Before there was Jean-Luc Picard, there was Gurney Halleck. Several years before Star Trek: The Next Generation sent his career into the cosmos, Sir Patrick Stewart played Halleck, the Warmaster of House Atreides in David Lynch’s Dune in 1984. Stewart, who died this week at age 86, was then a seasoned stage veteran in his native England, but Dune was merely his third film. It was also his introduction to science fiction, a precursor to his career-defining role as Picard. He imbued his character with the kind of presence and dignity that only classical stagecraft can summon — much as his English forebear Alec Guinness had in Star Wars .

In his new memoir, Fictional Selves (recently excerpted in The Hollywood Reporter ) actor Kyle Maclachlan , recalled the surreal, formative experience of shooting Dune in the Mexican desert alongside Stewart.

“The first thing I noticed when I met Patrick was his voice,” writes MacLachlan, who was 24 at the time and, like Stewart, new to film.…