Patrick Stewart, who died today at 86, was a Shakespearean actor who carried that gravity into iconic roles of Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X.Below, we revisit the Warhol questionnaire he did with Ian McKellen, in which he is, as ever, funny, direct and entirely himself.
PATRICK STEWART: A self-made protein smoothie to wash down a bucketful of supplements.
IAN McKELLEN: Homemade muesli soaked in fresh-squeezed orange juice, with poached apples and blueberries, and a magnesium pill.
STEWART: I rarely dream but the last one was sexual (very rare) and of a homo-erotic nature (so rare as to perhaps be the first.)
STEWART: No diary, but I do write 2,000- or 3,000-word memorandums from time to time.
McKELLEN: Not these days, though I did for a time in my teens, with a padlock through the pages. When I realized that my dad had found the key, I stopped.
McKELLEN: I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the U.K. Sunday Times , who championed me as Shakespeare’s Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival.
STEWART: Appearing from my mother’s vagina.
McKELLEN : As a member of the acting company of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.
STEWART: At 15, I went to work for my local weekly newspaper as a very, very junior reporter. I could be Rupert Murdoch now if I’d kept at it. Luckily for everyone, the job lasted a year.
Who was the nicest person you worked for?
STEWART: Jeffrey Katzenberg. He delivered my breakfast into the sound booth where I was recording The Prince of Egypt [1998]. And soon after I got home from that day’s work, he rang me to say thank you and well done. A Prince of Cinema.
McKELLEN: Judi Dench, who loves giving surprise presents with hand-written cards.
What’s the craziest thing a fan has sent you?
STEWART: I don’t want to say, as it would encourage others.
Have you had any nutty fans who scared you?
STEWART: Yes, several. And they have no idea how much their craziness costs one.
McKELLEN: Not so far, mainly because Gandalf and Magneto can be a bit scary themselves, perhaps. You don’t want to tangle with a 7,000-year-old wizard or the Master of Magnetism.
McKELLEN: I’m brilliant at cooking my stepmother’s scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached. That’s what I eat every night in No Man’s Land , where my character has breakfast at the top of Act 2.
Is there anything you regret not doing? McKELLEN: Coming out earlier than I did, when I was 49.
STEWART: Parachuting out of a plane. My father did it several times into action and under fire.
Isn’t New York great? McKELLEN: Yes. I love the Broadway audiences, who relish live drama and don’t hesitate to display their enthusiasm.
STEWART: Favorite thing about New York? Got to be New Yorkers.
Source: Fashion
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