Happy Sad Confused - Patrick Stewart, Vol. IV

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Living legends like Patrick Stewart are ALWAYS welcome back to the podcast and especially on this occasion, to talk about his new memoir, MAKING IT SO. From his humble childhood to STAR TREK and X-MEN, this one covers it all! SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! BetterHelp -- Visit BetterHelp.com/HSC today to get 10% off your first month HelloFresh -- Go to HelloFresh.com/hscfree and use code hscfree for FREE breakfast for life DraftKings -- Download the DraftKings Casino app NOW and sign up with promo code HappySad UPCOMING EVENTS January 8th -- Dan Levy -- tickets here! January 10th -- Josh Hutcherson -- tickets here! January 11th -- Annette Bening -- tickets here! January 17th -- Clive Owen -- tickets here! January 24th -- Masters of the Air (Austin Butler) -- tickets here! February 6th -- Emily Blunt -- tickets here! Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to Election Day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances. It can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of Start Here, the Daily Podcast from ABC News, and every morning my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand.

with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So, kickstart your morning. Start Smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. Patrick, do you know how many times you died in the X-Men series of those eight appearances? Do you know how many times Charles died? No. Four. That is a horrible ratio.

You died 50% of the movies you appeared. I don't know what that, what does that say, Patrick? I don't know. I don't know. But I do now have every confidence that he's still around. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. I'm Josh Horowitz, and today on Happy, Sad, Confused,

I don't know how this happened, but I'm clearly doing something right. Patrick Stewart. is on the show for the fourth time. He has lived a remarkable life on the stage, and of course, in the X-Men and Star Trek series. He chronicles it all in a fantastic new memoir, making it so. I am so thrilled to welcome back to Happy Second Fused.

Patrick Stewart, Sir. Welcome. Thank you, Josh. I'm very happy to be back. When we last spoke, it was a little bit of a different atmosphere. It was the chaos of you and your next generation friends, your Star Trek Picard friends on a live stage, I would imagine that always devolves into chaos, glorious, wonderful chaos when you all gather together, yes? Well, it could be damaging chaos

if they were not such a smart, likable, and very committed group of people. I learned so much from them, from season one, when I wasn't altogether what I should have been. And but they supported me and advised me and gave me tips. And I have been grateful to them for the rest of my life because the the attraction that next generation had for so many, many, hundreds of thousands,

probably millions of people is largely due to the ensemble feeling that I think made that series special. Indeed, indeed. And I know you've gotten a chance to reunite with some along this press store, Whoopi Goldberg, et cetera. I want to talk at length about this wonderful book. I have it here, making it so. It's a fantastic read. I was just telling you. I have to imagine this has been a cathartic process in both the writing and the talking about what you've written. Has it been emotionally rewarding in both phases of it, in the actual writing of it, but also in sharing it with the world? Yes, certainly in the writing of it, Josh, because never having done anything

like this before, I mean, 300 words for a forward or an introduction is probably the most I'd ever done. And I was concerned that I would bring a tonality to it that, well, I read and I didn't listen to audiobooks, but I did dip into a number of memoirs in the weeks preceding my beginning to write. And some of them were marvelously helpful, some of them very entertaining, and some were kind of mildly offensive, I found.

And so I imagined that I was with a group of my dearest friends sitting around a nice, in winter with a glass of wine in our hands and and just chatting but only one person was chatting that was me and so that's the tonality that I was aiming for and it seems to have worked no indeed I was just telling you before we started in reading this I couldn't help but hear that unique Patrick Stewart voice in my head you were basically telling your story as only you can I'm curious like prior to this like you say you didn't fancy yourself a writer, and I'm sure it's someone that's done so much Shakespeare

and the specificity of Trek, like, you know, writing is king. The writer is king. You must have always felt that in your pursuits. Was it tough to kind of, to accept that you could be the teller of your own story, or was this the only way to do it? You didn't want to kind of like do an as told to. You wanted to kind of really, if you were going to commit, do it in this way. Yes. Yes. It If those qualities exist in the book, then I wanted to bring them alive also in the audio book version of it. And on the whole, people seem to have liked that. Never having done anything like this before, I started just with thinking about my past. That was all.

