Read this
interview. When you're done we'll compare notes.
Wait. Who the Hell am I kidding? You're not going to. So I'll cut-and-paste the whole thing. You're reading this thread anyway, so I will have done half the work for you. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I know you won't read it otherwise.
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And beyond that, anything you’re going to hand Patrick Stewart, he can play. It’s not like you have to write around limitations.
It’s incredible, the things he does over the course of the season. Because it’s not just him playing the Picard that you know when you think of Picard. He’s playing Picard who’s decades older, has been through a lot, has aged physically, is looking at his life in the way that someone who’s middle-aged wouldn’t. In canon in our story, Picard is I believe 92. So he’s older than Patrick is, but someone who’s been alive that long, looking at his life, is going to be behaving very differently than someone who’s however old Patrick was when he started doing
TNG. Patrick had all of that. He presents the character of Picard very much as the same guy. And yet, he’s changed, inevitably. He’s older, he’s wiser, he’s sadder, he has more regrets and more to regret. All of that just emerged on day one of shooting.