Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen team up for Theatre Royal Brighton run of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land

PATRICK STEWART

THE assured stony exterior of Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek belied the change in outlook the actor was going through while the iconic series was being filmed.

As a classically-trained performer attuned to the rigours of delivering Shakespeare, he was not prepared for the antics on the set of the Enterprise in 1987.

Sir Patrick tells The Guide, “Fun was not a part of my life, it was just serious dedication.

“I was a pain in the a***, frankly. I called this meeting about behaving better on the set of Star Trek, and when I lectured my American colleagues about fooling around and having laughs they just stared at me in bemusement.

“I remember Denise Crosby [who played Tasha Yar in the first series] saying, ‘Patrick, we’ve gotta have some fun too,’ and I yelled back, ‘We’re not here to have fun!’

“Well these lovely people forgave me and showed both things were possible. I hadn’t had much fun up until then – I didn’t even have much fun as a kid, as a teenager.”

Growing up in a poor family in Yorkshire, in the shadow of domestic violence, it’s not hard to see why Sir Patrick took a while to warm up on and off stage.

He carried the lesson of fun through to Extras, the series written by Ricky Gervais.

“Ricky has a lot to answer for,” Sir Patrick laughs, “He called me up one day – I was in Sainsbury’s at the time – and said, ‘Hello, it’s Ricky Gervais,’ and I had a friend who did some good impressions so I said, ‘Yeah yeah, bugger off,’ and he said, ‘No no, it is Ricky and I’m doing this show called Extras.’

“I had seen The Office and thought it was brilliant. He said there wasn’t a script yet for Extras but was I interested. I said, ‘Interested? You bet I am.’

“And out of this came the wonderful version of Patrick Stewart that no one had ever seen before. I talked very seriously about my career as a screenwriter and never for a moment thought of the laughter. People saw me in a different light.”

Sir Patrick’s work with Sir Ian McKellen, which was fragmented at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), unified on the set of X-Men and the two forged a bond.

Sir Patrick lowers his voice, “It has been one of the great joys of my career working with Ian.

“I felt somewhat intimidated by him [at the RSC]. He was so brilliant and gorgeous and clever and I didn’t feel to be any of those things.

“It became a valuable friendship that became even more solid when we did Waiting For Godot. We could not possibly have got closer.”

For all his screen work, Sir Patrick still prefers theatre.

“It is that aspect of live communication,” he says, “Because the show is never the same, the audience is different. I love the freedom of that.”

His career may have varied dramatically but his politics have always been down the line. Sir Patrick is a Labour supporter and expressed his regret at the recent Brexit vote.

He says, “I was horrified and shocked when I heard.

“I was in New York and was able to listen to the votes coming in.

“I was never in any doubt that the stay vote would dominate.

“When we woke, my wife said, ‘I’ve got bad news for you.’

“I’m still in shock from that but I’m very hopeful and we are a long way from that absolutely happening.

“I still hope we can keep our contacts with Europe.

“I was a war baby and grew up knowing the horror and discomfort of European war and to me more than anything else the EU meant a greater possibility of peace than the Continent had ever known. Not just the absence of warfare but that countries were negotiating and supporting one another in ways they had not done before.

“It is the worst political decision of the 21st century.”

He also spoke out about student grants ending and tuition fees coming in.

“This crime of burdening young people with huge debts is absolutely monstrous and should never ever have come about and is denying young people an education. It’s hard if you don’t have the money.”

One might think it all well and good coming from such a star but Sir Patrick’s own first encounter with wealth did not arrive until Star Trek.

He says, “Even when I went to the RSC, who look after their actors, there was nothing left at the end of every year. I had enough to pay my taxes and then start all over again.

“I brought up two kids and bought a little cottage in Warwickshire I paid £7,000 for.”

Star Trek changed everything.

Sir Patrick says, “I had already been interviewed a couple of times in LA for this Star Trek job but I never took it seriously. No one was going to cast a middle-aged bald British actor in an American sci-fi series – it made no sense.

“But to my complete astonishment the role was offered to me. It was not in my game book at all.”

Stewart was worried he would lose his chance of an independent West End debut but was “assured” Star Trek would not be a success.

Sir Patrick remembers, “I had a six-year contract but everyone, including my agent, told me, ‘Don’t worry you’ll never see six years, you’ll be lucky to make it through the first season before they cancel you.’ So on that basis I signed up.”

