Coming from Stewart, that statement demands attention. With that in mind, lets not rule out the possibility of seeing Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) or Worf (Michael Dorn) walk into the life of Walter Blunt anytime soon. It’s sort of a mush of all those things – and perhaps none of them. Harry is devoted to Walter, serving his every whim, from Walter’s desire for shame-inducing floggings, to reading him bedtime stories (selections include The Once and Future King, and the Koran).
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Actor Sir Patrick Stewart is branching out into new territory, starring in the Starz comedy “Blunt Talk” where he plays a personally dysfunctional, but well-intentioned British journalist looking to conquer the world of American cable news.
Viewers may see parallels with Piers Morgan and CNN.
But Stewart maintains that this interpretation of the scene never crossed his mind. “That is the place a whole lot of the humor comes from within the present”. Though when he launches into these long speeches, you feel like he’s imagining himself working with better material, it still a pleasure to watch him bring the flame emojis.
Stewart quit when his editor gave him an ultimatum – clean up his act at the paper, or pack up.
“I said, “There’s one name I’ve used for decades, which is my pseudonym I use when I check into hotels – and that’s Walter Blunt”. You’re insane, you won’t possibly want to have lunch on Monday’. We got into the habit of meeting for coffee down on Fifth Avenue in the morning and talking for several hours, often most of the morning.
“Walter wants to change the world, but his private life is a complete disaster”, said Stewart.
But the network had avoided comedy because Albrecht felt the genre was overcrowded.
Dialogue is definitely a weakness of Blunt Talk. Around that time, he heard about MacFarlane’s new project. It isn’t awful, exactly, but it tries too hard to sustain an entire series on “Patrick Stewart doing “bad” and zany things!” even though that gimmick grows old before the pilot is over. It’s the family antics that dominate the show. So he was on the hunt for a writer.
“It’s possible. I think it’s unlikely”. His longtime producer Rosalie (Jacki Weaver) is the only other character worth remembering and even that is only because she appears to be the show’s sole voice of reason. He experienced that as the host of the Montreal comedy festival and now he’s finding that with “Blunt”. The other was the character of Howard Beale, the “Network” newsman whose monologue “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” is legendary.
“At this point, one of the pleasures of my career is to be able to connect people of whom I am a fan”, said MacFarlane.
We can’t help wondering, though, how much of the real Patrick Stewart went into creating this fascinating new character.
And that’s not all.
During a visit to the show’s newsroom set, Stewart was downright giddy as he observed Schwartzman improvising at the end of each take while they were filming a scene where Blunt meets Schwartzman’s eco-activist character for the first time. “I thought, ‘Wow, Patrick Stewart would look really cool in front of such a background”. It was Stewart’s idea to make Blunt a veteran of the Falklands War, the Thatcher-era conflict that still rankles British liberals.
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Indeed, the actor prepared for his latest role as thoroughly as he might for the part of a Shakespearean hero.
