http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/14/theater.patrick.stewart.ap/index.html Great article (by CNN, no less!) on what Patrick Stewart does when he’s not playing Macbeth. Answer? He reads Hamlet. For fun. The man is far more a “Shakespeare freak” than I think even his biggest fans give him credit for. “What I’m doing now is all I ever wanted to do. I didn’t have any other ambitions,” he says. “Once I’d been accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, I was perfectly content.” He stayed for an eyebrow-raising 14 years, playing everything from Mark Anthony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?’ ” he says. “Telly?”
Reminds me of an anecdote about Duke Ellington, late in his life, when he was losing money year on year touring with his orchestra to ever-smaller crowds. When someone would ask him if he thought about retiring, he’d answer, “And do what!?” I’d love to get over to London and see Stewart do Shakespeare on stage some day. I’ve seen him live, and I’ve seen him do Shakespeare, but never both at once. He’s a remarkable talent.