Patrick Stewart Reflects on His Guest Role in The Simpsons

News broke yesterday that Sir Patrick Stewart died at age 86. With his background performing Shakespeare and his incredible sense of dignity and gravitas, Stewart is celebrated primarily for his work as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films. While he was beloved for the dramatic weight he brought to his roles, he also pulled off some memorable comedic performances. One of his first was on The Simpsons, where he guest-starred in the season 6 episode “Homer the Great.”

Written by Simpsons legend Jon Swartzwelder, “Homer the Great” centers on Homer (Dan Castellaneta) joining a Freemason-like secret society called the Stonecutters. The episode begins with Homer discovering the organization and begging to become a member. He finally manages to join when he finds out his father is already part of the group. Later, because of a birthmark on his rear that resembles the Stonecutters logo, Homer is elevated to the head of the organization. Prior to that, the Springfield chapter of the Stonecutters is led by the mysterious Number One, voiced by Patrick Stewart.

Number One is the dignified leader of the Stonecutters who runs their meetings and oversees the initiation of new members. After Homer is initiated into the organization with a series of humiliating rituals, Number One exclaims, “Now let’s all get drunk and play ping pong!”

That was just one of several silly lines given to Stewart. Another memorable moment comes during Homer’s initiation, when Number One announces, “And now, the final ordeal, the Paddling of the Swollen Ass — with paddles.” Stewart delivered those lines with the same dramatic weight he would apply to Shakespeare. The Simpsons writers praised Stewart deeply on the DVD commentary for “Homer the Great.”

Patrick Stewart, one of my all-time favorite guest stars on this show. It’s probably one of our best guest performances, if not the best guest performance because he’s so committed to this character and these jokes and he was just making me roar the entire time. He was so into it. He was so excited to do this. He was having such a great time. He played a very serious character on the Star Trek series and he just so enjoyed this and I just so enjoyed working with him.

Dave Mirkin, the showrunner at the time who came up with the premise for the episode, elaborated further on the commentary after the ass-paddling line.

We gave him all these undignified things to say and yet he filled them with dignity and such commitment. He did it so deadly serious. That’s what I mean by commitment, there was no sign that anything is a joke. He did everything really really real.

This appearance was one of the first pieces of comedy Stewart ever performed. Although he hosted Saturday Night Live the year before, The Simpsons was only his second comedic role. After The Simpsons, he embraced the occasional foray into comedy with memorable appearances on Frasier, Family Guy, and American Dad. He also narrated the two Ted films. Another standout comedic performance came on the Ricky Gervais series Extras, where he played a perverted version of himself writing a script solely to see women nude.

As he did with his Simpsons role, Stewart played these silly, undignified characters with absolute integrity. He never winked at the camera, used a silly voice, or phoned in his effort. That commitment is why some dramatic actors struggle with comedy, whereas Stewart thoroughly understood the joke.

These comedic performances form a core reason why Stewart earned such affection from audiences. While he always seemed kind in interviews and many of his characters carried a fatherly persona, Stewart could have come off as austere without proof of how willingly he made fun of himself for a good laugh.

Source: Polygon