James McAvoy pitched a young Picard series after playing young Patrick Stewart in four X-Men films

James McAvoy wants to play young Jean-Luc Picard. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he said he pitched a Star Trek limited series called Mutiny on the Stargazer, about Picard's first command, and that "we nearly did it". "All I really want to do in my career is play young versions of Patrick [Stewart]," he joked.

He has already done it four times. McAvoy played the young Charles Xavier, Stewart's X-Men role, in First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix.

The pitch

McAvoy described it to the podcast, as quoted by Deadline: "I had this whole story of a young Picard that I love. I pitched, it was like a one-off standalone season … when he took over as captain of the Stargazer and what actually happened, and the secret he's been holding his entire career."

The Star Trek team, he said, "were into it, but we had logistical issues that meant we couldn't do it." He still thinks about the story at night, he added.

He did not say when he pitched it, or who exactly he pitched it to.

A story that has been told, and a ship that has been reused

Picard's first command is not untouched territory. Deadline notes that Michael Jan Friedman's six-book Star Trek: Stargazer series explored it in novels published between 2002 and 2004.

The ship's name has also been back on screen. According to Wikipedia, Picard served as first officer aboard the USS Stargazer and later commanded it, after a first posting on the USS Reliant. Then, in the second season of Star Trek: Picard, the retired admiral is brought aboard a new Starfleet ship called the USS Stargazer, and the season ends with Q returning him to that Stargazer in 2401.

McAvoy's version would go back to the original ship, decades earlier, with a secret the character has never told.

One role, two actors, one film

McAvoy and Stewart have already shared a character on screen. Deadline's list of Stewart's X-Men films and its list of McAvoy's both include Days of Future Past (2014), in which the older and younger Xavier appear in the same story.

• Stewart as Xavier: X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The Wolverine (2013), Days of Future Past (2014), Logan (2017), and Avengers: Doomsday, due in cinemas on December 18.
• McAvoy as Xavier: First Class (2011), Days of Future Past (2014), Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019).

So the younger Xavier has been retired since 2019, and the older one is still working.

Stewart's Picard, for reference

• First appearance: "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, on September 28, 1987.
• The Next Generation: seven seasons in syndication, from 1987 to 1994, with Picard as commanding officer of the USS Enterprise-D.
• Star Trek: Picard: three seasons, from 2020 to 2023.
• Background: Wikipedia's character history says the young Picard failed his first Starfleet Academy entrance exam, and once admitted ran into ethical and academic difficulties as a cadet before he flourished.

That is the period McAvoy wants. Not the admiral, not the captain of the Enterprise, but the officer before the reputation.

The franchise has already looked further back than that. Star Trek: Picard's second season revisited Picard's childhood through flashbacks, with Madeline Wise playing his mother, Yvette, and a memory of his father, Maurice, chasing the boy and his mother through the house. The character was created by Gene Roddenberry and D. C. Fontana; his family, per Wikipedia, also includes a brother, Robert, and a son, Jack Crusher. He comes from La Barre, France.

Why young Picard is a natural pitch

The franchise keeps its older series in circulation. Alongside the interview, Deadline's related coverage notes that the premiere episodes of Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds were made available for free for Star Trek Day.

A Stargazer series would fit the same model: a known captain, an earlier ship, a past the audience has only heard about.

The week's other McAvoy story

The interview came days after another McAvoy story made the rounds: his account, on Watch What Happens Live, of being bullied on his first day on the set of HBO's Band of Brothers. McAvoy is a Golden Globe nominee, and Deadline describes him as having "put in his tenure" in the X-Men franchise before setting his sights on Stewart's other iconic character.

What is still unknown

• What the "logistical issues" were. McAvoy did not explain.
• Whether the pitch is still alive. He spoke about it in the past tense.
• What Picard's secret is. McAvoy kept it to himself.
• What format it would take now. McAvoy described it only as a one-off standalone season.

McAvoy has played Patrick Stewart's character in four films and shared one of them with Stewart himself. The second Stewart character he wants is the one whose first ship the franchise has already given to a novelist and to a newer Stargazer.