going for long walks and in Pleasant, Southern California, and remembering. And I was astonished at how quickly a multitude of doors and windows began to open for me. Things about my childhood I'd never reflected on before, my friends, my relationship with my teachers, which was very significant for me in what was to come after. And it just built up this huge store of recollection. And the one thing I tried to be more than anything else was authentic and real and not trying to be. present how I hoped to be seen, but who I was and therefore who I would be seen. And that was

my primary objective in the work that I did. And then one day I sat down in this chair, in this very pleasant room, and began typing. I have to say, I mean, the specificity of your memory of your recollections is startling to me. I do not possess this kind of memory. I mean, I feel like an architect could recreate your family home simply by your recollections. Like, you have, and it just, it also permeates with such warmth, it's such sweetness, the opening sections of the book, despite, you know, as you've talked about and, you know, you talk about in the book, your father being a difficult man and really a troubled man, by and large, your recollections of your childhood are sweet, are filled with love and joy. Did that surprise you?

Did that, was that always the case? Or did you kind of come to that with the passage of time, this kind of perspective on your childhood? Oh, yes, Josh. The passage of time was very, very significant, which is why the longer that I reflected on my life, not just my childhood, but even, you know, into the second half of my career that I never expected to be where it is now. And it gave me more courage than I thought I had to speak frankly and honestly about my family, my home life, my friends, my teachers, my acting advisors, the directors, the directors that I worked with, all of whom made contributions, because I think many of them realized that in most respects, although people have told me that one of the things about my work that was always interesting

was that it was intriguing. It was, there was a sort of contradiction about it. You know, how come with no education, no social background, no comfortable home to invite all your friends into, could all these other things have come about? So I had plenty to think about. No running toilet, let us say, too. No, no toilet.

I mean, this struck a nerve with me. I mean, you know, you have some years, on me, but I still was startled by that fact. That is, I don't know. We had no bathroom and no toilets, except what was called the outside one. And there was a block of a red brick block with dust bins in the middle of it and two bathrooms, no, not bathrooms, toilets at either end. There was no electricity, no power in those rooms.

So in winter, this also, what each one of these little brick rooms became my study, became what is now a little more comfortable here. And I began to sense that if I kept my head there in that place, then enough information would crawl or hurtle its way into my composing something about my life, but it was very, very basic. And I know there are a number of people who I think have been a little bit suspicious about how I created my early childhood and the conditions under which I lived with my elder brother and my mother, because my father was away in the war. I was born in July 1940. And I've done the calculations very carefully. and I believe that it's more than possible that I was conceived the night before my father went to war in October of 1939. And of course, although he came home on leave once, so I was told, and there is a photograph of him holding the baby Patrick in his arms, I didn't really get to know him until

the end of the war in 1945 when he was demobbed and came home. And that's where the problem starts. Yes. And, you know, you've been very open about this and kind of like, you know, it's important to be open, I think, about these kind of topics. This is a man who suffered from what we would now call PTSD and obviously had severe repercussions from that. And unfortunately, that they took out on your wonderful mother. When you think back to your dad now, is it with a smile? Is it with sadness? What are the overriding emotions when you think about your father?

Well, smiling and sadness can go hand in that. Sure. And I don't feel the rage, the fury, the fear that I experienced as a child. Instead, I see my father now in the context of what I learned about his military career, because I know quite a lot about it and have even talked with people who knew him when he was a soldier. And how he felt about that and how he felt about coming home and finding his life being transformed from regimental sergeant major of the parachute regiment. He was the most senior non-commissioned officer

in the entire regiment, a regimental sergeant major. And he came home to laboring in mills or factories. And I think that was a battle for him to try to come to terms with what his real, life was like because you cannot claim, I think, that soldiering can be said to be a real life, certainly not an ordinary life. It's far, far from it. And he was deeply troubled. It was while standing on a spot in Western France that a historian said to me, I can tell you with absolute certainty that where you're standing now, your father stood in 1939 and maybe the beginning of 1940, before Dunkirk actually happened.

