Patrick Stewart dead at 86: Avengers: Doomsday is his last role

Patrick Stewart has died at 86, and his appearance as Professor Charles Xavier in Avengers: Doomsday is now his final role on screen. The hopes we all had for Avengers: Doomsday have taken a tragic turn, and I want to remember the wonderful life and work of Sir Patrick Stewart: what he gave Marvel, Star Trek, and film, television and nerd culture as a whole, and how his loss could make Doomsday more meaningful for all of us.

Doomsday is the Marvel Studios film that brings the original X-Men lineup back alongside the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to fight Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. Stewart was set to give his last onscreen performance in it.

Patrick Stewart died at 86 after Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia

Sir Patrick Stewart died on Wednesday, October 28, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86. As his representative described it, he died after a short and heartbreaking battle with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia.

If you don't know much about these conditions, I'd encourage you to read up on them. They're something many people in our parents' generation are going through. From personal experience, I can say this can happen very fast. While it took Sir Patrick Stewart away from his loved ones, his friends and the whole world, I think we can at least be somewhat grateful that we had him with us for so long.

From Dune and Star Trek to Professor X: Patrick Stewart's career

Stewart trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company and had an early role as Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's Dune. He then became a household name around the world as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and its feature films: Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis. He later returned to the franchise with the series Star Trek: Picard.

He also became an integral part of the X-Men film franchise, playing Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Logan, and later in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

He was well known as a talented voice actor too, often lending his voice to Seth MacFarlane's productions. And of course, he was a stage actor with countless memorable performances in Shakespeare, and he worked with his X-Men costar Ian McKellen in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 2009 and 2013. Everyone who worked with him is remembering him with respect.

Kevin Feige, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen pay tribute

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said in his statement that he would never forget the first moment of seeing Sir Patrick Stewart on the first X-Men set. After knowing him for years as the one and only Captain Picard, Feige said he was in awe, and that Stewart was even more than he had seen on screen: brilliant, charming, warm, generous, with a quiet strength and gravity, and even more remarkable off camera with a wonderful sense of humor. Feige said Stewart's legacy will live on not just in his decades of work but in the countless people he taught, and that he will be deeply missed.

Hugh Jackman called him one of the greatest stars of stage and screen and, in his eyes, a wonderful friend and human being. "I learned so much from him," Jackman said, adding that he will miss him for the rest of his life.

Ian McKellen said that before anything else, Patrick defined himself by being born and raised in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England that he loved to the end. McKellen said it showed in his accent and in the firm honesty with which he spoke his mind, because Yorkshire people don't believe in half truths or dodging important problems. That, McKellen said, made him a man to be trusted, respected and, in his own case, loved.

McKellen recalled that they first met half a century ago as ambitious young actors at the Royal Shakespeare Company, though they never worked in the same play. His first hazy memory is running into Stewart on a London street years later, when Stewart told him about the offer of a lead role in Star Trek. McKellen remembered asking whether he really wanted to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and giving up his UK stage career. Stewart took the risk anyway, and McKellen said it worked out well for all of us, not just loyal Trekkies but the film and theater audiences who saw him in X-Men and in great classic plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett, at Stratford upon Avon, in London's West End and on Broadway.

McKellen added that America became his home, where he met his beloved Sunny, who cared for him in sickness and in health, but that he never forgot his roots. In McKellen's view, the proudest achievement of the most respected and loved actor of his generation on both sides of the Atlantic was being appointed chancellor of the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire.

William Shatner, Dafne Keen, Marvel Studios and the Russos remember him

William Shatner, who played Stewart's Star Trek predecessor Captain James T. Kirk and worked with him in the 1994 film Star Trek Generations, wrote about what a heartbreaking week it had been. He called Stewart a friend, a colleague and a remarkable actor who brought intelligence, grace and deep humanity to everything he did, from the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise. Shatner wrote that Captain Picard represented the best in all of us, and so did the man who played him, and he sent his condolences to Sunny and Stewart's family.

Dafne Keen, who acted with Stewart in the 2017 film Logan, described him as an extremely kind, funny, unique, caring and charming man. She remembered his endless jokes, his nurturing nature and his colorful glasses, and said every day working beside him was a great honor and privilege. She called him a living master of his craft and of life, one of the greatest actors of our time on stage and screen, and someone she always has and always will look up to. She wrote: "Rest in peace, great hero, a legend among men," adding that his beautiful work, humanity and kindness will live forever.

Marvel Studios posted on its official social media that everyone at the studio was deeply saddened. The statement said Sir Patrick brought Professor Charles Xavier to life with remarkable grace, intelligence and humanity that defined the character for generations of fans, and that from X-Men to Logan to Avengers: Doomsday he was an unrivaled talent, a generous collaborator and a true gentleman. Avengers: Doomsday directors Joe and Anthony Russo said they have been lucky to work with their childhood heroes and that Sir Patrick Stewart was always one of them, a legendary actor of unmatched presence and impeccable integrity, and they thanked him for teaching us humanity on and off the screen.

