Classically trained and patently bald British actor Patrick Stewart earned early acclaim for distinguished roles in PBS fare like "I, Claudius" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" before gaining broader recognition with small parts in Hollywood films like Lady Jane and Excalibur. It wasn't until his starring role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," however, that he became a cult sensation and television's most unlikely sex symbol.

Stewart brought a Shakespearean dignity to the syndicated TV series. So how does a familiar actor with such a proper, upright reputation break type and prove his range? Academy Award-winner Meryl Streep did it in the action movie The River Wild. The preternaturally dapper Patrick Stewart does it with his scenery-chewing role as a flamboyant gay interior designer in the new AIDS-age comedy Jeffrey. Is this, indeed, his River Wild? "It could be," he muses during a recent interview.

Jeffrey, based on the play by Paul Rudnick, stars "Wings" heartthrob Steven Weber as a gay New Yorker who swears off sex and dating altogether for fear of AIDS. Former soap hunk Michael T. Weiss is the man who vies for Jeffrey's affections. Stewart steals the show as Sterling, a dishy gay decorator with a young lover (Bryan Batt) who dances in the chorus of CATS.

Stewart -- who, like his aforementioned co-stars, is heterosexual -- cites his character as "one of the best roles I've ever had," and insists that no one ever suggested that playing gay would be a bad career move. Not even the Paramount people who produce the Star Trek movies? "Now that I recall, I might have seen the odd eyeball raised. I'm sure I did," he concedes. "What your question seems to be suggesting is that in some way I am not doing all that I should to protect the inviolable honor of Jean-Luc Picard, and it's basically true. I'm not. Once I was free of the series, I was going to do whatever I wanted ... although one of the things I want to do is go on making Star Trek movies ... really good ones. I'm very happy to have Jean-Luc Picard as part of my professional life. He will only get more interesting the more work that I do. So who knows?"

Ironically, shortly before he died, "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry announced that he was going to introduce gay characters to the successful TV series. After his passing, however, the producers promptly nixed those plans. "Ohhh," Stewart sighs with disappointed recollection. "I was not involved in that decision-making, and I think I only heard about these things subsequently. I think before I can see them introduce the notion that there might be a totally acceptable gay community within the realm of 'Star Trek' they should have completely satisfied my needs about the role of the women in 'Star Trek.' I'm on record for having said this many times, that I think it is entirely unsatisfactory. I think that to a certain extent the way women have been handled on 'Star Trek' still remains very much in the mid-20th century tradition. Even though they've been given positions of responsibility and authority and all that, fundamentally I don't think anything's really changed."

Coming back to my original assertion, he continues, "Yes, it never got addressed, did it? We had one episode that dealt with a curious, androgynous race of people where the sexuality was not too clearly defined, but it was awfully cautious to not make a commitment one way or the other." Would Trekkies have minded if The Enterprise housed homosexuals? "I don't think so," Stewart shrugs.

In creating the role of Sterling, Stewart relied on the input of the movie's gay writer and director to avoid crossing the line into caricature. "My discipline was my invitation to Paul Rudnick and Chris Ashley to pounce on me the moment that they saw any indication that I was falling back on any stereotypical gay behavior or clichéd mannerisms.... I wanted Sterling to be as real a person as possible."

Despite his cavalier attitude toward the subject matter, Stewart recalls the awkward first day of rehearsal with an amusing anecdote. "Six of us in a room -- and the stage manager -- but six principal protagonists: writer, director, four actors. Three of us gay; three of us straight. None of us really know one another at all, and we've been together about half an hour talking rather nervously. We were going to read through the script when Steven Weber suddenly grabbed hold of Michael Weiss and kissed him on the mouth and said, 'There, I've got it. I've got it! I've got it over with!' "Steven was marvelous in the movie, and his gesture at that moment was absolutely appropriate because not only did it make us laugh, but it brought it out into the open, all of that heterosexual nervousness about what would it be like when the moment actually comes?" While Stewart's breaking type, he might as well go all out. His next role: Jennifer Beals' and Campbell Scott's ballroom dance teacher in the romance Let It Be Me.