My father was caught up in that invasion by the British expeditionary forces, but it was a failure. and everyone was on the run, those who could run, and those who had somewhere to run too. So my father didn't actually see Dover. He had passed through Dover once before, but he was in a harbour town south of Dover. And he was on the last ship that left. And when his ship sailed out of the harbor, the Nazis, the Nazi soldiers were already in the outskirts of the city. So he was a very, very lucky man in that respect. And I know he knew that he was lucky, but still his disappointments as to how his life eventually became after the group.

I think he loved being a soldier. and he embraced authority. And when it came to playing Jean-Luc Picard, I had him to access because, oh, yes, I played kings and princes and prime ministers. Yet when I came to put my hands on the first script of Star Trek the next generation, It was none of those earlier experiences of what I know my father had, but it opened, as I've said already, it opened little doors and windows and gave me insights as an adult of how my life had been as a child.

Well, and I would imagine, you know, accessing anger and rage that festered in your father. I mean, I think to, and I hope it doesn't trivialize it to kind of equate it to a moment in a Star Trek film. But I think about like Star Trek First Contact, one of my favorite scenes that you talk about with lightness, but it's a serious scene and it's an amazing moment where you kind of explode, that famous explosion, you know, the line must be drawn here. and with respects to the Borg, I mean, that comes from somewhere. That's deep. Yeah. That's my father.

Yeah. You, a few years ago, you sadly lost. I know your older brother, Trevor, and I would imagine there's got to be some poignancy in the course of writing this. I don't know if he passed while you were working on this, but to know that that nuclear family, you are the remaining representation.

of that family now. So it is on you to immortalize, and you have, in fact, as a great tribute, you've immortalized your family forever for all time. Did that, does that kind of way on you? I mean, you could see it as kind of a privilege and honor to like, you know, carry on your family name in the form of this wonderful book. Yes. The only little stir of sadness in me about this is that none of them were here to know that or to hold the book in their hands. Nobody in my family, as far as I'm aware, had ever written like that. And I am now the oldest member of my family, of my generation of family anyway. My brother Trevor, who indeed, he passed away when I was in the...

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have a senior member of the family I could now turn to and ask for advice. Now they were turning to me and asking for my advice. And that has been challenging. a book and a memoir about family. It is also about a love of the arts and particular theater. Theater just permeates your life. It always has. It always will. You talk at length about, I mean, there are, you know, huge sections about, you know, traveling theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, your aspirations early on. And your aspirations, correct me if I'm wrong, film and TV wasn't even on the radar. You were happy, you would have been thrilled and happy. Shakespeare Company was the end-all-be-all for you growing up. I take it. Oh, yes. Entirely so.

It's not that I didn't have an attraction for film. Well, I hadn't had much opportunity to have attraction for television because even from later days, we never had a television set in our house. We had a radio, and it was on all the time, and that's what my father listened to, and that's why, because we only had, as you were aware, because it's right at the start of the book, we lived in what was known as a one-up, one-down, a house in a small row of houses that only had one living room on the ground floor and one bedroom upstairs with a stone staircase that connected the ground floor. to the first or second floor. This is where I get confused sometimes living in America. The terminology I can't remember. All right, the first floor. Yeah, yeah, that always trips me up when I visit Europe as well.

I understand it, sir. But what I was happiest to do in the book was to write about and thank and detailed the care that was given to me. by people who were not in my fabric. My teachers, my first acting teacher that I had, the local county council where I grew up in the West Riding in Yorkshire,

they gave me a grant to go to drama school because when the Bristlovick Theatre School accepted me and they did it all in the same meeting, I went down to Bristol for an audition for the school and I caught an overnight train from the north of England. So I arrived in Bristol at about six o'clock in the morning, having had very little sleep and found that the school in Clifton was only a long walk away from the railway station. So that's what I did. And I did my audition. and the director of the school, Duncan Ross, said,

all right, thanks, Patrick, we don't need any more from you. We'll see you in September. Just like that. And I was totally unprepared for it. So I went home and told my parents, and my mother was excited and proud for me. But my father said, well, who the bloody hell is going to pay for it, Patrick? Oh Lord, I'd never thought about that, not for a moment until I thought of it, because we had almost nothing.

