Patrick Stewart Felt Undermined When He Was Offered This Movie
Actor Sir Patrick Stewart took a break from playing heroes in movies like X-Men to portray a deplorable character. But when he first read the script for this film, he couldn’t help feel disturbed by it.
Patrick Stewart once recalled the movie that made him feel completely unsafe
Many felt that Stewart seemed to go in a different direction in his career when he starred in the horror flick Green Room. The 2016 Anton Yelchin feature saw Stewart portraying a neo-nazi who targets a band of young aspiring musicians. When Stewart first received the script for the movie, it immediately left an impression on the veteran.
“I began reading just as dusk was falling and around about page 40, I closed the script and I got up and I went around my house – because I was alone – making sure that all the doors and windows were locked,” Stewart once told People (via Contact Music).
Stewart couldn’t believe the film’s story left him as shaken as it did. But it also convinced the actor to do the movie.
“Then I switched on all the perimeter lights around my house. I don’t do that! The movie had undermined me and made me feel so unsafe, I knew without a doubt it was what I wanted to do next,” Stewart added.
Why Patrick Stewart became irritated with certain reactions to his ‘Green Room’ role
Stewart’s turn to villainy in Green Room was a surprise to a few of his fans. Audiences had gotten used to seeing the actor play virtuous, heroic characters on screen. But Stewart admitted that he was getting tired of others mentioning how surprised they were by his villainous turn.
“So I happened to play two roles that I’m most well known for – and by the way, Star Trek ended 25 years ago and my last X-Men movie was 5 years ago – so it disappoints me when the press responds with ‘My, what were you thinking taking on a role like this, that’s a bit unexpected,’ but no, it’s not unexpected,” Stewart once told Digital Spy.
Stewart reminded that he’d been an actor for decades playing a wide variety of roles. Some of the characters he’s portrayed were even worse than his Green Room counterpart.
“The last major stage role I did was Macbeth, which is one of the nastiest, bloodiest, most terrifying productions anyone has ever seen, so it’s mildly irritating when people say ‘this is a surprise’ because it isn’t a surprise to me, it’s what I’ve done all my life! I wanted to get that out of the way so we don’t spend the next ten minutes talking about Star Trek and X-Men,” he said.
Patrick Stewart avoided most of the violence in ‘Green Room’
Stewart confided that he didn’t stomach the violence in the feature. As is the case with most horror films, Green Room had a significant amount of gore. But Stewart went out of his way to distance himself from the movie’s bloodiest scenes.
“I avoided those moments. Somebody came to my trailer at one point and said, ‘They’re doing the scene with the dog ripping out the girl’s throat’. I said, ‘You know what? I’ll just stay in here reading my newspaper.’ I love pitbulls so much I didn’t want to see one of them being characterised in that way,” he said.
But Stewart wasn’t concerned about approaching the pitbulls since they were much less vicious than they were in Green Room.
“So I went over and the dog came along, and he was standing on the flap at the back of this vehicle, and he came over to me and looked me in the face, and then he put out his tongue and he licked me from my chin up to my eyebrows. It was the sweetest gesture and I put my arms around him and gave him a great big hug. You wouldn’t believe it was the same dog you see in the movie,” he said.
