Sir Patrick Stewart still has therapy to come to terms with the domestic violence he witnessed as a child.
Patrick Stewart
The ‘Star Trek: Picard’ actor has admitted that he is still affected by seeing his father frequently behave violently towards his mother when he was growing up.
Speaking Telegraph.co.uk, he said: “I am 80 years old, and I am still in therapy. I see someone every week here in Los Angeles, who I have seen on and off for nearly 20 years.
“I’m still searching myself, still asking questions of myself, and that is certainly the case when I try to recall what it felt like to be in the middle of violence, and there being nothing I can do.”
The veteran actor grew up convinced he had the same streak of rage inside himself that his father had and fought to keep it hidden – admitting he thought he’d once kill his headmaster when he was falsely punished as a teenager.
He said: “I was beaten with a cane by my headmaster when I was 14, [when] I was innocent of what he was accusing me of. It was one of the hardest moments ever, because I wanted to attack him. I would have killed him. If I’d actually got my hands on him, I don’t think he’d have made it out.”
But Patrick never let the emotion come to the forefront while working, even when a character called for it.
He said: “Extreme anger, fury – I had to fake them, I was frightened of what might happen to me if I allowed those real feelings [out], because I inherited them.”
And the 'X-Men' star was always worried about losing his temper with his children, whom he had with his first wife Sheila Falconer.
He said: “[Emotions] had to be controlled. I had two children [Daniel and Sophia] and there was no violence in our house. I remember my son, who ended up being much taller than me, going nose to nose with me, arguing about something. I had to suppress all of that [anger]. So yes, it was there, it’s still there.”
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