6 Actors Who Played Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek

Patrick Stewart has portrayed Jean-Luc Picard since 1987. Star Trek: Picard's third season marked 36 years of Stewart and Picard being one and the same.

The English actor portrayed Captain Picard in seven of the acclaimed Star Trek: Next Generation from 1987 to 1994 and in four The Next Generation movies from 1994 to 2002.

After an 18-year hiatus, Patrick stunned the fans by returning to his legendary role in 2020's Star Trek: Picard. He had arguably surpassed Captain Kirk as the most popular Star Trek Captain.

Jean-Luc has not remained a static personality throughout his three-and-a-half decades as one of the franchise's signature characters.

In TNG, he was a stately, wise, yet compassionate leader. And while Kirk was a man of action, he preferred negotiation and problem-solving.

With Star Trek: First Contact, fans saw the Captain as more of an action-type hero leading the action-adventure movie franchise. At last, Star Trek: Picard reintroduced the character at the late stage of his life.

Jean-Luc looked back with remorse until he discovered a new purpose alongside a new motley crew before he finally reunited with his USS Enterprise cohorts in the third season.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3, the third and final season, was released from February 16 to April 20, 2023.

David Tristan Birkin is the first actor other than Stewart to portray Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6.

The British artist appeared as young Jean-Luc in the 1992 episode "Rascals."

When Ferengi commandeered the USS Enterprise-D, Lt. Ro Laren (Mitchelle Forbes), Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), Keiko O'Brien (Rosalind Chao), and Captain Picard are accidentally reverted into kids.

Birkin then appears as a pre-teen Picard but his intelligence remains intact. He helps Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) retrieve control of the Enterprise.

The actor turned out to be an ideal pick to embody young Captain as he had already guest-starred as a family member of Picard.

He appeared in two episodes of TNG in the 1990 episode Family as Jean-Luc's nephew, Rene Picard, the son of his elder brother Robert (Jeremy Kemp).

Sadly, Robert and his family passed away in a deadly fire in Star Trek Generations, an idea Steward pitched during the film's production. 

In Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6, Marcus Nash played young Jean-Luc at a different stage of his life.

In the episode titled "Tapestry," the Captain passed away and was met by Q (John de Lancie) in the afterlife. He used his powers to show the Captain moments in his life he regrets.

The past moments included the violent bar fight against Nausicaans he was involved in as Starfleet Ensign.

Nash portrayed the Captain, with a full head of hair, as he was stabbed in the heart. The incident justifies Picard needing an artificial heart.

At the end of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Picard expired due to irumodic syndrome and was resurrected with a synthetic body, essentially making all his physical form artificial.

Besides being an actor, Nash is also a director, writer, and producer. He wrote and directed short dramas such as Loving Dick (2007), Lost Lake (2012), Piece (2018), Ayahuasca (2020), and A+ Mechanic (2022).

In Stuart Baird's Star Trek: Nemesis, Tom Hardy landed the role of Reman Praetor Shinzon, a clone of Captain Picard created by the Romulans.

Their thread to replace the captain with his doppelganger was abandoned. Shinzon was later exiled to the mines on Remus until he and the Remans bring down the Romulan Senate and put him as Praetor.

Shinzon then invited the Captian to meet in an attempt to attain his trust, but the clone was actually plotting the destruction of the United Federation of Planets.

In addition, the actor portrayed Picard as a Starfleet Cadet in a photograph. However, the picture of the young Captain is troublesome as Tom is bald, which opposes TNG's Tapestry, where Picard still has hair.

The choice to make Hardy's Picard bald was made so that viewers would not be confused by the portrayal of a young Captain with hair.

Besides Star Trek, the English actor is known for his starring roles in Bonson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, This Means War, Lawless, and Locke.

In 2015, Hardy landed the role of Mad Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road. The same year he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor following his role in The Revenant.

Dylan Vol Halle is an 11-year-old child actor who portrayed young Jean-Luc in Star Trek: Picard Season 2.

He appeared when the Captian had flashbacks to his life with his mother, Yvette (Madeline Wise), in La Barre, France. Season 2's primary focus was to answer why Picard opted to never have a lasting romantic relationship.

It turned out to be rooted in the agony of his beloved mom's suicide, for which he blamed himself his whole life.

Dylan played the youngest version of the Captain, with Battlestar Galactica's James Callis playing his father, Maurice Picard.

The child actor is the son of actor Tony Von Halle. Before landing a role in Star Trek, he had appeared in commercials for CVS, Cresta, Amazon, and Amazon Alexa.

He also appeared on the popular ABC game show Bet On Your Body as a toddler.

Alessandro Rossi voiced Captain Picard in the Italian version of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

He is an Italian actor, dialogue writer, dubbing director, and voice actor. Rossi serves as the official voice actor for known celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liam Neeson.

The actor has also dubbed the voices of Stewart, Patrick Warburton, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Ving Rhames.

He gave his voice to Biff Tannen in the Italian version of the Back to the Future films and The Terminator in the Terminator sequels. Other voicing credits include Alex J. Murphy in the RoboCop film series.

Rossi's animated film roles have included voice credits for Brogan in Shark Forever After, AUTO in WALL-E, and Bruce in Finding Nemo.

As an actor, he played Commissioner De Zan in the crime drama series L'ispettore Coliandro. He voiced Zapp Brannigan in the Italian dub of Futurama and Leonard Nimoy's head in his debut appearance.