James McAvoy Pitched ‘Star Trek’ Series About “Young Picard,” Jokes “All I Really Want To Do” Is Play Young Patrick Stewart
I like the symmetry here. McAvoy already inherited one Stewart role when he played a young Charles Xavier, so the idea of him circling Picard feels less like a stunt and more like a pattern. There's something delicious about the thought of Picard as a reckless young officer on the Stargazer, long before he was the calm, Shakespeare-quoting captain we know. Star Trek has always been better when it shows us how its legends got made, and the Stargazer years are a rich, mostly unexplored corner of canon.
I'd want to know how close "nearly made" actually was. Did the pitch get a real development deal, or was it a fun dinner-table idea that got a little traction? Trek is in a moment where it's willing to take risks, so a young Picard series isn't out of the question, but the shadow of Patrick Stewart's performance looms large. McAvoy has the range to make it work, and his joke about wanting to play young Stewart suggests he understands the assignment. I'd watch it.