Stewart may not have initially clicked with his fellow Star Trek actors but he still learnt from them: “There was one over-riding lesson: you can do serious work and have a lot of fun.

“Now when I look back on my time filming Next Generation, my principle recollection was of laughter.

“I have fun today but I still take the work as seriously as ever.”

IAN MCKELLEN

FOR a man who has starred in some of the biggest box office hits in recent memory – from The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies to the X-Men films and The Da Vinci Code – as well as commanding some of the most prestigious stages in theatre, Sir Ian McKellen still can’t bring himself to say he has “made it” as an actor.

At any rate, not in terms of measuring success by fame, money or honours.

The actor behind Gandalf, Magneto and even himself in The Simpsons, tells The Guide, “I have never felt that I have made it.”

But Sir Ian can pick out a defining moment in his 55-year professional career: the point where he felt accepted as someone who could pull off the great plays. You have to go back a bit for it, though.

He says, “I think it was playing Richard II in 1968.

“To play a leading part in a Shakespeare play that so many other actors have been brilliant in, and being accepted, was a huge break-through for me because those actors who did Shakespeare were some of the first I had been impressed by as a kid.

“When I became a professional I’d hoped I might become one of them and I did.

“But that was nothing to do with money or status or fame.”

It is clear the whole thing has never been about fame, though increasing fame has come with his six Laurence Olivier awards, a Tony award, a Golden Globe award, a Screen Actors Guild award, a BIF award and two Saturn awards among others.

One of his early screen appearances came with TV series The Indian Tales Of Rudyard Kipling in 1964, with movies later including The Promise and Alfred The Great in 1969.

Sir Ian admits it took time to find recognition through his films.

The 77-year-old says, “I have always been in films – it’s just they weren’t very successful.

“I never had a contract or anything like Patrick did with Star Trek, which is probably why I advised him against it.”

Sir Ian was one of several people who were far from sold on the idea of Patrick Stewart turning his back on the West End for Hollywood, but admits it was worth his while.

Not only prolific in front of the lens, Sir Ian ranks his most satisfying achievement as one carried out in part behind the camera - co-producing and co-writing (as well as starring in) a film version of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Sir Ian was well-placed to adapt the Shakespearian work into a dystopian, fascist version of 1930s Britain.

Sir Ian says, “Two years of my life I put into making that film. Having done the play at the National Theatre, the fact it was enjoyed as a film by so many audiences and still is, that has given me the most satisfaction. I had such a fantastic cast for it.”

The film included Robert Downey Jr, Maggie Smith, Annette Bening and Jim Broadbent.

But out of all his co-stars, Sir Patrick Stewart is the one with whom he seems to have a telepathic kinship.

This latest rendition of No Man’s Land, the Harold Pinter play, is the fruit of their working dynamic.

Sir Ian says, “If Patrick and I want to do a play, we want to do one in which we both have equally good parts.

“There aren’t many of those plays and I have done most of them. Waiting For Godot does, which I did with Patrick, and The Dresser does, which I’ve just done on telly [BBC 2] with Anthony Hopkins.

“And this is the great play of the latter part of the century for two actors who are the same age. So when you land on a play as good as this one, you’re just so grateful.”

On Pinter’s work in general Sir Ian says taking on No Man’s Land was relatively simple, despite some critics interpreting the play with varying degrees of enthusiasm over the years.

He says, “You just try to be sympathetic to the style of the writing and the author’s intentions.

“Sometimes they can stretch you more than others if it’s a character you don’t quite understand or language that might be a problem.

“But not in the case of Pinter – I found it very speakable.”

It wasn’t all straight-forward; Sir Ian says he found it hard to break free from the influence of John Gielgud, the celebrated actor who made the role of Spooner in No Man’s Land his own.

Gielgud performed Pinter’s classic in London from 1975 through to the end of the decade.

Sir Ian says, “The biggest difficulty for me was I had seen another actor play the part and didn’t see what I could add to it.

“I spent a lot of my life doing parts that other people have played, from Hamlet through to King Lear, and you can’t let the fact that other actors have had a big success in the parts worry you too much.

“But I did think in this case that perhaps there was no other way of playing the part other than the way Gielgud had played it.

“I think it has worked out OK but initially I felt a bit inhibited – I found myself imitating Gielgud, which is a very easy thing to do.

