Patrick Stewart at 86: Still Making It So

As Patrick Stewart approaches his 86th birthday on July 13, the British actor shows no signs of stepping back from the cultural forefront. In an exclusive TV Insider interview on Star Trek's 60th anniversary↗, Stewart described the milestone as "wildly surreal" while recalling his first day on the Paramount lot as vividly as if it were yesterday — a level of sustained engagement that would be remarkable at any age, let alone at nearly nine decades. Alongside that interview, recent reporting confirms his return as Professor X in Avengers: Doomsday and an active pushback against retirement speculation. Collectively, these developments reframe what was already a career-spanning memoir, Making It So, as something closer to an unfinished story.

Published in 2023 and landing on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, Making It So is Stewart's account of an astonishing life that moved from humble beginnings to the heights of Hollywood and the Royal Shakespeare Company. At 480 pages, it offered readers what Sir Ian McKellen described as insight, truth, and passion — a full reckoning with a career that spans classical theater, franchise blockbusters, and everything in between. For anyone who has read the memoir, the current wave of activity carries additional weight: Stewart's own words provide the biographical scaffolding that makes his refusal to slow down feel earned rather than performative. Our review of Making It So has the full literary verdict.

One thread the memoir traces with particular care is the strange doubling of his identity — the way the world came to see him primarily as Jean-Luc Picard, to the point where, as Wikipedia notes, no director in Hollywood wanted him for dramatic roles because he was Picard and couldn't possibly be anybody else. The solution, when it came, was to effectively reprise the part as Professor Charles Xavier: another grand, deep-voiced, bald English authority figure, but in an entirely different universe. That parallel is now reasserting itself as he returns to the Marvel role in Avengers: Doomsday, decades after first donning the Xavier wheelchair.

What makes Stewart's current moment editorially significant isn't nostalgia — it's active franchise participation at an age when most performers of comparable stature have long since transitioned to honorary roles. As Parade and Yahoo Entertainment both note, the actor turns 86 on July 13 and has made clear in recent interviews that he isn't done with Star Trek, even as the franchise marks its 60th year. Retirement denials are common enough in Hollywood, but Stewart's case is backed by tangible commitments: a confirmed Marvel appearance and a body of 2026 projects reported by YEET Magazine. The memoir, in this context, reads less like a valediction and more like a mid-career checkpoint.

For readers drawn to life stories built around radical reinvention and creative endurance, Making It So sits naturally alongside other landmark memoirs of self-determination — books like Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, which charts a comparable journey from constrained origins to hard-won authority, or Wild by Cheryl Strayed, another account of identity rebuilt through sheer persistence. Stewart's version plays out on a grander public stage, but the underlying arc — refusing to be defined by a single role or a single phase of life — connects these works in meaningful ways.

Want the full verdict? Making It So is Stewart's own account of a life spent refusing easy categories — from Yorkshire working-class roots to Shakespeare, Picard, and now a Marvel return at 86. Read our review of Making It So for a full assessment of what the memoir delivers on the page.