The sitting
I photographed Patrick in 2014 in New York (NY). I lit him as I would a single source, a black ground, and nothing to distract from the face. With most sitters, that much shadow is a risk. With Patrick, it was a gift. Every line on his face had been earned on stage, and the light only had to find them.
He barely moved. He didn’t need to. There is a stillness that great actors carry, a sense of a thought held just behind the eyes, and that is what I hoped to keep. When I look at this portrait now, I see someone listening.
The life
Born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, in 1940, Patrick came up through the theatre and spent years with the Royal Shakespeare Company before the wider world knew his name. To millions he became Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier, but he never stopped being a stage actor at heart. He was knighted in 2010 for services to drama.
