Once again actor James McAvoy is pitching himself for a role in Star Trek, and a specific role at that.
Anyone need a young Picard?
Since shortly after Star Trek: Picard was announced, actor James McAvoy has been jockeying for a role in the series, hoping to leverage his experience in the X-Men franchise playing a younger version of a Patrick Stewart character. He has even shown off his own version of Picard in hopes of getting the producer’s attention.
He’s still holding out hope, as we can tell from his recent Collider interview in which he was asked what franchise he would be most interested in joining. The actor again pointed to the final frontier:
I’ve often talked about loving Star Trek, and jokingly, but also kind of seriously been like, if you ever want to do a young Jean-Luc Picard, I’m your man. But I’m probably getting close to being too old to do a young Jean-Luc Picard now. So there’s that… the only one that comes to mind is Star Trek, I think. I’ve always loved it. Always.
James McAvoy in X-Men: Dark Phoenix
In addition to noting that at 42 he may be getting a bit too old to play a “young Picard,” the actor also acknowledged that his time playing the younger Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men prequels may not actually work to his advantage:
I’ve successfully been Patrick, actually, and balded up, although maybe again, the young Jean-Luc wouldn’t be bald. But yeah, no, maybe I’m overqualified for it, though. That’s the other thing. Do you know what I mean? It’s too easy, it’s too obvious a choice. So maybe that turns people off from it.
Star Trek: Picard is now in production on its third season and there is no indication yet they have a need for a “younger Picard,” but there are other shows in production that just might. And there are always future Star Trek Universe shows and possibly even feature films that could take up McAvoy’s offer. Sir Patrick Stewart was 47 when Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, although the character of Picard was actually in his late 50s.
And McAvoy, the BAFTA-winner and veteran of dozens of film and television roles, has shown he is a true fan of the franchise, so this interest goes well beyond being cast to play a younger version of Patrick Stewart. Last summer he and some of his friends made their own Star Trek spoof shot entirely on mobile phones, as something to do during the pandemic lockdown. It was called Star Force: Sci-Fi Isolation, and of course, he played the captain.
James McAvoy in homemade Star Force
Find more Star Trek: Picard at TrekMovie.
“Over-qualified”? I don’t think you can be over-qualified to play an iconic character originally portrayed by Sir Patrick Stewart. But maybe he could portray the love-child of Q and Picard!
I’d love to see him in a flashback scene!
Well, he could always play a brand new character….but I guess people don’t go for the new these days.
Picard’s 32nd Century descendant, the captain of the USS Enterprise in the fourth or fifth season of Discovery. Boom.
Picard, the series, could still end with Picard having children to propagate his family line. It’s the 25th Century, anything is scientifically possible.
Have Stewart appear in Discovery as a hologram of Picard.
Picard, the Tony Randall of Starfleet…
Lol. Sure, why not? Then again, he is an android now, lol.
I’m sure they captured his seed and installed it somehow into his robot body, in order to ensure he is still “fully functional.”
Lol.
When a great actor is ASKING for the role… why are you denying him and the franchise it? He literally already plays a young Patrick Stewart in a whole other franchise.
Combine him with a bit of DeepFake tech…. and it would be great. But no, looking for more awkwardly placed F words in Picard S2… very innovative.
He’s still younger than Stewart was when he got the gig.
Not only that, but… and I know I may get heat for this… but he looks a heck of a lot younger than Patrick Stewart did at 46, when he took the role. 46 doesn’t seem nearly as old today as it did in 1986. Probably a combination of me being 45, admittedly.
I could easily see him playing the 36yr old Picard, captain of the Stargazer.
Well no, that’s just a fact lol. I mean Stewart looked VERY old for his age at the time and why Picard was literally suppose to be 15 years older than his actual age.
McAvoy can easily play Picard in his 30s. No way could Stewart at the time.
Maybe a Picard ancestor that could appear in Strange New Worlds or the Kelvin timeline movies (if another even gets made). A movie is probably more likely. They’re not going to waste a name like McAvoy on a cameo.
