Patrick Stewart built his Star Trek reputation as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the principled commander he began playing in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1987. Three years into that role, he took on a far darker part: Locutus of Borg, the version of Picard reprogrammed under the control of the Borg Collective.
As the Borg's spokesperson, Locutus was created to force the Federation's surrender. The character appeared primarily in the third-season finale and fourth-season premiere of "The Next Generation," and later surfaced briefly in flashbacks and in the pilot episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Even after Picard was freed from the persona, the show continued to explore the trauma it left behind.
The pairing of Picard and Locutus places Stewart in rare company. Many Star Trek performers have cycled through multiple roles, but according to the source material, only Brent Spiner has matched Stewart's achievement of playing both a revered hero and a formidable recurring villain, having portrayed the android Data and his sinister twin brother Lore on "The Next Generation."
Stewart was not immediately convinced by the Locutus storyline. "I remember questioning whether that storyline was a good one to follow," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2020. Transforming into a colder, more malevolent version of Picard proved demanding, but the actor later came to value the experience, citing the reference point it gave him for the drama his character had endured — along with a makeup process he described as extremely unpleasant, painful and unsettling. "No experience is wasted," he said.
In those brief appearances, Stewart moved sharply away from Picard's hopeful bearing toward the villain's stone-faced cruelty, delivering the Borg's signature warning to the crew of the USS Enterprise: "Resistance is futile."
Sources: TVLine.