Sir Patrick Stewart: 'I was asked to become American and run for Senate’

Sir Patrick Stewart has said he was offered a “serious proposal” to apply for American citizenship so he could run for the Senate.

The British actor, 79, who is married to New York singer and songwriter Sunny Ozell, is reprising his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Amazon Prime series Star Trek: Picard.

Before the show came out Sir Patrick talked about its political undertones, describing it as a “response to the Trumpian world of Brexit and nationalist populism”.

In an interview with The Red Bulletin, he said: “Definitely, being political is more important now than ever. It was actually suggested to me last year that I should take American citizenship and run for Senate. That really was a serious proposal.”

The actor, who campaigned for Remain in the Brexit referendum, said: “I believe there is always hope to be found. While things look very dark right now, certainly as far as Europe is concerned, we have to believe in a better future. We must.

“We reflect the present day in this new series. It was one of the things that we all believed in way back when I first started on the show: a fairer world, a kinder world, a more modest world. That is also what we’ve tried to bring to this new chapter.”

Sir Patrick, who grew up in Yorkshire, said he had been politically active since he was five, when he helped his father campaign for the Labour candidate in a general election. “I’ve been a member of the Labour Party for many, many years, although I’m a somewhat doubting one at present,” he said. “My political history began when I committed my first act of civil disobedience in 1945, however, when I was just five years old.

“I was parading up and down with my father, who was the Regimental Sergeant Major of the Parachute Regiment, with a placard that read, ‘Vote for Mr Palin’. A policeman came and told me to bugger off, because the police could talk to you like that in the working-class neighbourhood I grew up in. But I said ‘No, I won’t,’ ignored him and carried on.”

You can read the full interview in the April issue of The Red Bulletin, out with the Standard tomorrow