Patrick Stewart Talks Candidly About Domestic Violence in a Poignant Q&A Session at Comicpalooza

Patrick Stew­art came to Comic­palooza (aka The Texas Inter­na­tion­al Com­ic Con­ven­tion) as a spe­cial guest. It’s not hard to imag­ine why, espe­cial­ly giv­en his roles on Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion and the X‑Men film series.

Dur­ing a Q&A ses­sion with con­ven­tion atten­dees, Stew­art field­ed a ques­tion that asked every­one to leave behind the fan­ta­sy world and con­front some cold real­i­ties. Since 2006, Stew­art has worked with Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al and Refuge, a UK char­i­ty for abused women, to make a mean­ing­ful dent in the lev­els of domes­tic vio­lence expe­ri­enced in our soci­eties. Still haunt­ed, Stew­art per­son­al­ly wit­nessed domes­tic vio­lence in his own home as a child. As a young­ster, he felt pow­er­less to stop it. But, as an adult, he can now put his celebri­ty on the line and ask men to be part of the solu­tion, not the prob­lem. The video, which gets more mov­ing as it goes along, also makes the case for improv­ing treat­ment of PTSD — a prob­lem unto itself, and also some­thing that con­tributes to domes­tic vio­lence, espe­cial­ly dur­ing times of pro­longed war.

Note: the influ­en­tial speech ref­er­enced in the con­ver­sa­tion appears below.

via Red­dit

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Acclaimed BBC Pro­duc­tion of Ham­let, Star­ring David Ten­nant (Doc­tor Who) and Patrick Stew­art (Star Trek)

Shakespeare’s Satir­i­cal Son­net 130, As Read By Stephen Fry and Patrick Stew­art