Actor

Patrick Stewart belongs to a rare kind of actors able to bring their charisma and elegance to their screen characters. He has inspired an all generation, enbodying one of the most important heroes on screen, the captain of the Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard, in Star Trek the Next Generation.

His seductive voice, commanding physical presence, and compelling dramatic gifts have made him a star on stage, on television, and in motion pictures. And heís had both the luck and the wit to make not one, but two iconic heroes of science fiction and fantasy his own : Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men trilogy, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard in 177 TV episodes of Star Trek : The Next Generation and its handful of highly successful cinematic follow-ups. If contemporary sci-fi/fantasy has a face (and…well…a skull), it certainly belongs to the formidable Patrick Stewart.

His legions of fans may not be aware, however, that Stewart-an actor from his Yorkshire adolescence-is a renowned Shakespearean (he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for some three decades), an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee, and a Drama Desk Award winner. He has played Othello and Captain Ahab, Prospero and Ebenezer Scrooge. Perhaps even more significantly for JVA Film Festival-goers, in 2005, he starred as Captain Nemo in a film version of Jules Verneís Mysterious Island.

Stewart has distinguished himself in other, more private pursuits. He has managed to work with numerous activist organizations, including Amnesty International, where he has established the Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarship, awarded to student activists for summer internships and short-term human rights projects ; Doctors Without Borders ; and the Ocean Alliance, an organization whose mission-the conservation of whales and their ocean environment-dovetails perfectly with that of Jules Verne Adventures.