Ian McKellen Reacts To Death Of X-Men Co-Star Patrick Stewart

It's been a terrible week for Hollywood and the creative arts. The past several days have seen "Star Trek" actor Walter Koenig pass away at the age of 90, along with beloved voice actor Eric Bauza, who died at the age of 46. Now, we've lost Sir Patrick Stewart, icon of the stage and the screen, who has left us at the age of 86.

Stewart was a classically trained actor, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for nearly two decades, and a popular screen presence who appeared in some of the biggest franchises around, independent productions, and some plain weird titles to boot. (Never forget Stewart's role as the Poop Emoji in "The Emoji Movie.") But even outside the screen, Stewart was celebrated for his endearing and decades-long friendships, particularly with Sir Ian McKellen, with whom Stewart shared the screen and stage many times across the decades.

With Stewart's passing, social media is now being flooded with loving tributes from his fans, longtime collaborators, and friends. Now, McKellen shared his own thoughts in a touching statement shared on social media, including X/Twitter.

"Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end," McKellen wrote. "You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love."

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart met as ambitious young actors working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. But as McKellen noted in his statement, "We weren't in the same productions." Instead, his first strong memory of Stewart was from a few years later in central London. It was after Stewart had been offered the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which McKellen strongly tried to convince Stewart to turn down.

"'But Patrick, think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk — getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?'" McKellen continued. "Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London's West End, and on Broadway." He added:

"America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire."

McKellen and Stewart's friendship will forever remain one of the loveliest in Hollywood history. Their collaborations are legendary, not just in the "X-Men" movies but on stage, too. On social media, the duo's banter, along with their frequent and affectionate kiss greetings, were adored by fans. McKellen even officiated Stewart's wedding to Sunny Ozell in 2013.

May Stewart's memory be a blessing.