DAVID BEHRENS talks to the Mirfield-born star of one of TV's best-loved sci-fi series

It's a giant leap from Mirfield to the edge of the universe - but to Captain Jean-Luc Picard, that's one small step.

Yorkshire-born actor Patrick Stewart has spent the bulk of his career as the baldy who's boldly gone several times around the fictional galaxy of the Starship Enterprise.

He spent seven years playing Picard in the phenomenally- successful TV show, and he's just boarded the spaceship again for the series' ninth big screen outing, Star Trek: Insurrection.

And although some may think it odd that the 57-year-old classically-trained actor has stayed with the role for so long, Stewart claims it's a labour of love.

In fact, he's so committed to the series that he's become associate producer for the latest film.

He says: "It probably means that people will blame me for everything they dislike about it."

Stewart is one of Hollywood's most successful actors, adored by 35 million American viewers and once voted the country's top TV turn-on.

He has acquired the trappings of stardom: a stalker (because of whom he had to hire a bodyguard) and a fiance 18 years his junior (Wendy Neuss).

It's all a long way from the local newspaper office in Dewsbury where his professional career began.

He used to "fiddle" the office diary in order to escape night duties and rehearse instead with his amateur drama group. His editor caught him at it and made him choose between newspapers and the theatre. No contest.

"I walked out of the door and never went back," he says.

In a pre-Star Trek career, Stewart worked in London and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and raised two children with his first wife, choreographer Sheila Falconer. His move across the Atlantic was said to have led to their split.

"When we agreed that he should give this role everything he'd got, we knew there were going to be sacrifices," she said in 1991, when their separation was reported.

On-screen, romance has generally escaped Stewart. But in the latest Star Trek adventure, viewers will see him in a new light.

Captain Picard's relationship with Anij (co-star Donna Murphy) goes into orbit - but viewers will not see the couple's on-screen kiss because it was cut from the final film. Stewart is clearly unhappy about that.

"There was a closer and greater intimacy between myself and Donna Murphy in the film," he says. "Indeed it was there until the very last cut, which I saw before the preview.

"But that intimacy has been diminished to little more than hand-holding and I understand it was a studio decision.

"It is inexplicable to me. I feel that the audience is waiting for some kind of romantic culmination to the relationship. Believe me, that did happen and, believe me, it was extremely pleasant."

Picard might have missed out on a big-screen smacker, but he makes up for it with a rousing Gilbert and Sullivan number, accompanied by fellow Trekkies Data and Worf.

"This was a very musical group," says Stewart. "We are noted for our singing interludes during shooting.

"It came to me one night in a flash that there would be a real charm in watching Worf, Data and Captain Picard singing Three Little Maids from School.

"But I remember the producer's response to my suggestion - he described it as vulgar."

If a little light opera isn't enough to startle Trekkies, Stewart also reveals himself to be a nifty little mover on the dance floor.

"The dance step was just a natural reaction to hearing the music, but it took 35 takes because I had difficulty in hitting the mark," he laughs.

His love for the series aside, Stewart admits that now he's completed his latest journey in space, he'd like to do something a little more down-to-earth.

"I'm hoping that an off-Broadway production I did of a brilliant Arthur Miller play, The Ride Down Mount Morgan, might find a home on Broadway in the spring," he says.

"But it's tough to move straight plays into Broadway these days. So I'm also talking to people in London about doing some stage work over here before the end of next year."

Star Trek: Insurrection is at Yorkshire cinemas from this weekend.

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