Making It So: A Memoir

by Patrick Stewart

I prefer to live in my dreams.

They would trade lines of dialogue between William Shatner’s Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in front of me, knowing that I wouldn’t catch the references, and reveled in my befuddlement. But they, of course, were thrilled. They couldn’t believe that their boring old dad who spoke blank verse onstage would be doing something that they could connect with.

I had already played host to Reagan’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe, who had come to the bridge and asked me shyly if he could sit in the captain’s chair. I’d told him he outranked me and didn’t need to ask.

My most lasting impact on SNL history, though, was my full-throated announcement of that episode’s musical guest, Salt-N-Pepa, around which the comedian John Mulaney, a former writer for SNL, built an entire stand-up segment.

Ian and I, born a year apart, made the most of it. Over tea in the morning and wine in the evening, we began a conversation that has continued, more or less without pause, for twenty-three years.

The only thing that I’m putting an end to is this book, as I think you might have got the gist of me by now. Also, I hear Sunny calling. Supper’s ready.