“But eventually I made it my own. It was a difficulty.”

Sir Ian says it is easier to work with good friends on stage, and clearly savours what he has going on with Sir Patrick.

The British pair have a long history of working together, dating back to 1977 when they appeared in Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

Sir Ian says, “That’s why actors try to make friends with each other straight away so they can speak up and contribute.

"If you’re already friends, you trust each other."

MORE ABOUT NO MAN'S LAND

HERE, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen discuss the finer points of No Man’s Land, the absurdist Harold Pinter play, which runs at Theatre Royal Brighton from August 22 to 27

THE two lead roles in No Man’s Land belong to the characters of Spooner, a down-at-heel poet, and Hirst, an alcoholic, upper-class intellectual.

The plot goes that they meet in a pub and Hirst invites Spooner back to his Hampstead home for more drinks, where two other men join them and a murky tale of prior acquaintance unfolds. While the play has been widely interpreted by critics, Sir Ian told The Guide it is simply about one man having dementia with the other characters put in a dilemma as to whether to enter into his world or drag him into the real world, with humourous consequences.

You could be forgiven for thinking there might be a debate over who would play who, but not so.

Sir Patrick says, “I never thought of dividing the roles up and it wasn’t until I got to know Ian that I realised he was born to play Spooner and that I should play Hirst. In any case, I always thought Hirst was a wonderful role.”

Sir Ian adds, “I enjoy the language of my character enormously – it’s very precise, accurate and funny.

"I can’t wait to do it again."

By “again”, Sir Ian refers to a Broadway run that saw the pair perform No Man’s Land in the US in 2013, as part of a double-bill with Waiting For Godot.

Sir Patrick says, “We promised ourselves we would do it in the UK.”

Sir Ian adds, “There wasn’t a sense that we didn’t get it right last time. That’s often why actors do plays again; they didn’t get it right the first time.”

The biggest change is that half the cast is new. The two completing the UK line-up are Brits Owen Teale playing Briggs, a man in his 40s, and Damien Molony playing Foster, a man in his 30s – replacing Shuler Hensley and Billy Crudup respectively from the US version.

From left to right: Owen Teale, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Damien Molony

Sir Ian continues, “I’m looking forward to having two British actors playing the other parts. Their input will obviously be their own. That’ll be the biggest difference.”

They both feel No Man’s Land will work better with a British audience.

Sir Ian says, “They will get references that New York found difficult, like cricket and so on.”

Sir Patrick adds, “It’s a very London play – Pinter was a Londoner and so much of the dialogue makes reference to English customs and manners. There’s a great deal that frankly went over the heads of much of the audience on Broadway.”

Sir Ian maintains the abstract play is not difficult to follow and is in fact quite simple.

He says, “The plays of JB Priestly and Noel Coward, and those well-made plays with beginnings, middles and ends, are nothing like life because life doesn’t have a beginning, middle and an end; it doesn’t end until you’re dead.

“If you’re looking for a plot where something happens, develops, then ends, this play may not be for you.

"With No Man’s Land, something happens and it goes on developing.

“But I don’t think people would come to a Pinter play today and find it difficult in the same way they would have 40 years ago.”

Sir Patrick was one such person who first saw No Man’s Land on its debut run in 1975.

He had already performed two Pinter plays in repertory theatre – The Birthday Party and The Caretaker – and had the taste for the writer’s satire.

Sir Patrick says, “I had really fallen in love with his writing and saw everything I could.

“I went to see this production and it thrilled me so much that I was dazzled by the writing.

“I like to think it was my idea to do No Man’s Land but there’s a certain amount of disagreement in that.”

But there is no disagreement in the rehearsal room. It comes from their years working together not only at the RSC, albeit piecemeal, but also on Waiting For Godot.

Sir Patrick does not believe there is anything to be gained in being too forthright: “I don’t believe in being blunt and honest with colleagues – it’s a much more subtle process than that.

“Ian and I think in a very similar way and are interested in language as well as performance.

“We talk a great deal – there’s a lot of talking, so we talk ourselves into being in the same place with the characters and the production.

“Much of it is unspoken – we just tune into each other.”

Tickets are very limited. Call 08448 717650 or visit atgtickets.com/ brighton, tickets £25-£90, starts 2.30pm on some days and 7.45pm