It’s a hardcore fan nitpick, but they did really mess up Picard’s hair with Nemesis. They gave Tom Hardy prosthetics to look more like Stewart and then shaved his head to top it all off, and introduced a picture of him already bald at that age, which was a mistake considering we’d seen teenage and Stargazer-era Picards with hair.
The explanations for that I guess would be that it was an old picture when he happened to have a shaved head and Shinzon was bald by choice or because of his health issues. Silly.
This was clearly a mistake in the movie. Why should baldness be a thing in the 24th century anyway? You would asume it’s not a thing anymore and you would be bald by choice because it’s fashionable.
I just rewatched that movie last week and that’s still one of the (many) head scratchers with that movie. How does something like that gets missed when so many people seen or even worked on the episode that showed the ONE instance of a young Picard with full hair?
Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe they just decided to go that direction to give a visual how he would’ve looked like Shinzon when he was younger because it’s a movie and they wanted the casual audience to make the connection clearer. I would HAVE to assume it was that, but either way it’s still a bad decision IMO.
I think that intention was very obvious when people saw the movie.
However, they should have Patrick Stewart (pardon – SIR Patrick Stewart) play the role of Shinzon and give him a miserable, dark look. But then again, Trekkers might have perceived him as a mirror-universe version of Picard.
shame the de aging tech was not around back then
I’ve heard that George Lucas is interested in doing a Special edition of Star Trek: Nemesis: Nemesis 25 in 2027. ;-)
Genuinely i’ve always thught it would be cool if they went back NOW and refilmed the future scenes from “All Good Things” and reinserted them into the episode.
Wasn’t that the original intention though? I remember reading about it and I believe it was mentioned in the DVD special features that the producers originally intended for Patrick Stewart to play both of the roles.
Definitely the latter. As I recall Tom Hardy wore a prosthetic of Stewart’s head to make him look more like Picard.
It was ridiculous and it really took the audience for idiots. Hardly any teenager will have no hair. Hair loss (for those destined for baldness for most of adult life) generally kicks in during mid-20s to mid 30s.
But it would be the odd genetic cases of early baldness that likely could only resolved with forbidden genetic manipulation technology.
I can’t see Picard choosing to have recurrent cosmetic treatments.
So to me, it would seem fairly obvious that it was some kind of early onset baldness that Picard would challenge society to accept.
…except we saw Picard still had hair in Beverly’s “Violations” flashback/nightmare.
It is worth bearing in mind that Picard was supposed to be around 10 years older than Sir Patrick Stewart so there’s still an opportunity,
Hey, Patrick Stewart is too old to be playing old Picard, and that hasn’t stopped him. Nothing a little spray tan can’t fix!!
I’d love for some of the 20 years of Relaunch Litverse to be brought to streaming with a new cast.
McAvoy would be a natural for Picard, and that would be just about the hardest to cast.
Having him play a Picard who was about 20 years older in the 2380s wouldn’t be so off, given that both Jean-Luc and Beverly were deaged in canon.
And yes, I’ll say it again, I want to see the Destiny trilogy on screen.
I love James McAvoy but I always struggled to buy him as young professor X to Patrick Stewart. I’m glad he seems to be letting go of this possibility because he is not my young Picard. I always wanted someone rougher and saltier like James Marsters or Paul Bettany, but I guess they’re both getting on in years. I think of young Picard as more of an act first, think later type who grows into the thoughtful and disciplined captain we know one arrogant mistake at a time. McAvoy seems too sensitive and emotionally open to me.
You’re right. I don’t buy him as a young Patrick Stewart. Thankfully, he pulls off a young Professor Xavier quite well.
wasn’t picard supposed to be way old than his 50s in the show?
Yes. They need to either do a Stargazer mini-series or have the final season of Picard be a prequel.
Judging from that still of Dark Phoenix, he would be perfect for Agent 47.