Patrick Stewart shares blunt thoughts on 2002’s “Star Trek: Nemesis” in his new memoir, “Making It So” (via Insider). The film, the fourth and final “Star Trek” feature to star “The Next Generation” cast, featured one of Stewart’s least memorable outings as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, at least according to the actor himself.
“‘Nemesis,’ which came out in 2002, was particularly weak,” Stewart writes. “I didn’t have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie’s villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy.”
Hardy was not a household name when he played the villain in “Star Trek: Nemesis,” and Stewart predicted his co-star never would be due to how shut off he was from the rest of the cast during the making of the movie.
“Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level,” Stewart writes. “Never said, ‘Good morning,’ never said, ‘Goodnight,’ and spent the hours he wasn’t needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend…He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him.”
“On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door,” Stewart adds. “As it closed, I said quietly to Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], ‘And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.’ It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.”
“Star Trek: Nemesis” was only Hardy’s third feature film. He went on to have supporting roles in films such as “Layer Cake” and “Marie Antionette” before his profile was raised significantly with projects like “Bronson” and “Inception.”
