Actors' personalities vs. their character's personalities

Dwight Schultz. Everything he does, every character he plays I really like--even Oppenheimer. But I don't think if I met him in person we could ever have a real discussion because some of the things that come out of his mouth & some of the views he holds make me want to sackboot him repeatedly. It's one of those times that it's really important to distinguish between person & roles.

As far as Patrick Stewart goes...many years ago, I was with a friend at a restaurant in NYC & we happened to see him eating alone. After we finished our dinner, we went over & introduced ourselves & told him how much we admired his work. I told him that as much as I enjoyed him as Picard, my favorite role of his was as Lucius Aelius Sejanus in "I, Claudius" (I LOVE "I, Claudius", I do..). He got this great big grin on his face & when I added that I was so sad that he didn't do any scenes with Brian Blessed, who played Augustus (& who I friggin' LOVE; that man is hiigh-LARious), he started telling us tales about his early days & working with Brian & others from that cast. We ended up sitting down & listening to him regale us with tales from the Claudius set fro like 35 minutes. It was fantastic.

 

Running into Patrick Stewart eating alone at a restaurant will now be one of my goals in life. I'll make it so.

 

Picard would never have carried a pug dog around the Enterprise for most of his scenes. And Sejanus is nothing like Picard.

Damn, I am envious now. I, Claudius is the first time I ever saw Patrick Stewart in anything, and he was able to take one of history's villains and turn him into a character that evoked a tiny bit of sympathy at the end... mostly because although he was horrible to everyone else, he did sincerely love his children.

 

I feel like they had decent chemistry. They were written the way they are, for good or ill. Hardly something that struggled because of the actors, imho

It strikes me that way too. If you ever watch his web series. It's clear he has a self-deprecating sense of humor