Star Trek: James McAvoy Volunteers to Play Young Picard

James McAvoy has a little experience playing a younger version of Patrick Stewart. Now he’s offering to put that experience to work for Stewart’s as Star Trek‘s Jean-Luc Picard.

Yesterday, work began in earnest on the new CBS All Access series that will see Stewart reprising the role he originated in Star Trek: The Next Generation. On Instagram, McAvoy left a comment offering his services if needed.

“Need a flashback guy????” McAvoy wrote. “Just saying @sirpatstew I’ve got previous experience and will work for autographs.”

McAvoy seems to be kidding here (we think), but he does have “previous experience.” In addition to Picard, Stewart played another iconic role film role in another popular movie franchise, that of Professor X, Charles Xavier, in the X-Men movies. When 20th Century Fox decided to focus on a series of prequel films, McAvoy was tapped to follow in Stewart’s footsteps and play the young Xavier. He and Stewart even shared a single scene in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the only film to feature the casts of the original X-Men film trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

The new Picard series was announced at Star Trek Las Vegas with a surprise appearance from Stewart and Star Trek: Discovery co-creator Alex Kurtzman. The new series is expected to take place 20 years after the last time Picard and the Enterprise crew were seen in action, during the events of the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis.

“He may not be a captain anymore,” Stewart hinted when he announced Picard’s return at Star Trek Las Vegas. “He may not be the Jean-Luc that you recognize and know so well. It may be a very different individual. Someone who has been changed by his experiences. 20 years will have passed…We have no scripts as yet, we’re just talking, talking, talking storylines. It will be, I promise you, I guarantee it, something very, very different, but it will come to you with the same passion and determination and love of the material and love of our followers and our fans exactly as we had it before.”

As for McAvoy, he’s still playing Professor X, as seen in a photo from the set of the next X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix.

Would you like to see James McAvoy play young Jean-Luc Picard in Patrick Stewart’s new series? Let us know in the comments!

The new Picard Star Trek series currently in development and is tentatively expected to premiere in 2019.

via TrekNews