A creative piece of Star Trek: Picard fan art showcases James McAvoy playing the younger version of Patrick Stewart’s famous character. This proposes the idea of seeing another character shared between McAvoy and Stewart, similar to the character Charles Xavier. Stewart began the role of Jean Luc Picard on the sci-fi television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. After seven years of the television show and numerous films, Stewart left the role for eighteen years until Star Trek: Picard premiered this year.
Stewart made his first appearance as Professor Charles Xavier in the 2000 film X-Men. After Stewart appeared several times in the franchise, McAvoy then portrayed Professor X in X-Men: First Class in 2011. McAvoy’s version of the character was a more youthful portrayal as the X-Men franchise began to play around with its timeline, opening the door up for younger actors. The two even played the same character when they shared the screen for X-Men Days of Future Past. McAvoy has remained skeptical of the X-Men joining the MCU, indicating that he probably won’t play the character again. This leaves Picard as the next big role that the two actors could potentially collaborate on.
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A piece of fan art by spdrmnkyxxiii shows McAvoy assuming the role of Jean-Luc Picard. The artwork shows McAvoy sitting in the Captain’s chair while wearing Picard’s Starfleet uniform. The artist’s original piece of artwork can be seen in the Instagram post below:
Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard saw the return of many old cast members from The Next Generation, including Johnathan Frakes as Commander William Riker. Stewart as already spoken about possibly adding former cast members to the series, including Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, for season 2. Considering the open effort to recruit past cast members of the Star Trek franchise, it wouldn’t be an outlandish idea to consider having McAvoy appear as a younger Picard.
Both Stewart and McAvoy were praised for their execution of Charles Xavier and have taken the X-Men character to places fans never expected to see. Given the attention to detail and passionate delivery by McAvoy, fans would be lucky to see another shared role between the two. Although this fan art may just make fans wish McAvoy would be cast as Picard, the actor has expressed his desire to play a young Picard for Stewart before. This, along with fan enthusiasm, could be the push that is needed to persuade CBS to make the casting decision happen for Star Trek: Picard, but there’s no indication that it is even being considered at this point.
Source: spdrmnkyxxiii