Cranky:   When you were offered the part of Picard, you knew that you were offered the opportunity to create what could become an icon...
Stewart:   [surprised] I did? I knew that?

Cranky:   You had no idea that Trek was what it was?
Stewart:   No idea. Believe me, I was an absolute innocent. My kids had watched it. I'd heard some of these phrases but I had no idea of the role that it played in the contemporary culture of North America. Or indeed worldwide, though, since it's become bigger since then. When I was offered the role I was staying in the guest room of a friend's house in Los Angeles. When I came back that night he had stuck on my door a little note which said "Can I be the first to congratulate the new American icon?" I didn't know what the hell he meant by that. A year later I finally agreed to go to a Science Fiction convention. I had been saying no for a year ("Why should I do this. I'm an actor. I don't do these things!") and my colleagues had been going. I finally agreed to do one. It was in Denver. The season was over. I flew there one morning and was taken to this hall, somewhere, and I'm standing backstage and I hear this noise... Actors are used to hearing the sound of an audience but [not this]. And I said "How many people have you got out there?" thinking I was going to talk to three or four hundred. And they said "Oh I don't know. Somewhere between 27 hundred and three thousand." I had no conception that that's what was waiting for me. Stepping out on that stage was the very first time, and I am being very sincere that this was something other than what I thought it was.

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