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Transcript and images from The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Original broadcast: May 13, 2004
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Ellen: Our first guest is a gifted actor we know from the blockbuster Star Trek and X-Men franchises. He's currently starring in Showtime's "The Lion in Winter." Please welcome Sir Patrick Stewart.
(Audience cheers. Music: "Englishman in New York" by Sting)
Ellen: I felt like we had just finished a play. You kind of turned me out like I was supposed to bow with you. It was... It's you.
Patrick: I don't think we've ever come face to face before...
Ellen: No.
Patrick: ... and I was truly pleased to see you.
Ellen: Well, I.. Thank you.
Patrick: You look great. And, um...
Ellen: Thank you.
Patrick: I am, however, very glad that I made an executive decision to change, just before I came out, because I was wearing a white open-necked shirt, and it would have looked as if our same mother had put us together this morning.
Patrick: You know the thing you were talking about -- losing things, and then them showing up again?
Ellen: Yes.
Patrick: There's... Have you ever heard of "The Borrowers"?
Ellen: The what?
Patrick: "Borrowers."
Ellen: The borrowers?
(Applause)
Ellen: People that borrow things?
Patrick: You have a very, very cultivated audience.
Ellen: Uh-huh.
Patrick: No, it's an English children's book, or maybe it was a series of books, called "The Borrowers." And it was based on the idea that when we lose something, when it just disappears -- we knew it was there, it's gone -- and then all of a sudden it turns up, a few days later; it's because the Borrowers have borrowed it, just for a little while, because they need it, and then they return it.
Ellen: Oh, the "Borrowers."
Patrick: "The Borrowers."
Ellen: Yeah. Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. They're ghosts.
Patrick: No, they're not ghosts. They're little creatures who need these things for a while, and then they return them -- they come in the night and take them away, and then bring them back.
Ellen: That's scary. They're creatures.
(Laughter)
Patrick: Did somebody mention martinis, earlier?
Ellen: Yes, would you like one?
Patrick: Love one!
Ellen: The same thing, vodka? And you want it strai...
Patrick: No, no, no, no, that's not a martini.
Ellen: You... Oh.
Patrick: Gin.
(Clapping)
Ellen: Oh, really. Them's fightin' words!
(Laughter)
Patrick: Straight up. One olive. Tanqueray.
Ellen: Really?
(Applause)
Patrick: You do know -- maybe Nigella will know about this -- my son did the American Bartenders' course; he's an actor, so, you know...
Ellen: Uh-huh. So, he's a bartender. Yes.
(Laughter)
Patrick: No, he is an actor.
Ellen: Yeah. Okay. (wobbles her head)
Patrick: But, he did the course, and that was very, that was -- I think that was very practical of him, you know, that he has these other skills. I once... He was with me when I ordered a martini, and I said "Two olives," and he was horrified. Did you know about this? There must never be even numbers.
Ellen: No.
Patrick: If you order an olive, it's always got to be an odd of one, three, five, but never two or four.
Ellen: Or, who will come to get you?
Patrick: The Borrowers!
(Laughter and applause)
Ellen: These are all weird English rules. I don't know this, at all. Is he a bartender in England, or here?
Patrick: No, no -- American bartending school.
Ellen: I've never heard of that. I've had two olives. Unless you have a really long toothpi...
Patrick: How many... Do you have many friends?
Ellen: Um...
(Laughter)
Ellen: No.
Patrick: There you are! Need I say more? They all know about the olive thing, and they're just too shy to tell you. Well, now you know and your life will change.
Ellen: All right. And you like one olive.
Patrick: I don't like it. He's made me, now, so twitchy about this olive thing.
Ellen: Well, then, why don't you have three?
Patrick: Because three seems... You know, you've got a beautiful martini glass and you put three olives in, it looks like a glass of olives, not a martini.
Ellen: Oh. Well, also, it takes out some of the level of the gin you can have.
Patrick: Oh-ho! Yes.
Ellen: I am always thinking.
Patrick: A woman after my own heart.
Ellen: All right. So, we'll get you the Tanqueray gin.
Patrick: Thank you.
Ellen: After mentioning it here, they'll send you a case. That's how it goes.
Patrick: You think I am a fool?
Ellen: (laughs)
(Laughter)
Ellen: You know what you're doing.
Patrick: And, by the way, um, I just saw the cue card they were holding up -- you did call me Sir Patrick, didn't you? I thought I heard that.
Ellen: That's what I thought your name was.
Patrick: Thank you, so much, n...
Ellen: And someone held up a card. Maybe you're not a Sir. I don't know.
