It’s well known that Sir Patrick Stewart who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ is British, but did you know that the showrunners for the series wanted him to speak in a French accent for the role?
While promoting the film ‘Match’ on the CBS show ‘The Talk,’ Stewart revealed this bit of ‘ST:TNG’ trivia:
“Oh my Lord! I got a call one day saying, “They wanted you to come to the studio. They want to do a little rehearsal and experiment, there may be some recording involved.“ When I got there, they said, “We’ve been talking about this and Jean Luc Picard, he is a Frenchman, he has a French name and we think perhaps he should speak with a French accent following all the way through.”
The showrunners decided to try their idea with Stewart reciting the opening monologue of the series. Although skeptical, Steward did try it. Here’s a bit of how it would have sounded along with a nice anecdote about a Broadway pre-show “incident” between him and Sir Ian McKellen’:
Well, at least now we know why Frenchman Jean Luc spoke with a British accent! What do you think? Would you rather had him “parler avec un accent français” or are you just as happy that he stuck with native British one?
