comradeship and courtesy, legitimacy and boldness. It lies in this assurance, which can only be a theoretical assurance, that we're going to survive--that some of us will make it. I've never forgotten what Whoopi Goldberg said the first year she appeared on the show. The reason she gave for inviting herself--a movie star--onto a syndicated TV series was that as a child in New York she watched the original Star Trek. And there she would see a black woman in an authority position on the ship, and she said to herself, "Well, one of us made it." I think many people watch our show and say, even though it may be subliminal, "Some of us made it."

Q 4

PLAYBOY: What role do you covet more than any other, and why?

Patrick Stewart: Falstaff. For me, everything universal in Shakespeare is contained in that character. He is simultaneously funny, unspeakable and tragic. He is the ultimate creation of Shakespeare--a monstrous, selfish, wicked, devilishly comic, damned, sad man--and I've always been very moved by him. If I were at least twenty years younger, I would say Hamlet. I never wanted to play Hamlet when I was the right age. Now I do and it's too late, so I will direct the play instead.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: In the grand tradition of Yul Brynner, Telly Savalas and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you seem to have made hairlessness sexy for a new generation. Was this deliberate?

Patrick Stewart: This is the last time that I will ever discuss my hair--ever, at any time, with any journalist. I can never understand it. What if I were to say to you, "You have an extraordinarily hooked and pointed nose that looks as though somebody got hold of the end of it and dragged it downward; what are your feelings about that?" You see, I was brought up to believe you do not make personal comments about someone's appearance. It's bad manners. And yet, with baldness it's open season--always. If I had a huge wart, you wouldn't refer to it. You might keep looking at it, but you wouldn't refer to it. I lost almost all of my hair between the ages of nineteen and twenty. It was absolutely traumatic. I did a number of things to try to prevent it and then, when I saw it was unpreventable, to hide it. But now I have actually been cutting my hair closer and closer. And I think that is the product of beginning to feel now, in my fifties, that it's all right--that I don't have to duck my head.