All rights reserved. We were both Macbeth a year apart – he was lauded for his performance; I was attacked for mine. Available for everyone, funded by readers. The attempt fails as Hirst seems trapped forever in an unyielding no man’s land which serves as an anteroom to death. My interpretation is that Spooner has turned from a cadging parasite into Hirst’s potential rescuer but is thwarted by the immovable fact of mortality. Owen Teale’s Briggs, with his villain’s moustache and visible tattoos, has an air of menacing thuggery which turns to tenderness when he seeks to promote the poetic career of Damien Molony’s boyishly sexy Foster. 'He's so strapping and virile': Patrick Stewart at 80 – by Shatner, McKellen, Tennant and more. Next year we’re planning a stage show together – we’ll do a bit of Shakespeare, singing, some poetry. Shakespeare? He and Ian were both thriving in what anyone else would consider the end of their career; instead it felt like it was the middle. Stewart and McKellen also hail from opposite sides of the Pennines which makes for an intriguing vocal blend. If you need anything, I’m here.” I just burst into tears. We met on a drama course in the Calder Valley. He said at the end: “Well, what you don’t know is that I have for a long time been a collector of Inuit art.” It was quite the icebreaker. GET EVEN MORE EXCLUSIVE NEWS! Not only is he kind and funny, but he read a Brecht poem without a whiff of pomposity. At first McKellen reacts with slack-jawed dismay but, slowly realising this is some clubman’s fantasy, picks up on the rules of the game. Now they are together again in Harold Pinter’s 1975 work – under the same director, Sean Mathias – and the result is a faithful and loving production that captures both the essential bleakness and paradoxical comedy of this enigmatic masterwork. He led when we danced together on Frasier and he was a lovely dancer. We had a long horse scene to do together once, and I recommended him wearing women’s silk stockings to avoid chafing and he nodded his head as a thank you. I’m so pleased Patrick is turning 80 and still looks about 35. Jean-Luc Picard would adversely affect his great friend's stellar theater career in the U.K. A daily briefing on what matters (and what's interesting) in Hollywood. But Patrick can project a traditional stiff upper lip Brit while underneath being a very receptive and self-effacing and accessible guy, with a kind of American openness. Patrick had a lovely tough-looking chest through the string, I recall. We did The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra at the RSC in 2006. My first reaction, on seeing the play in 1975, was that it represented a projection of Pinter’s darkest fears. Let’s just say we all cannot wait to get back to work and annoy the hell out of him with that. Instead of clinging on to the way you do it each night, you can throw it up in the air and risk it not working. That was due to how obvious his respect for me was. The relationship is delicately defined and when Stewart’s Hirst caresses Foster’s face you even wonder if Spooner has inadvertently stumbled into a closeted menage. Stewart radiates ebullient smugness as he claims to have seduced Spooner’s wife. I saw him playing Claudius in a TV version of Hamlet when I was at school. It was my first time working at Stratford and I’d watch him from the wings. “No, no, Patrick, underneath your costume!” We laughed, as we ordinarily did. I would trust him with the dearest secret, this local boy made very very good, because besides all this acting stuff he seems to me to be a very good man. “Why are you laughing at me?” I hissed at him in the darkness of the wings. Ian McKellen has confessed that he once advised Patrick Stewart against taking the now-iconic role of Capt. Patrick worries that people think him to be “intimidating” which he never intends to be. We had a long horse scene to do together once, and I recommended him wearing women's silk stockings to avoid chafing and he nodded his head as a thank you. He’d been released back into the wild almost, enjoying all these parts he had unfinished business with. Last modified on Mon 13 Jul 2020 17.09 BST. So often they lose some of the sheer self-absorbed virtuoso madness that you need as an actor. This is not only the most poetic of Pinter’s plays, it is also one that offers great opportunities for actors which Stewart and McKellen richly seize. Far from his native Yorkshire and at times miserable home life. Sitemap | We somehow hit a great chemistry – the chemistry of two people who want to play together and the pleasure of working through that language and having that banter and the extremes of emotion that you trigger in one another, and night after night doing it differently.