PATRICK STEWART - MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

AS A CHILD in Yorkshire, England, Patrick Stewart was brought up in a poor household where, as he revealed to The Guardian, he knew “exactly when to insert a small body between [my father's] fist and [my mother's] face.”

- PATRICK STEWART

"You must believe in yourself and you must be brave."
-Patrick Stewart

To escape, he “found the stage a very safe place to be. Because of the chaos in my life, I loved the certainty — and the opportunity to become somebody else and not myself.” From his early days in Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company to reprising an enterprising captain in TV's Star Trek: Picard, he's had opportunities to be anyone he's wanted. Now, Patrick — who turns 85 on July 13 — is at peace with past, present and future turns. “I’m getting very close [to the end],” he admitted to The Guardian. “[But] I am experiencing happiness on a level and of an intensity that I’ve never experienced in my life before.”

1. 1976 BARD NONE

"If you didn't go to Royal Shakespeare Company or watch BBC Two, you would have no idea who I was," he said of early roles such as in TV's /, Claudius. "All I wanted to do was Shakespeare. These other things that happened were just flukes. I didn't look for them. Never have."

2. 1984 OVER AND DUNE WITH

"Watching Dune even all these years later is not a comfortable experience for me," admitted Patrick of working on director David Lynch's sci-fi epic (starring Kyle MacLachlan). "I can sense my lack of connection to the work. And I have to say I am not proud of my performance."

3. 1987 STAR VEHICLE