Patrick Stewart Admits He Initially 'Vetoed' a 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Reunion on 'Picard'

When Patrick Stewart signed on to star in Star Trek: Picard, he was adamant that there would be no Star Trek: The Next Generation cast reunion — then an early scene between two old friends changed his mind.

Ahead of Picard's third and final season premiere Thursday on Paramount+, the 82-year-old actor and his longtime costar Jonathan Frakes, 70, spoke with PEOPLE about the cathartic experience of getting the iconic sci-fi TV series crew back together for one final adventure.

Joining Stewart and Frakes (who previously stepped on the Picard set both as a guest star and director) are Michael Dorn as Worf, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher and LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge. Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis and Wil Wheaton — who previously guest-starred on Picard — also return for the final season.

The last time the entire cast shared a screen was for 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis. A critical and commercial failure, it led to a "brutal" axing of the TNG property. More than 20 years later, the cast were grateful for the chance to say a proper goodbye.

Below, Stewart and Frakes open up about the last season of Picard, the death of a beloved colleague and what TNG keepsakes they took from set.

I'm sad to start with this, but I wanted to express my condolences for the death of Annie Wersching. She was amazing, and I believe playing the Borg Queen was her final on-screen role. Would either of you like to share a memory?

JONATHAN FRAKES: I spent a lot of time with her, with Alison Pill when I directed last season. And I know, from having done First Contact with Alice Krige playing the Borg Queen, that there's no glamour in becoming the Borg Queen. It's four hours of makeup and prosthetics and hair and skin-tight costumes and tubes being stuck into your head. So it tries your patience before you've even set foot on the stage. And Annie never lost her sense of humor and never lost her focus. She was a beacon of joy on the set as an actor.

PATRICK STEWART: Well, I was very shocked by the news when it came through, although we had very little contact. But her work, which I have seen, was extraordinary. So it was sad and disappointing to hear this news because she was terrific in the series.

Did either of you have any idea that the series would ultimately lead to a full TNG reunion, or were you just pleasantly surprised as fans?

STEWART: No. Initially, my feeling had been — I had certain conditions attached to signing onto this. Though I was excited about the idea of a Star Trek series called Picard, Next Generation was something I thought we had done great work on, but this now was something very different. So even when we started shooting, there wasn't a plan about the assembly.

But then in season 1, I played one scene with Marina Sirtis and Jonathan as Riker. And little by little I saw that I had been wrong to put a veto on full TNG cast elements in this new series. And I think that it's worked out to everyone's satisfaction. I know I enjoyed it immensely.

FRAKES: Patrick had the good taste to initially gather us and say, "I'm doing a Picard series. It's after Picard has left Star Fleet, and I want to be the first to tell you that it's just Picard." So [a reunion] to come as a surprise is an understatement.

With the final TNG film, Star Trek: Nemesis, having such a rough go with critics and underperforming at the box office, was there a part of either of you that yearned for one last proper adventure and send-off for these characters?

FRAKES: Our TNG days ended because it was the first Star Trek movie to lose money. And Paramount cut their losses. I don't know what Nemesis cost to make, but it lost money, and therefore they were done with us. I never thought it was going to be the end until they said, "You're done." Did you, Patrick? Did you think we were done done?

STEWART: Oh no, on the contrary. And I have to say before I get into that: Nemesis, I think was a disappointment to all of us. It was not of the quality of what had gone before with the three previous movies, particularly the one that Jonathan had directed, First Contact, which was absolutely brilliant. They had already a draft of a movie project, which would follow Nemesis, but we just got kind of brutally axed.

FRAKES: Yeah, it was brutal.

So it's fair to say then that you did not have closure with these characters and that this must have been therapeutic, to say the least, to revisit them and close it out the way that you wanted to?

STEWART: Yes. And certainly, in that, all of this came together and developed while we were shooting the first season of the Picard. Countless conversations with [executive producers] Terry Matalas and Alex Kurtzman about this. And we met and met and discussed and went through a whole series of storylines and ideas about reuniting. And eventually, we did. And it was wonderfully successful.

In my opinion, TNG had the perfect ending, with Capt. Picard finally joining the senior crew's poker game. Without any spoilers, do you feel this series ends as satisfying?

FRAKES: I'm too much of a spoiler mouth when someone asks me a question like that. I'm lucky I still work at CBS. I would say it's a very satisfying season with a very satisfying ending.

STEWART: Hear, hear. No blinds are drawn. But saying goodbye, that never happens anyway because one of the joys of this work that we've done from Next Generation right through to the end of Picard and all those movies is that we are a team. And we all have a relationship. I mean, we have a password, don't we, for all our online communications and so forth.

FRAKES: We have a very interesting group text, I will say.

Finally, do either you have any keepsakes from the original series in your office? And are there any keepsakes that you have from this series in your office?

STEWART: I have my last captain's suit from the series. And it hangs in my wardrobe. I have not actually put it on for a very, very long time. But the one person who, if I were to do this, I would want to surprise is my wife, who loved and adored TNG with her family. So one day, she will never know when, there might just be a surprise stored up — and I shall appear wearing my Picard uniform. I've also got the badge secretly stored away in a safe.

FRAKES: I stole my last TNG suit, and it hangs in my closet in a plastic bag. And one of my contractors saw it and borrowed it for Halloween one year, and I think that's the last time it was worn.

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Star Trek: Picard season 3 premieres Thursday on Paramount+.

This interview has been eedited for length and clarity.