10 Must-Watch Patrick Stewart Performances Beyond Picard and X

To millions of viewers, Patrick Stewart (July 13, 1940–October 28, 2026) will always be Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Professor Charles Xavier. Yet those famous roles came after decades onstage, including years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Long before he commanded the Enterprise or led the X-Men, Stewart was building a reputation as a formidable classical actor, taking on Shakespeare’s kings, soldiers, and villains.

His range extended far beyond the stage, too. Stewart could perform A Christmas Carol alone, playing dozens of characters, lend his voice to an eccentric animated CIA director, or become a quietly terrifying neo-Nazi crime boss. Picard and Professor X made him an icon, but they were only part of the story. These ten performances reveal the remarkable actor behind the familiar roles.

Related: 10 Shakespearean Plays Based on Real-Life Stories

10 Sejanus in I, Claudius

Patrick Stewart was already making his mark on television before he became Captain Picard. In the BBC’s 1976 adaptation of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius, he played Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard and one of the most powerful men in Rome.

While Emperor Tiberius withdrew from public life on the island of Capri, Sejanus worked to tighten his grip on the empire. Stewart gives the ambitious politician the confidence of a man who believes the machinery of power is there for him to operate. It’s a compelling early screen role, and a reminder that Stewart’s measured voice could serve schemers as effectively as starship captains.^[1]

9 Gurney Halleck in Dune

David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune gave Stewart a role far removed from the composed leaders who would later define his career. He played Gurney Halleck, a weapons instructor and loyal officer in House Atreides, who helps train the young Paul Atreides.

Gurney is a warrior, but not a simple one. He is also a musician, and the film gives Stewart a chance to play a baliset, a guitar-like instrument from Frank Herbert’s science-fiction world. Between the scarred face, the weapons training, and the unexpected musical interlude, Gurney feels like a glimpse of Stewart trying on an entirely different screen persona.^[2]

8 Henry II in The Lion in Winter

Stewart returned to medieval power struggles as Henry II in the television adaptation of James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter (2003). His wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, played by Glenn Close, has spent years confined by the king. When their sons gather for Christmas, the family holiday becomes a fight over who will inherit the throne.

Stewart and Close bring the royal couple’s history of affection, resentment, and rivalry into every exchange. Henry may rule a kingdom, but at home he faces a formidable opponent who knows exactly where to press. It’s a role that draws on Stewart’s command of classical drama while giving him a sharp-witted family battle to lead.^[3]

7 Avery Bullock in American Dad!

Stewart’s voice has a familiar authority, which makes it especially funny when a show gives him absurd things to say. In the animated comedy American Dad!, he voices Avery Bullock, a CIA deputy director and the boss of Stan Smith.

Bullock is a powerful government official, but he’s also an erratic figure whose personal life and bizarre decisions frequently overwhelm his job. The joke is partly in the contrast: the same voice that gave Picard his gravitas delivers Bullock’s outrageous lines with equal seriousness. Stewart has returned to the character throughout the series, making this one of his longest-running performances outside the Star Trek universe.^[4]

6 Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick

In the 1998 television adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Stewart took on Captain Ahab, the whaling captain whose pursuit of the great white whale consumes his ship and crew. The role offered him another captaincy, but this one came with obsession instead of Picard’s steady command.

Ahab is magnetic and frightening because his certainty has narrowed into a single purpose. Stewart was nominated for an Emmy for the performance, which shows how well he could carry a literary epic on screen. His Ahab isn’t a reassuring leader guiding a crew through the stars; he is a man pulling everyone aboard toward disaster.^[5]

5 Darcy in Green Room

In the 2015 thriller Green Room, Stewart played Darcy, the owner of a remote club where a punk band witnesses a murder. When the band becomes trapped backstage, Darcy arrives to control the situation—and makes it clear that he will do whatever it takes to protect his business.

The performance works because Stewart keeps Darcy quiet and calculating. He doesn’t need to shout to command the room; a measured word or a patient stare is often enough. The actor best known to many audiences as a principled captain and a compassionate mentor instead becomes the chilling leader of a neo-Nazi group. It is one of the sharpest breaks from his familiar screen image.^[6]

4 Every Character in A Christmas Carol

Stewart didn’t need a cast to bring Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to life. In his solo stage adaptation, he narrated the story and portrayed more than 40 characters, moving from Scrooge to the spirits and the Cratchit family.

The production used a minimal set, leaving Stewart’s voice and physical performance to distinguish each character. One moment he was a miser facing the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come; the next, he was another person in the story, reacting to Scrooge’s transformation. The show earned him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. For anyone who still thinks of Stewart primarily as a commanding ensemble lead, this performance makes a persuasive case for what one actor can do alone.^[7]

3 Othello in Othello

In 1997, Stewart played Othello in a production that turned the play’s racial dynamics inside out. He was the only white actor in a predominantly Black cast, with the production designed as a “photonegative” of the society Shakespeare wrote about.

The unusual casting was intended to make the play’s treatment of race and prejudice newly visible to audiences. Stewart had long wanted to play Othello, and the production offered a way to approach the role without blackface while still confronting the racial hierarchy at the heart of the tragedy. It was a bold theatrical choice that placed Stewart’s classical training in service of a challenging reinterpretation.^[8]

2 Macbeth in Macbeth

Stewart’s Macbeth began in a world far from Shakespeare’s medieval Scotland. Director Rupert Goold relocated the tragedy to a militaristic society in the 20th century, giving the murderous general a modern setting for his rise to power and collapse.

Stewart played Macbeth as a soldier whose ambition grows alongside his suspicion and fear. The production moved from the Chichester Festival Theatre to London, Brooklyn, and Broadway, and Stewart earned a Tony nomination for the performance. He had spent decades working in Shakespeare, but this production made the familiar tragedy feel newly dangerous—and brought his stage work to audiences who knew him mainly from science fiction.^[9]

1 Claudius and the Ghost in Hamlet

Stewart played both the villain and the victim in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet. Opposite David Tennant, he took the role of Claudius, the king who murdered his brother and married his widow. He also played the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, appearing as the man Claudius had killed.

The double casting gave Stewart two sharply different kinds of authority: Claudius’s political control and the Ghost’s otherworldly command. His performance earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. For an actor whose best-known screen characters are defined by their leadership, it’s a fitting reminder that Stewart could make power look noble, comic, terrifying, or deeply corrupt.^[10]