Sir Patrick Stewart was undeniably one of Hollywood’s greatest actors, who developed a fanbase that took hold of multiple generations. Amid his death at 86, the actor once detailed how growing up in a “violent home” shaped his life and his career.
Born in the summer of 1940, Stewart has openly talked about the domestic violence he experienced in his home at a young age. In 2024, he appeared in the ITV documentary Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors and revealed it was “something that people never spoke about,” and he kept it “locked” inside himself for many years.
The Star Trek actor explains how it began when he was six years old, and the war had just ended in 1945. By then, his father came home and described the change in their lives as “horrifying.” In an essay for The Guardian, he explains that his father had been a “frustrated man” who was unable to “control his emotions or his hands.”
“For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven. My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared,” he wrote.
In his essay and in the documentary, Stewart recounts how he and his older brother learned whether their father was in a good mood or not. They also learned when they had to intervene to protect their mother.
He explained they both “became experts at understanding where the shouting was going, what it was going to lead to, and we always knew the moment that the violence was going to begin.”
“So with that, we would push open the door and burst into the room, and my brother Trevor, who was taller than me, would force himself between my father and my mother so that he couldn’t reach her.”
Related: Patrick Stewart Once Revealed How His ‘Star Trek’ Co-Stars Changed His Life: ‘I Think They Made Me Live Longer’
Stewart added that his father never hit him or his brother and stopped his violence when faced with their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Dixon. He once called it “humiliating” to have come from such a background, but it effectively changed his life and led him to acting.
“I managed to find my own refuge in acting. The stage was a far safer place for me than anything I had to live through at home – it offered escape,” he said.
“I could be someone else, in another place, in another time. However, whenever the role called for anger, fury, or the expression of murderous impulses, I was always afraid of what I might unleash if I surrendered myself to those feelings.”
The X-Men star added that it was director Ronald Eyre, during his role as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, who urged him to give himself over to those emotions. From that moment forward, he was “never again afraid of my feelings on stage.”
Stewart had long been an outspoken advocate against domestic violence and violence against women, as well as a speaker on childhood sexual abuse safeguarding in sports.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of domestic violence, help is available 24 hours a day through the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
Related: Genie Francis Honors Late ‘General Hospital’ Co-Star Anthony Geary in Heartfelt Way: ‘It Smells So Good’
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