And it was my acting coach, Ruth Winnowen, who with Cecil Dorman, my English teacher, are the two people to whom my book is dedicated, Ruth Winnowin and Cecil Dorman. And it was Ruth who said, Patrick, maybe you should apply to the county council. for a grant because I did know that my county council supported amateur theatricals. And they were very proud of the level of ability that those groups had. And I still felt, because I didn't go to grammar school. I wasn't academic. I had been to what was called a second remodden school, which meant that basically the teaching prepared you to work in a mill or a factory

or, my lord, in the coal mines. My town was quite a big coal mining town. And my father had worked as a young coal miner when he was 14. But his mother, mother, pulled him out. you see i nearly said mother it's when i start talking about their background that it just comes forward and there i am you know giving the game away um but it so um i did i made an application to my county council for a grant for higher education and when i met with them it was eight men in suits sitting behind a curving table. And each one of them had one question and whether

they'd agreed this in advance. I never found out. But the very last person to speak, who I think was the chairman of the group, said, now just a minute, Patrick, tell us, supposing we give you this money and it's going to have to be a lot to pay for your education and your clothing and your living allowance, I mean, what are we going to get out of that? I mean, what good is it going to do us? Typical, Yorkshire comments. You know, there's a wonderful Yorkshire saying that I've always enjoyed. You can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can't tell him much.

It's all there. So I told them, I said, but my intention is, and there was a certain amount of bullshit in this, you must understand, is that when I have got my education and I've got a degree or whatever it is they're going to give me, I will then be able to return to the north of England and give all of that that I've learned to those people who were like myself. And in fact, that's pretty much what happened because my first job just as an actor was in Sheffield. And so I felt that I kept that side of the bargain. I also have to say I love all the backstage stories throughout this and kind of the demystification of the art of acting and talking about some of these luminaries, you know, whether it's, you know, meeting Rod Steiger or Vivian Lee or I love this story. found so telling and revealing of Ian Holm, I believe it was Iceman Cometh you were in a production with. And Ian Holm, one of the greats, right? One of the greats of all time. And who was apparently fantastic, nailing it, I believe playing Hickey probably, right, in the rehearsals. And then it just,

it slipped away. And I'm curious, like, for you, does that, is that what acting is to you? Is it that ephemeral? Is it like, you're kind of like on a knife's edge at all times, like, between greatness and just collapsing? I'm not sure that it's correct to say always on this cusp. But it is true that I experienced, and I know a lot of my colleagues did, certainly of my generation, if something good happened to them, that might be for the last time, being cast in a row, having a success in a good role, being in a production that went on tour or transferred from, you know, Brooklyn to Broadway or North London to the National Theatre.

I always had that uncomfortable feeling of there's no guarantee that this is going to continue. And sometimes people reinforce that when I was offered next generation. And I learned that if I signed the contract, it would be for a minimum of six years, which I was totally unknowing about and was astonished. But I was told by so many people, don't worry about that. That's not going to be a problem. You'll be lucky to make it through season one. Not just you, but you cannot revive an iconic series like Star Trek.

You just can't. So don't worry about that. Come and do half a first season. Make some money for the first time in your life and go home. Well, it didn't quite turn out like that. And infamously, no less than the great Serene McKellen told you this was a bad idea. Did you lose the respect of any of your peers by accepting this? Like, did they shake their head at, like, Patrick selling out for Hollywood at the time?

Or were they understanding? I mean, you have to make a living. I mean, it's a job at the end of the day. Oh, yes, sure. But Ian knew what other projects were in line for me. And there were two very important theater projects. And Ian said, look, the chance of shooting a television. television series, it's always going to be there. In fact, it's going to grow and grow and grow.

But what you're being offered in terms of the plays, that's a rarity. And if you don't seize that, it may never come again. I mean, Ian has become a very beloved friend to my wife and myself. He actually married us. I mean, he performed the ceremony, and he has played a vital role in my life of career. And he himself has admitted he was wrong in his advice. And I've heard him tell that particular anecdote about he said, no, don't do it. Don't do it. But there we all.

But it is also lovely that even in the course of Trek, you know, you kept returning to the theater. And I've told you this before, but I'll say it again. You know, as a young man, I of course love Next Generation and loved your performance. And it in no small way got me to the theater to see you do a Christmas Carol when it was on Broadway here in New York. And of course, that led to a lifelong love of theater for me. That was a gateway for me. So, I mean, that, well, certainly. And I'm sure I am not alone, sir.