Patrick: No, I am not. No.
Ellen: Oh, you're not?
Patrick: No, I'm just ordinary "Mister."
Ellen: Oh.
Patrick: Yeah. But, thank you for thinking of me. It may put some ideas in some people's...
Ellen: Well, I shall knight you. (pulls out a lady's tiara)
Patrick: Oh!
(Laughter)
Ellen: Just put it in your hair.
(Applause)
Patrick: No, no, no.
Ellen: Why not?
Patrick: No, no, no.
Ellen: Don't disappoint the people!
(Audience cheering. Stewart puts on the tiara.)
Patrick: Ow.
(Loud cheers and applause)
Patrick: (removes tiara) Do you do this for every guest?
Ellen: Yeah.
Patrick: That hurt. That scratched.
Ellen: Well, it's because one of the diamonds is missing. So, it's not fitting properly.
Patrick: Ellen. Yes.
Ellen: Wha... Yes?
Patrick: Go. Go.
Ellen: Well, I just wanted to ask you, also, because you look great, and I... A lot of people are shaving their head, if not shaving... Did you do that on purpose? Or, no?
Patrick: No. This is me. This is not artifice. I can't help this -- well, I could grow it longer, but I choose not. It was... I lost my hair when I was a teenager. It was horrible; it was traumatic; I thought my life was over -- but then, of course, I adjusted to it because I'm a fairly evolved creature. And then I find all these people, with wonderful heads of hair, start shaving it all off.
Ellen: Yeah.
Patrick: And I felt that I had sort of cornered the market, in a certain kind of look. Now it's ten-a-penny, now I can't grow my hair back. They can.
(Laughter)
Patrick: And it's a little, uh, irritating, that's all.
Ellen: No, well, you look great.
Patrick: Thank you.
Ellen: It's very distinguished. And it fits you, now that you're a "Sir."
(Laughter)
Ellen: Hey, we have to go to a commercial. We're going to look for that Tanqueray. We'll be right back, right after this.
(Applause)
Ellen: We're back with Patrick Stewart. Now, I can tell, by the clothes, that was shot a long time ago. You had hair then.
Patrick: Uh-huh. Yep.
Ellen: Now, you're so good; and Glenn Close. It's really... It's a remake of -- it's not a remake?
Patrick: No, it's not a remake.
Ellen: No.
Patrick: Although, what's interesting about it is -- and we think it might be for the first time -- it is the identical film script that was shot with Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. But, I like to think we have revisited this screenplay. And why do it, everybody asks, when it was so brilliant the first time? Because it's an outstanding... It's a work of genius, this screenplay, and when something's that good, it deserves to be revisited. Nobody questions if... There are three Hamlets in London, this summer, for example; nobody questions if people would do it and do it again, because it's such a good piece. When writing is of that quality, it deserves to be seen, and reinterpreted.
Ellen: Well, it was great. It's really... It's on Showtime soon. And I want to just show people this, because this, to me, is just amazing. You know, a lot of times there are action figures when there's a movie. Um, and X-Men, you had the action figure, and you weren't happy with how it turned out?
Patrick: (Shaking his head) Uh-uh.
Ellen: So, you... Let's show the original one that they did, if we can lookie-loo it.
Ellen: Well, yeah, okay, so this is the original that you didn't like, right?
Patrick: Mmm-hmm. Well, gah, look at it!
(Laughter)
Ellen: Well, it needs powder. Definitely shiny. And then... But, too thin. And then this (the new figure) is much better.
Patrick: It doesn't... It still doesn't look like me...
Ellen: No.
Patrick: ... but, he's handsome!
(Laughter)
Ellen: You know who it looks like? It looks like a producer here, Greg Gordon. Let me show you our producer. Look at that.
Patrick: Yes. Um...
Ellen: Isn't that amazing?
Patrick: It's astonishing.
Ellen: So, can he use that as his action figure?
Patrick: Yes, of course. In fact, if Greg has acting ambitions, you know, he could be my stunt double or stand-in, perhaps, on the next movie.
Ellen: He's got a nice butt. You know how they use butt doubles, sometimes? You don't need that?
Patrick: I've never had to have someone double my butt -- so to speak.
Ellen: That's good to know!
(Laughter)
Ellen: All right. "The Lion in Winter" premiers Sunday, May 23rd, at 7:30, on Showtime. Thank you so much for being here.
Patrick: Thank you.
Ellen: It was a pleasure.
Patrick: I enjoyed it.
(Cheers and applause. End of Patrick Stewart's segment.)
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