Patrick Stewart said in July he could never imagine retiring

The most surprising thing to me about all of this is that just under four months ago, he was fully aware. On July 7 of this year, after finishing work on Avengers: Doomsday, Stewart gave an interview to TV Insider about his decision to come back.

He said any actor his age would tell you that opportunities shrink as you get older, but that he was still getting interesting offers and loved challenging himself with new work. He said he could never imagine formally retiring and that he would always and forever be an actor. That was July 7. So when the news hit me, it was hard.

What Patrick Stewart has meant to me

I'm 38, and Patrick Stewart has always been part of my life as an icon of TV, film and the stage. Even when some of his franchises got shaky now and then, seeing the smile on his face and that sparkle in his eye told us we were in safe hands. Not every great theater actor finds a place in every kind of fandom, but Patrick Stewart did, through grace, gravity and sheer magnetism. He made the world pay attention to these stories and characters and take them seriously.

He taught us that whatever your job is, you do it with full energy. That goes even for something like his comedy bit in Ricky Gervais's Extras, or his iconic delivery introducing a musical act on Saturday Night Live: "Ladies and gentlemen, Salt-N-Pepa." Even if a job seems beneath your dignity or impossible to pull off, do it anyway.

When his Avengers: Doomsday casting was announced in March 2025, we reacted on the spot. And when I heard Sir Patrick's voice and saw part of him in the 2022 trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I got emotional. Both times, it was my 12-year-old self getting the Professor back, the same kid who felt like a failed outcast, now returned to the same cinematic universe I've spent my professional adult life analyzing.

My youngest son is named Logan, and I can't tell you how many times I've used Sir Patrick's voice to get that kid's attention. I'm waiting for Logan to grow up so I can share Sir Patrick's work with him.

Why Patrick Stewart's Professor X gave the first X-Men film credibility

We forget that in the late '90s, the cast of the 2000 X-Men film wasn't well known at first. Hugh Jackman was a lesser-known stage actor, and Anna Paquin was a rising award-winning actress. James Marsden, Halle Berry and Famke Janssen had small roles in films and TV dramas, but they weren't stars yet.

Honestly, it was the casting of Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor X that gave the project credibility with the nerd world. It was an important part of the overall formula that made the film a success, and it gave a young associate producer named Kevin Feige the start of his career, which let the Marvel Cinematic Universe take off.

That's why his return in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Avengers: Doomsday was such a big deal. That's especially true of Doomsday, even though some film critics have dismissed it as a desperate attempt at nostalgia. True Marvel fans have always understood that this film delivers the crossover and homecoming we've been waiting for since we heard Patrick Stewart's voice in the opening narration of X-Men 26 years ago.

Even though his role in Multiverse of Madness was limited to Charles failing to reach Wanda Maximoff, he still delivered a beautiful piece of wisdom that echoes a moment from 2014's Days of Future Past: just because someone stumbles and loses their way doesn't mean they're lost forever.

Will Professor X die in Avengers: Doomsday?

Sir Patrick Stewart's passing has naturally made everyone look differently at an Avengers: Doomsday trailer clip in which Ian McKellen's Magneto speaks to Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier about death coming for everyone, and asks the question that matters: who will you be when you close your eyes? Only Sir Patrick knows for certain what happens to us when we close our eyes. But what did this man become to us when he closed his for the last time? He became a legend.

My guess is that Marvel Studios will definitely open Avengers: Doomsday with a special message honoring Patrick Stewart when it's released. And whatever I'm feeling now, I imagine the cast and crew who worked with him may be feeling something even deeper.

Still, as we head toward Avengers: Doomsday, there's some unease about what will happen to the Professor Charles Xavier of the 10005 universe. Many of our theories about this film pointed to the possibility that Professor X and other Fox era X-Men characters might die in it. I don't think Marvel Studios and the Russo brothers will change that. I think Professor X's death on screen may have been planned as an emotional farewell for the character and a formal end to the old Marvel era.

Patrick Stewart taught Marvel how to say goodbye

If anything, Patrick Stewart taught the Marvel franchise how to leave the screen with dignity, and how to make every death heartbreaking and cinematic. And truly, death is an unavoidable part of life that comes for all of us eventually.

I think the line Patrick Stewart delivered in Star Trek Generations answers that question perfectly. There, Captain Picard rejects the idea of time as a predator and calls it a companion on our journey, one that reminds us to cherish every moment because those moments will never come again. What we leave behind, he says, matters less than how we lived.

For what we become when we reach our supposed ending, I'd invite everyone to find comfort in the closing words of The Last Battle, the final book in C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. Lewis writes that it was the end of all the stories, but for the characters it was only the beginning of the real story: all their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had been only the cover and the title page, and now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, with every chapter better than the one before.

So rest in peace, Patrick Stewart. Thank you for everything you gave us.