I mean, was that experience, was that need to kind of keep returning to the theater throughout Trek, what kind of kept you? While you increasingly, I think, accepted and enjoyed Trek for what it was as the years passed, theater was, was that keeping you kind of nimble and keeping you engaged throughout those years? Yes, I think it was. I had a great respect, which came from my father and my mother, for work. And work and how you did it would be a vivid and accurate illustration of who you were. And so I took that very seriously. And I think it helped me through the first season of Star Trek because it was challenging. I was so unfamiliar with cameras

and the practical means of making a television episode or a season I was having to learn all the time but I'm glad about that because the lesson about learning has never gone away and I am watching

the last like I guess many of us I've been watching a lot of television in the last three years and I have sensed in the last five or six years changes in technique and approach particularly by younger

actors and actresses in how they do their work and I am I am drawn to it because it's not how I had viewed up my work in the past. Although, I mean, there is an anecdote I tell in the book.

When my first day in front of a film camera, I actually spent the morning, it was only half a day, actually wasn't even a whole day, in a scene with Rod Steiger, sitting in the back of a car where I pulled a gun on him. Now, if you have any recollection of a film called... On the waterfront, of course. the waterfront, of course, yeah, yeah.

Thank you, Paramount. Rod Seiger had been one of my, when I first was exposed to on the waterfront and that kind of acting on camera, I was hooked. It just riveted me, and I tried to see all the work that those actors did. But on that day, I was invited to, to have lunch and with him.

And he said to me, Patrick, there's one very important thing that I really think you should hold on to. A camera photographs, thoughts. I had never for a moment given it any consideration. Acting wasn't about thinking. It was about doing and being, you know, and raising your voice like I have just been doing now. And it...

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That's right. After a brief snack nap. We're coming back. We're picking snacks. We're eating snacks. We're raiding snacks. Like the snackologist we were born to be. Mates is back. Mike and Tom, eat snacks. Wherever you get your podcast.

Unless you get them from a. snack machine in which case it calls us but it became my pursuit to study that and to and to simply let my head come out in front of the camera and all my feelings and that is happening to such an extraordinary degree with young actors these days. And I haven't actually done any television work now for two years. And I'm hungry to start experimenting again. Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to election day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances, it can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Nilke. I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News.

And every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So, kickstart your morning, start smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. The last TV work, of course, was the third season of Star Trek Picard, which was just extraordinary in so many respects. And I think Trek fans were almost shocked at just like the degree of how satisfying it was. And, you know, I'm still bummed that it didn't get maybe the awards attention. maybe that stigma still exists in the sci-fi space, but it is what it is. You said, though, that you still have an appetite, potentially,

for more Picard, but what are the parameters this time? Because I know you had specific parameters when they first came to you on Star Trek Picard. Now is it you want to do a film, yes? You don't want it, not a series? Yes. After we finish recording our seven seasons of next generation, we made four movies, one after the other, Star Trek movies, of varying qualities, the best one being the one directed by Jonathan Frick's, who was one of the people who had the most influence on me on the show, because of his experience and his understanding of the complexities and how,

bringing different qualities onto the stage four was very, very important and diversity, you know, and change. So it's an ongoing procedure for me. And I'm, I'm, I heard only last night about a script that is being written, but written specifically with the actor, Patrick, to play it. And I've been told to expect to receive it within a week or so. And I'm so excited because it sounds like the kind of project where the experimentation that I want to do will be essential for this kind of material. So something... It's good that at 83...

