DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 1997              TAG: 9708260102

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   94 lines

STEWART'S NEW ROLES ARE LIGHT YEARS AWAY FROM ``STAR TREK'S'' CAPT. PICARD

PATRICK STEWART, complete with the rounded British vowels of the classic stage actor he is, was expounding on how he regretted he couldn't get to Williamsburg this summer.

``It was truly a shame,'' he said, ``but I was Ahab-ing it in Australia. I would have loved to have seen Daniel.''

That would be son Daniel, who starred in ``Coriolanus'' at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival in Williamsburg.

``Daniel is well-versed in the classics. I wasn't too worried about him,'' Stewart said as he sat in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. ``I began working with him on speech when he was a child.''

And the ``Ahab'' reference? Stewart spent most of the summer filming a new version of ``Moby Dick'' in Sydney, Australia, playing Capt. Ahab, the obsessive whaler, for a TV mini-series airing in March.

Stewart himself is better known as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise than for his beloved Shakespearean stage roles. He created the role for ``Star Trek: The Next Generation'' on TV for seven seasons and reprised it for the hit feature films ``Star Trek: Generations'' and ``Star Trek: First Contact.''

He's recently signed, for more than $12 million, to do a third feature film.

It's something of a liberating feat for him.

``I'm not nearly as afraid of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard as I was,'' he admitted. ``I wondered in the summer of 1994 when the series ended. I didn't know if I had ended up with this heavy albatross around my neck. After all, `Star Trek' is not reality. It is a heightened, epic, role that is bigger than life. Yet, fans actually identified me as Picard.''

When the series ended, Stewart remembered that ``I wanted to stand up and say, `Look guys, I'm an actor. I'm not just a spaceship captain.' I knew I could always go back to theater, but I wanted more than that. I looked for the wildest extremes of character to establish myself - and it's gone well.''

Currently, he's playing two villains in the new ``Masterminds'' and the hit Mel Gibson-Julia Roberts film ``Conspiracy Theory.''

In ``Masterminds,'' which opened this week, he plays a sophisticated computer genius who invades an exclusive private school, holding for ransom the children of rich parents.

In the film, Stewart is bested by 16-year-old Ozzie Paxton, a computer whiz played by teen star Vincent Kartheiser. ``It's his film,'' the veteran actor said. ``He should be the star, not me.''

In general, Stewart thinks films have too much violence. ``It becomes more and more and means less and less,'' he said. ``We become immune to it. It means nothing.''

Stewart began with years of work at the Royal Shakespeare company, playing everything from King John to Shylock, Henry IV, Titus Andronicus and Oberon. He was in such films as ``Lady Jane,'' ``Excalibur'' and ``Robin Hood: Men In Tights'' but he was still regarded largely as a stage actor when the offer came to star in the series ``Star Trek: The Next Generation.''

``The offer came on a Monday and I had to reply by Friday. I used every moment of the time - hesitating. I was assured it would never work and that it couldn't last more than two years. The idea of doing a spin-off from the original series was something that wasn't likely to catch on. I was urged to come to Los Angeles, make a bit of money, and sit in the sun. Not until I got there did I know that I had to sign a six-year contract. I went through with it, as you know.''

He added, ruefully, ``Seven years later, 30 million people tuned in to the final episode. It was quite an experience, but if they had told me it was for seven years, I would have taken the plane back to London.''

He hates it, though, when anyone suggests that he was too good for the role.

``That offends me. It suggests that I was slumming. I went to some of the `Star Trek' conventions and I quite appreciate their interest. It was a challenge, but, at the end, I wanted to put as much distance between me and Jean-Luc Picard as possible.''

He did that by playing a flamboyant gay character in ``Jeffrey'' and his current two villain roles. Already finished are the movies ``Dad Savage'' and ``Safe House.'' He starred on Broadway as Prospero in ``The Tempest,'' won a Grammy for narrating Prokofiev's ``Peter and the Wolf'' and is a standing-room-only sell-out on Broadway whenever he does his one-man version of Charles Dickens' ``A Christmas Carol.''

If you want to see him on stage, he'll be starring in ``Othello'' at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., later this month. (Call (202) 393-2700 for ticket availability and performance dates).

``Othello has long been one of my ambitions,'' he said. ``When I became of age, it had become unacceptable for a white actor to put on black face to play it. The role, I thought, was denied to me forever. But, in Washington, we're going to do something quite different, and daring. I will be the only white actor in an otherwise all African-American cast. I think it'll be a quite bold new look at the play.''

It's safe to bet that Patrick Stewart can continue to be Capt. Jean-Luc Picard with no danger of anyone thinking that is his only identity. He is an actor of many faces. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Triumph Films

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