Star Trek TNG’s Patrick Stewart Says He’d Play Capt. Picard Again If This Happens

jean-luc picard
Written by Gina Smith

Famed Star Trek TNG captain Jean-Luc Picard reportedly could show up in a new Star Trek movie, he said, but only if Quentin Tarantino directs it. Make it so …

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aNewDomain — If you’ve come to terms and accepted the fact that Patrick Stewart will never again portray Jean-Luc Picard in a Star Trek movie,  allow us to get your hopes up: The actor told The Hollywood Reporter this week that director Quentin Tarantino could change everything.

“People are always saying to me, ‘Will you be Jean-Luc Picard again?’ And I cannot think that would be possible, but there are ways in which something like that might come about,” Stewart told the publication at this week’s Dubai International Film Festival, before continuing.

“But one of my dreams is to work with Tarantino. I admire his work so much, and to be in a Tarantino film would give me so much satisfaction. So, if he is going to direct something to do with “Star Trek” and there was the possibility of dear old Jean-Luc showing up again and doing that for Mr Tarantino, I would embrace it.”

“The one thing that characterizes all of his movies is that frame by frame, it always challenges, always demands your attention, always demands a very kind of open and generous response to what he does,” he said. “I also love his sense of humor as a filmmaker. So yes, he would be my first choice.”

Earlier this week, Deadline reported that Tarantino has pitched his vision for the R-rated Star Trek film to J.J. Abrams, and the two reportedly met with writers Mark L. Smith, Drew Pearce, Linsey Beer and others to prepare their joint pitch to Paramount.

Smith, who wrote The Revenant, is the ‘frontrunner” in terms of writers, according to that Deadline report.

Paramount would not confirm or deny the report.

In a much talked-about Nerdist podcast interview two years ago this month, Tarantino told interviewers he was a huge Star Trek fan.

“The only thing that limited them was their ’60s budget and eight-day shooting schedule,” he said.

“You could take some of the classic Star Trek episodes and easily expand them to 90 minutes or more and really do some amazing, amazing stuff.” Tarantino said, adding that in his opinion,  the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode about time travel, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” was among the best Star Trek episodes ever produced.

I couldn’t agree more. Thoughts?

For aNewDomain and the new DeepSpaceNews, I’m Gina Smith.