In memoriam, Sir Patrick Stewart
I was all of eight years old when I watched I, Claudius in the 1970s. And my favorite character was not Sir Derek Jacobi's Claudius. It was Sir Patrick Stewart's Aelius Sejanus, the scheming head of the Praetorian Guard under the Emperor Tiberius. He played Sejanus with menace and coldness. But he never made him an inhuman monster. His Sejanus was a ruthless man of ambition, and as such fully human in his desires. And then? Karla in Smiley's People . But of course, he will be forever associated with one role. Born in poverty, son of a violent father who abused his mother, Sir Patrick is testament to the belief that someone from humble, traumatic beginnings can become not just a great man, but a decent man, a good man, a kind man. He can rise above his origins and do something spectacular with his life, and express his humanity in the fullest by doing so. He doesn't have to repeat the mistakes which he saw up close. He can take his experiences and resolve to work to not...