Still learning new tricks. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it sounds like a little bit of a different take than what we've seen in the last few seasons of Star Trek Picard, what you're... I know you haven't read it yet, but something a little different. Yeah. I mean, what was so interesting about Picard, and the main reason why I decided to commit to three seasons of it, was that Akiva Goldsman and talked to me about the changes that had happened in my life in the last 20 years. and he said were there any and I of course said yes lots and lots and new journeys and new experiences and relationships and he said exactly well that has also been Jean-Luc's experience

he's not the same man he's no longer captain of the enterprise he was made an admiral it became really desk work which is not what he ever wanted to do. And now he's back at home, living on his vigniards, and seeming to be reasonably content. All that was an act. All that was Jean-Luc trying to pretend, as I think my father did,

that everything was all right. Right. But it wasn't. Right. And so particularly the last season of Picard was extraordinary to perform. because I was continually being faced because of the wonderful job the writers did with a different man. I mean, there was one wonderful moment I really enjoyed researching

when Picard literally didn't know what to do, how to deal with this situation. He was stunned by it. watching him having to cope with that realization of I'm old and I can't work out how to deal with this. You know, it was a fascinating process. So I enjoyed that. I also, of course, want to mention your wonderful tenure in the X-Men franchise, eight appearances, I believe, as Professor X. Charles Xavier. Patrick, do you know how many times you died in the X-Men series of those eight appearances? Do you know how many times Charles died? No.

Four. That is a horrible ratio. You died 50% of the movies you appeared. I don't know what that, what does that say, Patrick? I don't know. I don't know. But I do now have every confidence

that he's still around. On the X-Men front, I would be shocked if your buddy, Hugh Jackman, who is returning in Deadpool 3, one of his first phone calls was not to you, Patrick. I'm going to guess I might see Patrick Stewart in a Deadpool-Will-Reed movie. It has come up.

There's been a process, but, you know, the last two, three years have been so difficult with both the labor problems and the health problems and COVID, you know. There's nothing sentimental about the way they dispatched you in the Dr. Strange movie. I've talked to a lot of the actors that were doing the Multiverse of Madness movie

that that was a very interesting production I'm just curious like were you alone like were you with the other actors do you remember like the circumstances of that I was alone you were alone that's what I thought the magic of movie making I think I think

the big scene I think each one of the leading actors had the same experience they were shot on their own Yeah, that's what I've heard. Frustrating and disappointing. That's how it has been. The last few years have been challenging.

Right. And you do say in the book that your time on stage is not done. Is there a specific aspiration? Do you still feel that way? I mean, that takes a lot out of a man, a 47-year-old man or whatever. Yeah. I do. It was my first.

love, I would like to find an appropriate way of saying, thank you and goodbye to it. And there are some ideas that I've got. The main issue with all of this is stamina. Yeah. Because I think a lot of film actors would be irritated by saying this, but three hours on stage or even two hours on a stage are the equivalent of a 12 or 14 hours in front of a camera, and the requirements to make that work, to make it live, real and spontaneous is so important. So, yes, I would like us to have one last shot at a Picard movie. Or rather, no, it wouldn't be a Picard movie. It would be a Star Trek movie. But it would have. the Picard cast, as we saw them in Picard, because everyone was so different. I mean, Michael Dorn,

you know, in his appearance. The silver hair, the whole thing, yeah, pacifist. And it's quite gentle manner. And because he changed, he'd learned different things about life. And I have great, great respect for Michael what he did, well, all of my colleagues on that show. Michael in particular took a giant step into the future with the performance that he gave. And so, you know, I mean, the one play that comes up repeatedly is Kiglia. I was in it once, but I played a supporting role, and that was many decades ago. And of course, Shakespeare was always my primary obsession and love. and you know

I walk every day I get exercise and I'm no longer in control of the Shakespeare that floats into my head which is why I don't like having to walk with someone because they chatter and I don't want I just want my head to drift you know pick up the rhythm of which I'm walking

and I know that will sound silly and no you have a jukebox of of Shakespeare in your head. That's quite a testament to the work you put in over the years, sir. It's amazing. Well, we'll see. There's one director I would like, well, there are two actually, but one first choice I would like to do the work with. And it will need to be a collaboration and one that will have to keep in mind my stamina. So that, yeah, I can finish the job as well as start it.

Well, I hope if that does indeed come to pass, it comes to New York. I'll be there as I was at a Christmas Carol, at every stage in your career. Truly congratulations on this. I'll remind the audience again, making it so, you know, we all just heard a sample, like a tiny fraction of the wonderful stories of this gentleman's life. You've contributed so much to the arts, to people like me, helping inspire us for our love of theater. and film and TV.

It's always a privilege, sir. Thank you so much for the time, truly. Josh, thank you. That means a great deal to me. And I very much enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes

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