When Wil Wheaton finished his cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis, he apologized to Patrick Stewart for having been “such a dick” during his teenage years on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Stewart walked with him across the backlot and offered reassurance Wheaton had carried years of regret to hear.
“Wil, my dear, you were a teenager. We all understood… I wasn’t thrilled about working with a child, but working with you was a great pleasure,” Stewart told him, Wheaton recalled in Just a Geek.
Wheaton had played Wesley Crusher alongside Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard. In his memoir, he described Stewart as “a father figure, mentor, role model, and hero.” He’s also described his Star Trek family as “the closest thing to parents I have in my life.”
Stewart later offered his own perspective in his 2023 memoir, Making It So: “In those first weeks, I wished I had Wil’s confidence.”
Stewart died at his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2026, at 86, after living with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia. Wheaton posted a photograph of them together with the words “Godspeed, Captain.”
In an October 29 blog tribute, Wheaton remembered the respect Stewart had shown him from the beginning: “He never treated me like I was a kid; he always treated me like I was an equal, a fellow artist.”
