Sir Patrick Stewart Recalls Playing Fierce, Fabulous And Gay In "Jeffrey": "It Was "Liberating. And Intimate. And Fun"
Sir Patrick Stewart is best known to audiences as Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Charles Xavier. But back in 1995's Jeffrey, he played against type as a flamboyant gay decorator who encourages the title character (Steven Weber) to embrace life and love even as the AIDS epidemic rages on.
In a new interview with DNA magazine, Stewart recalls how he got the part: “It was 1994 and we had just wrapped the seventh and final season of Star Trek and I said to my agent, ‘Find me a job. I don’t care what i is but let it be as far removed from science fiction and outer space as possible!’" he recalls.
"And very shortly he rang me and said, ‘I’ve got it! There’s a movie they’re making called Jeffrey…’ I had seen Paul Rudnick’s wonderful play here in New York and I met with the director."
While it was Stewart's first time playing a gay character, he says he's had gay friends and co-stars since he was a teen. "It was familiar and completely normal."
When we were prepping for the movie, the production designer said he wanted to have lots of photographs around Sterling’s apartment — of them on holiday and with friends and so forth — so how would you feel if you and Bryan [Batt] and Steve Weber [who played Jeffrey] go off and walk around the West Village.
It was a Saturday afternoon during a hot summer, so without quite knowing exactly where he was with his camera we spent a couple of hours just hanging out and it was the loveliest experience. Liberating. And intimate. And fun.
These days Stewart has a busy schedule: He's narrating Ted 2, appearing in the new Starz series Blunt Talk and has finished shooting the comedy-thriller Hunting Elephants. In the The Green Room, which just debuted at Cannes, he'll play against type again—this time as a white supremacist.
Below, watch Patrick Stewart in Jeffrey.
