The late, great Patrick Stewart will forever be remembered for playing Jean-Luc Picard in the “Star Trek” franchise, but the USS Enterprise captain was far from his only TV role. A trained Shakespearian actor, the Brit made his debut on the small screen in the mid-1960s. He appeared in a variety of TV shows and films throughout the ’70s and ’80s before landing his breakthrough role as Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which premiered in 1987.
After “Star Trek: The Next Generation” came to an end, Stewart became known for co-starring in the X-Men movies as the powerful mutant Professor Charles Xavier, but he still dabbled in television. Many of these TV roles allowed Stewart to showcase different sides of himself, with characters ranging from totally wacky to full-on villain. Taken all together, his TV credits show just how gifted and versatile Stewart was as a performer.
5. Pigtrick in Bait
One of Patrick Stewart’s last TV roles was also one of his most bizarre: He voiced a severed pig head in “Bait,” a dark comedy series starring Riz Ahmed. Premiering on Prime Video in March 2026, the show follows Ahmed as struggling London Pakistani Muslim actor Shah Latif as he auditions to be the next James Bond. News of his audition sparks a big backlash and a wave of self-doubt within Shah. When a racist throws a severed pig’s head through the window of Shah’s parents’ home, the insecure actor ends up keeping it close to him as a source of motivation and having imagined conversations with it.
In an interview with The Ankler, Ahmed explained that Stewart was a natural choice to voice the pig’s head. “We wanted someone who is such an indisputable heavyweight of the craft that it would make Shah feel insecure and inadequate talking to him about acting,” Ahmed said. “Someone who’s humble enough to elevate a show like this and step in even though they don’t have to, and someone who’s really, really funny. Patrick Stewart is all of those things.” Yes, it’s an odd role, but it’s also very typical of Stewart in several ways; it’s silly, unexpected, generous, and not without gravitas.
4. Karla in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
Patrick Stewart had one of the best, most distinctive voices of any actor around, so it’s a testament to his complete skill as an actor that he is totally silent for one of his greatest small screen performances. In 1979, the BBC adapted John le Carré’s 1974 novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” as a television serial with Alec Guinness in the lead role of MI6 spymaster George Smiley. Stewart appears in a flashback where Smiley recalls his one encounter, many years ago, with his Soviet nemesis Karla, who has been giving him and The Circus (a nickname for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service) so much trouble.
At the time, Karla was in custody in an Indian prison cell. Smiley tried to convince the Soviet to defect to the West as he interrogated him. Upon reflection decades later, though, Smiley realizes that it was really Karla who was silently interrogating him. Stewart plays the scene perfectly. He sits calmly and patiently, only expressing interest when the chatty Smiley unwittingly starts revealing information that Karla can later use to his benefit. Stewart commands the scene without uttering a single word, giving a true masterclass in the acting craft.
3. Himself in Extras
Patrick Stewart was always a hoot when he played an exaggerated version of himself. By far the best example of this — and one of Stewart’s funniest turns on the small screen, period — was opposite Ricky Gervais in his sitcom “Extras.” In the sixth episode of the first season, Gervais’ aspiring actor Andy Millman is working as a background extra on a production of “The Tempest” starring Stewart. Andy enters Stewart’s dressing room to give him a sitcom script that he’s written, and the interaction between the two is peak British comedy.
When Andy asks Stewart to pass on his script to his contacts in the industry, he says that he will “Make it so,” referencing his famous Picard line. It goes right over Andy’s head because, as it turns out, he’s never watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Stewart, with deadpan delivery, responds with: “You’re not married, you haven’t got a girlfriend, and you’ve never watched Star Trek? Good lord.” Remembering Stewart in a post on X, Gervais wrote, “I still can’t believe he agreed to do this scene. And he didn’t even mind when I ruined every take. Legend.”
2. Avery Bullock in American Dad!
Patrick Stewart was one of only two actors who appeared in every episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” but there was another character who he played over a hundred times over the years: Stewart voiced CIA deputy director Avery Bullock for over two decades in “American Dad!,” Seth MacFarlane’s hit animated sitcom. If Jean-Luc Picard was the model of a good leader, Bullock was exactly the opposite, which was what Stewart liked about the role.
“Playing Deputy Director Bullock opened up opportunities for me I just hadn’t had before,” Stewart told Time in 2015. “Playing an obnoxious, loud, opinionated, vulgar-minded, self-obsessed character was just fantastic. And fun!” Listening to Stewart in the role, you can tell he’s having an absolute blast, so it’s no wonder he worked with MacFarlane on several occasions — he also had various one-off roles in “Family Guy” and he was the narrator in the “Ted” movies.
1. Sejanus in I, Claudius
Patrick Stewart’s two most famous characters, Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier, are heroic figures, but the British thespian was just as willing and able to play villainous types, as he proved beyond doubt with his turn in the 1976 BBC miniseries “I, Claudius.” Stewart played Praetorian Guard commander Sejanus, a man whose lust for power and ruthless efforts to get it lead to him all-but controlling Rome. It’s a complete performance, the best one of his TV career away from “Star Trek.”
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” never did a proper Mirror Universe episode, but one imagines that if it did, the evil version of Picard would have been a lot like Stewart’s portrayal of Sejanus in “I, Claudius.” Stewart’s Sejanus displays the same restraint and calculation as Picard, only it’s clear here that it’s a mask for a driven, dangerous, and hungry fire underneath. Today, “I, Claudius” is regarded as a classic of British television. It’s no surprise that it made TVLine’s list of the best shows about the Roman Empire.
